Havant Academy

Havant Academy Wakefords Way, Havant, Hampshire PO9 5JD

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inspection report:

At the most recent graded inspection, the following areas were identified as needing to improve:

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inspection report:

 The school has failed to act swiftly enough to make the necessary improvements to maintain good standards. The school’s actions lack impact and have not secured rapid and sustainable improvements, particularly to the quality of education. Additionally, those responsible for governance have not held the school to account well enough. The school must implement the necessary improvements and those responsible for governance should hold the school to account stringently.  The school does not ensure that staff apply the school’s safeguarding policies and practices securely and consistently. Consequently, pupils are potentially put at risk due to the school not having a clear picture of what actions have taken place or how issues have been addressed. The school must ensure that staff consistently use safeguarding policies effectively and that this practice is checked robustly.  Too many disadvantaged pupils, including pupils with special educational needs and/or

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inspection report:

disabilities (SEND), miss school through poor attendance or suspensions that have not been used effectively to help improve pupils’ behaviour. This means that a significant proportion of disadvantaged pupils miss vital learning and risk falling further behind. The school should take action to improve attendance, decrease persistent absence and reduce the rate of suspensions, particularly for disadvantaged pupils.  Frequent disruptions to learning are not addressed effectively or consistently by staff. This means that pupils’ learning is disturbed too frequently, and sometimes poor behaviour remains unaddressed. The school should ensure that staff apply and use the behaviour management policy consistently and address poor behaviour effectively. The school’s checks on pupils’ learning do not provide sufficient insight into how well pupils understand and remember vital information and skills. As a result, gaps in knowledge or

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inspection report:

misconceptions often go unaddressed and pupils do not achieve as well as they should. The school should ensure that teachers accurately identify these gaps and misconceptions in pupils’ knowledge and address them in their subsequent teaching. Monitoring Inspection report: Havant Academy, 9 June 2026 2  The school has not embedded secure systems and processes successfully to help pupils who are at the earlier stages of learning to read to improve their skills. This means that many pupils struggle to access the curriculum and achieve as well as they should. The school needs to ensure that pupils who are at the earlier stages of learning to read receive appropriate support to catch up quickly.  The school does not adapt teaching effectively to meet the needs of pupils with SEND. Consequently, pupils with SEND do not receive consistent support to build knowledge and skills, and they do not attain the qualifications needed to progress to the next

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inspection report:

stages of education, training or employment. The school should ensure that pupils consistently achieve high standards and that teachers know how to meet the needs of pupils with SEND effectively.

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Leaders and trustees are taking effective action to improve the school but

continued work is needed to remove the special measures designation.

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The position regarding the appointment of early career teachers will be

considered again during any further monitoring inspection we carry out.

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The position regarding the appointment of early career teachers will be

During the monitoring inspection, inspectors focused on the following evaluation areas:  Leadership and governance  Behaviour and attendance  Curriculum and teaching

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Leadership and governance

Leaders and the trust have a clear vision and carefully stepped plans for improvement. The headteacher’s evident passion to make this school one that pupils are proud to attend is central to the positive change in culture in the school. Capacity has increased through the creation of a deputy headteacher role, and other leaders are growing in confidence. Leaders understand how their area of responsibility interlinks with others to lead to the overall improvements needed at the school. They work with determination, in a well- coordinated way, for the benefit of pupils. Staff and pupils feel included in decisions about how the school operates. Consequently, significant improvements to safeguarding, behaviour, attendance and attitudes to learning are evident.

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Leadership and governance

Teaching is getting better. Consistent classroom routines are in place. Adaptations for pupils with SEND are better understood and used regularly. Reading is being prioritised. Leaders know that there is more work to do to ensure that standards of achievement rise across the school. This includes establishing a more thorough understanding of the barriers that pupils with different vulnerabilities face and raising ambition in the classroom still further. Therefore, teaching, inclusion and achievement are likely to be focused on at the next monitoring inspection. Monitoring Inspection report: Havant Academy, 9 June 2026 3 The trust holds the school to account well through regular monitoring. Support and training, including some brokered by the Department for Education, is helping the pace of improvement. The previous local governing board has been disbanded and a new improvement board, known as a ‘challenge board’, has been set up. Governance is also

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Leadership and governance

likely to be a focus of the next monitoring visit.

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Safeguarding

At the previous graded inspection safeguarding was evaluated as being effective.

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Safeguarding

Since the last inspection, leaders have made sure that safeguarding policies and processes are applied securely and consistently well. Staff are trained well and confident in understanding the potential risks that pupils may face. They understand how to report concerns and do so accurately. Leaders’ management of safeguarding has sharpened. Leaders responsible for safeguarding, inclusion and attendance meet regularly to check that coordinated help is provided to the most vulnerable pupils. Record keeping now shows a clear rationale for the decisions leaders take. Leaders and the trust have a much more robust oversight of safeguarding. The trust’s monitoring has helped leaders focus quickly on the right things to improve. For example, leaders’ use of data is much better, allowing them to spot and react to potential patterns of emerging local risks. Importantly, a culture of safeguarding is evident throughout the school. Pupils know who to talk to if they are

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Safeguarding

worried about something and are rightly confident that staff will act to help them.

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Attendance and behaviour

At the last inspection, lessons were disrupted too often and there was a lack of respect seen between some pupils. At the last monitoring visit, leaders had identified several causes of poor behaviour. They had begun to reset expectations and establish a sense of belonging through a focus on the school values of ‘ready, respectful, safe.’

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Attendance and behaviour

Since the last monitoring visit, leaders have introduced clear classroom routines that help pupils feel less anxious about what to expect in class. They have also ensured that there are distinct adaptations for pupils with SEND to help them access learning more readily. In addition, disadvantaged pupils now benefit from planned conversations with a tutor that are helping to raise their aspirations and belief in themselves. Leaders have also continued to work positively with a number of individual pupils whose behaviour has meant that they have been at risk of suspension and exclusion.

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Attendance and behaviour

It was evident during this visit that these approaches have sharply improved pupils’ attitudes to learning and how pupils interact with each other across the school. There are fewer incidents of poor behaviour, and disruption to learning in class is now rare. Pupils are now focused and calm during lessons and polite and friendly during social times. There has been an impressive and noticeable shift in pupils having respect for themselves and others, and it is clear that they are eager to learn. Suspensions have decreased and no exclusions have been made. Pupils confirmed that behaviour is much better, although some pupils do remain concerned about bullying and behaviour in one corridor in the school.

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Attendance and behaviour

At the last inspection, attendance was too low and persistent absence too high. The school Monitoring Inspection report: Havant Academy, 9 June 2026 4 has established clear routines to oversee attendance. Leaders have identified pupils’ barriers to attending regularly and put in place support for pupils, which is working well. Overall attendance is much improved, including for pupils with SEND, looked-after children and disadvantaged pupils. Similarly, persistent absence has fallen significantly. Importantly, clearer and more consistent classroom routines, alongside better communication with parents and carers, are helping to reduce occasional absences. The school is rightly now working to reduce severe absence and improve punctuality still further.

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Curriculum and teaching

The quality of teaching is improving incrementally. The school is following a structured whole-school programme of professional development, as well as using support from the trust and some bespoke help brokered by the Department for Education. Most teachers follow the school’s new classroom routines. Common approaches to developing pupils’ vocabulary and checking on their learning are also becoming embedded. Pupils say they find it easier to learn when teachers apply the routines and learning approaches consistently, as this helps them to understand what is expected of them.

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Curriculum and teaching

The school’s literacy strategy is well underway. Leaders now collect more accurate information about pupils’ starting points and gaps in reading, and they use this to identify the extra help that pupils need to fill those gaps. The impact of this is that more pupils are getting better at reading, so more are able to keep up in lessons. Leaders have noticed that classroom behaviour has improved as pupils want to stay in lessons now that they can access the learning. The school’s love of reading strategy, which includes tutors reading a novel with pupils to hear and engage in stories, is also progressing well. However, independent reading is not as popular as leaders intend, so they have further plans to adapt their strategy so that more pupils read voluntarily.

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Curriculum and teaching

Much work has been done to improve provision for pupils with SEND. Since the last monitoring visit, the school has refined how it adapts learning for pupils with SEND. All pupils helped to choose the adaptations that they felt would help them learn better in class. Teachers typically use these regularly so that pupils are better able to access learning. The next stage of development is to broaden the use of adaptations to include those that may help other vulnerable pupils too.

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Additional next steps

Leaders and trustees should continue to work to address the priorities for improvement identified in the last graded inspection report.

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About this inspection

The inspector carried out this monitoring inspection under section 8(2) of the Education Act 2005, and it was the second monitoring inspection since the school was judged to require special measures following the graded inspection that took place in February 2025. Monitoring Inspection report: Havant Academy, 9 June 2026 5 The school’s previous inspection and the first monitoring inspection were carried out under the Education Inspection Framework (EIF) at that time. The renewed EIF took effect from 10 November 2025. The areas for improvement identified at the school’s graded inspection and subsequent monitoring inspection have been cross-referenced to the relevant evaluation areas in the inspection toolkit for consideration on this monitoring inspection.

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About this inspection

The purpose of this monitoring inspection was not to determine grades for any of the evaluation areas set out in the school inspection toolkit. The purpose was to identify and report on the school’s progress in addressing priorities for improvement since the school’s previous inspection.

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About this inspection

Since the last monitoring inspection, the leadership structure has been revised to create a new deputy headteacher post. This has added capacity to the leadership team. The trust has also changed its approach to local governance. The previous local governing board has been disbanded, and a new ‘challenge’ board has been appointed. They had not had their first meeting at the time of this inspection.

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About this inspection

During this inspection, meetings were held with the headteacher and other senior leaders, the chief executive officer of the trust and other staff to discuss the actions that have been taken to improve the school since the most recent graded inspection.

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Lead inspector

Catherine Old His Majesty’s Inspector Monitoring Inspection report: Havant Academy, 9 June 2026 6

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About this school

Number of pupils on roll 534 Monitoring Inspection report: Havant Academy, 9 June 2026 7 and inspects to achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children’s social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for looked- after-children, safeguarding and child protection.

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About this school

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About this school

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About this school

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About this school

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

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