Chilmington Green School

Chilmington Green School

Address: Chilmington Green Road, Great Chart, TN23 3DL Unique reference number (URN): 149840

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Safeguarding standards met

The safeguarding standards are met. This means that leaders and/or those responsible for governance and oversight fulfil their specific responsibilities and have established an open culture in which safeguarding is everyone's responsibility and concerns are actively identified, acted upon and managed. As a result, pupils are made safer and feel safe.

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How we evaluate safeguarding

When we inspect schools for safeguarding, they can have the following outcomes:

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How we evaluate safeguarding

Met: The school has an open and positive culture of safeguarding. All legal requirements are met. Not met: The school has not created an open and positive culture of safeguarding. Not all legal requirements are met.

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Attendance and behaviour Strong standard

Pupils attend very well over time. Attendance remains consistently above national averages. It is similarly impressive for disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities. Despite a high number of pupils with potential barriers to attendance, persistent absence is very rare. Pupils value their time in school. Leaders prioritise attendance relentlessly. They analyse absence carefully. This helps leaders to identify swiftly those pupils who need additional help to attend well. Staff build strong relationships with these pupils and their families. This helps them to offer a range of support to improve pupils’ attendance. These strategies improve the attendance of pupils very effectively.

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Attendance and behaviour Strong standard

Behaviour is a strength of the school. Leaders know pupils well and have a clear understanding of their needs. They use this knowledge to identify potential behaviour issues and address them swiftly and successfully. Bullying is very rare but staff deal with any incidents effectively. Staff have high expectations of pupils. They apply these expectations consistently well. This helps to create the calm atmosphere that permeates the school. This calmness is also evident at breaktimes, where pupils engage positively with each other and staff. The skilled pastoral team provides very effective support for the small number of pupils who need additional help with their behaviour. This helps pupils to quickly regulate themselves and to remain engaged in learning. Pupils are polite and considerate. Pupils have very positive attitudes to learning. As a result, classrooms are deeply purposeful and pupils focus well on their learning.

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Curriculum and teaching Strong standard

Leaders have a precise understanding of the quality of teaching in the school. They use this to identify staff who may need additional support swiftly. As a result, staff become increasingly expert. This helps staff implement the curriculum highly effectively. Teachers precisely model the skills and knowledge they want pupils to learn. They also use their detailed subject knowledge to select highly engaging activities. These help pupils to develop knowledge and skills with confidence.

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Curriculum and teaching Strong standard

Teachers routinely make sure that pupils understand new learning. For example, they use questions skilfully to identify any gaps in knowledge. This helps pupils to improve their work very effectively. Staff know their pupils well. They use this detailed knowledge to design high-quality adaptations to learning. This helps all pupils to overcome their barriers to success, and to learn and achieve well alongside their peers.

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Curriculum and teaching Strong standard

The school has used the well-established curriculum provided by the trust as a solid foundation for its approach. The curriculum is broad, ambitious and carefully ordered. This ensures that pupils build new learning on prior knowledge. Leaders have refined the curriculum further to ensure that it continues to meet the needs of pupils very effectively. This includes well-designed strategies to support pupils with gaps in essential knowledge such as reading. Staff are skilled and deliver the curriculum consistently well.

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Inclusion Strong standard

Inclusion is a strength of the school. Leaders identify any barriers to learning or wellbeing that pupils may have swiftly and accurately. This includes disadvantage, or special educational needs and/or disabilities. Leaders communicate these barriers clearly to staff. As a result, staff know their pupils very well.

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Inclusion Strong standard

Leaders maintain detailed oversight of the additional needs of pupils. This helps leaders to ensure that these pupils receive the high-quality support that they need in a timely manner. Staff use their expertise to make adaptations that are consistently effective. This helps pupils to be successful and confident in their learning. This includes pupils with low starting points or multiple barriers to success.

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Inclusion Strong standard

Staff receive a range of high-quality training to hone their skills in meeting pupils' individual needs. This helps staff to deliver highly effective support. There is a clear focus on understanding pupils’ starting points. This helps staff to ensure that pupils make sustained progress that builds on their prior learning. Pupils known to social care are well supported. Leaders ensure that staff have the same precise understanding of their needs as pupils with other barriers to learning.

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Inclusion Strong standard

The school has created a precisely designed strategy to support disadvantaged pupils. This includes the use of pupil premium funding to improve the outcomes of these pupils. Leaders carefully monitor the impact of this strategy to ensure that pupils make the progress that they should. Leaders ensure that disadvantaged pupils enjoy the same rich experiences as their peers. The school uses alternative provision thoughtfully. It identifies quickly pupils who may need additional help to behave well. Leaders ensure that these pupils continue to receive high-quality education and support when they attend alternative provision.

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Leadership and governance Strong standard

Leaders have worked swiftly and successfully to provide high-quality education since the school opened. Leaders, staff and governors share the same clear vision and high ambition for all pupils. Leaders have a detailed understanding of the school’s context. They use this understanding to break down, successfully, the barriers that pupils face to their achievement. This includes for disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities. Staff are very positive about their work in the school. They feel that leaders take due care over their wellbeing and workload.

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Leadership and governance Strong standard

The governors and trustees are well established in their roles. They work successfully with leaders to evaluate the school's effectiveness accurately. This means that they understand the school’s many strengths, as well as where it can improve even further. For example, leaders recognise that many staff are relatively inexperienced. As a result, leaders have ensured that all staff have had the same high-quality grounding in the school’s well-designed approach to teaching. The school uses expertise from within the trust to ensure that staff have secure subject knowledge and the confidence to deliver outside their specialism. This successful work is having a positive impact on the quality of teaching that pupils receive. Non-teaching staff benefit from professional learning that is equally comprehensive. This provides staff with the skills and knowledge they need to support the complex and varied

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Expected standard

needs of pupils very effectively. Staff value the opportunities that they receive for their professional development.

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Expected standard

Governors and trustees use their knowledge of the school's context to offer carefully considered support and resources to the school. Governors have an appropriate understanding of their statutory duties, which they undertake diligently and effectively. They rightly prioritise disadvantaged pupils and have a clear understanding of the impact of the school’s work to support them.

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Achievement Expected standard

Pupils make sustained progress through the curriculum. Their work shows that all pupils, including those with barriers to learning, acquire the crucial content they need. Pupils apply their skills carefully. These skills become increasingly sophisticated over time. On the whole, pupils recall their prior learning well and can discuss it confidently. However, this knowledge is less detailed in some subjects. This is most evident in the small number of subjects that did not benefit from specialised teaching when the school first opened.

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Achievement Expected standard

Pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, develop the essential knowledge they need. For example, pupils build increasingly detailed mathematical knowledge. They also write confidently in a variety of styles. Pupils in the early stages of reading are well supported. They become increasingly fluent readers. Any gaps in this essential knowledge narrow quickly.

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Achievement Expected standard

Pupils are well prepared for their next steps. Leaders have ensured that pupils have begun to learn the higher-level skills they need in readiness for these next steps. For example, pupils learn to analyse the sources that they use in subjects such as history. They can apply these skills effectively.

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Personal development and wellbeing Expected standard

The curriculum expands far beyond the classroom. Exciting activities align carefully with the school’s pupil charter. This guarantees pupils a plethora of rich experiences. These include carefully selected trips that deepen pupils' learning. The school has made this high-quality offer accessible to all. This means that all pupils benefit greatly. The school monitors pupils' participation rigorously. This helps it to identify any pupils who may need additional help to access the offer. Leaders ensure there are no financial barriers to participation.

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Personal development and wellbeing Expected standard

Pupils enjoy an ample selection of clubs. These help to foster pupils' talents and are consistently well attended. The school ensures that pupils can develop these talents even further. For example, all pupils represent the school in a range of sports. Pupils also contribute positively to the wider community. For example, they plan fundraising activities for local charities. Pupils hone their leadership skills through meaningful roles such as sports leaders. They are rightly proud of the positions they hold. The school offers a well-designed personal, social and health education (PSHE) programme. Pupils revisit key themes and prior learning as they move through this programme. This helps them to develop increasingly sophisticated understanding of the concepts they learn. Leaders identify any emerging issues, such as those relating to the use of social media. They make sure that the curriculum reflects these issues. Most pupils are

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Personal development and wellbeing Expected standard

able to remember the content they learn in PSHE, especially those topics that they have learned most recently. Very occasionally, some pupils find it more difficult to recall earlier PSHE learning.

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Personal development and wellbeing Expected standard

The school provides carefully considered opportunities for pupils to learn about a range of cultures and beliefs. Pupils benefit from a range of lessons and well-designed assemblies that focus on school values and on protected characteristics such as gender or disability. Through these opportunities, pupils learn to consider and tolerate views that are different from their own.

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Personal development and wellbeing Expected standard

The school has given careers education a high priority. Teachers deliver high-quality careers information through PSHE lessons. Staff also ensure that pupils understand how the subjects they learn will help to fulfil their ambitions. The school enhances this with expert personalised support for pupils. This helps to prepare pupils for future life.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

Pupils value their time at Chilmington Green. Their attendance at school is consistently high. Pupils know that this will help them to thrive. Pupils have a love for learning. They demonstrate this in their high levels of concentration and commitment towards their studies. Classrooms are focused and purposeful. Pupils’ positive attitudes continue outside the classroom. They are polite and courteous to all. Breaktimes are calm and pupils chat happily together. Pupils behave very well. They feel that bullying is very rare. Pupils know that trusted adults will deal with any concerns they have. This helps them to feel happy and safe in school.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

Pupils achieve well. They produce high-quality work in their books. They discuss this excitedly with teachers and peers. In many subjects, they can explain their detailed knowledge very clearly. In a small number of subjects, pupils' knowledge is more varied, but this is improving rapidly. Pupils develop the skills and knowledge they need. This helps them to be well prepared for their move into key stage 4. Pupils also have a clear understanding of their steps beyond school due to the high-quality careers education they receive. The school encourages pupils to be highly ambitious about their next steps.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

Pupils develop a rich array of skills and talents beyond the classroom. Every pupil benefits from the school’s carefully designed pupils’ charter. This helps pupils to enjoy a variety of activities. For example, pupils can appear in a school performance or contribute to the local community by designing fundraising events. Staff adapt activities carefully in order to remove any barriers to pupils' participation. Pupils enjoy these opportunities. The vast majority participate in the wide range of possibilities that the school offers.

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Team inspectors:

Sarah Fowler, Ofsted Inspector Owen McColgan, Ofsted Inspector Dijana Piralic, Ofsted Inspector

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Next steps

Leaders should ensure that their improvements to the quality of the curriculum and teaching lead to achievement for pupils in each year group that is consistently strong in all subjects, including for pupils who are disadvantaged and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities.

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About this inspection

This school is part of the United Learning Trust, which means other people in the trust also have responsibility for running the school. The trust is run by the chief executive officer (CEO), Sir John Coles, and overseen by a board of trustees, chaired by Christian Brodie.

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About this inspection

Inspectors carried out this full inspection under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

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About this inspection

Following our renewed inspection framework, all inspections are now led by His Majesty's Inspectors (HMIs) or by Ofsted Inspectors (OIs) who have previously served as HMIs.

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About this inspection

The inspectors met with the headteacher and other leaders during the inspection. The lead inspector met with representatives of the trust and with those responsible for governance. The inspection team also spoke to groups of staff and pupils during the inspection.

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About this inspection

The school meets the requirements of the provider access legislation, which requires schools to provide pupils in Years 8 to 13 with information and engagement about approved technical education, qualifications and apprenticeships.

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About this inspection

The inspectors confirmed the following information about the school:

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About this inspection

The school currently uses 2 registered alternative provisions.

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About this inspection

The school opened in September 2023. The school has capacity for pupils aged between 11 to 18. It currently has only pupils aged between 11 to 14 on roll.

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Facts and figures used on inspection

The data was used by the inspector(s) during the inspection. More recent data may have been published since the inspection took place.

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What does this mean?

The total number of pupils currently at this school and how this compares to other schools of this phase in England.

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What does this mean?

The total number of pupils who can attend the school and how this compares to other schools of this phase in England.

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What does this mean?

The proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years. National average: 28.9%

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What does this mean?

The proportion of pupils with an education, health and care plan. This covers pupils with more support than is available through special educational needs support.

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What does this mean?

The proportion of pupils with reported special educational support needs at the school.

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What does this mean?

Based on the English Indices of Deprivation (2019) and the school's location, we have calculated whether the school is located in a more or less deprived area.

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What does this mean?

Whether school has Resourced Provision or SEND unit (if applicable).

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Overall absence

The percentage of all possible mornings and afternoons missed due to absence from school (for whatever reason, whether authorised or unauthorised) across all pupils.

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Persistent absence

The percentage of pupils missing 10% or more of their possible mornings and afternoons.

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Exceptional

Practice is exceptional: of the highest standard nationally. Other schools can learn from it.

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Strong standard

The school reaches a strong standard. Leaders are working above the standard expected of them.

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Expected standard

The school is fulfilling the expected standard of education and/or care. This means they are following the standard set out in statutory and non ‑ statutory legislation and the professional standards expected of them.

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Needs attention

The expected standards are not met but leaders are likely able to make the necessary improvements.

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Urgent improvement

The school needs to make urgent improvements to provide the expected standard of education and/or care. services providing education and skills for children and learners of all ages, and inspects and regulates services that care for children and young people.

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/ofsted

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