Beacon Academy

Beacon Academy Chatsworth Place, Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire DN35 9NF

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inspection report:

At the most recent graded inspection, the following areas were identified as needing to improve:  The school, including the trust, has not taken effective or swift enough action to address the decline in standards that has occurred. The school should ensure that actions to address the school’s weaknesses are effective. This includes ensuring that staff have the expertise and knowledge to enact agreed actions.  The school’s quality assurance systems are not effective enough. This means that leaders’ perspectives about the school’s strengths and weaknesses are not accurate. Consequently, actions to improve the school do not happen quickly enough. The school should review the mechanisms in place for quality assurance at all levels and ensure that improvement actions are prioritised and robustly enacted.  Teaching is not adapted to meet the needs of pupils, including pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). The work pupils are provided with is not

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inspection report:

demanding enough. This means that pupils do not achieve as well as they should. The school should ensure that teachers have the expertise required to provide pupils with demanding work and that teaching is adapted to successfully meet the needs of pupils with SEND.  Pupils do not benefit from a clearly sequenced programme of support for reading. As a result, pupils do not improve their reading well enough as they move through the year groups. The school should ensure that pupils receive a clear programme of support for reading and that they have regular opportunities to practise their reading.  Assessment is not used effectively to gauge what pupils know and remember about their learning. This means that feedback is not effective in supporting pupils to improve. The school should ensure that assessment is used effectively across all subjects and that pupils benefit from accurate feedback on how they can improve.

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inspection report:

 Some staff have low expectations of pupils’ behaviour. Additionally, the behaviour policy is inconsistently implemented by some staff. This results in poor pupil behaviour, which Monitoring Inspection report: Beacon Academy, 14 July 2026 2 causes widespread disruption to learning. The school needs to ensure that staff have high expectations of behaviour and that they consistently implement the behaviour policy.  Strategies to improve attendance are not well developed or embedded. Too many pupils miss important learning. This impacts on the outcomes they subsequently achieve. The school should ensure that there is a well-developed and resourced strategy in place to improve pupils’ attendance.  The personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education curriculum is undergoing development and is not currently having the impact that is needed. As a result, pupils have limited knowledge about key aspects of life in modern Britain and the importance

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inspection report:

of tolerance and respecting diversity. The school should ensure that the PSHE curriculum is fully developed and that pupils have a well-developed understanding of the importance of tolerance and respect for others.

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designation

During the monitoring inspection, inspectors focused on the following evaluation areas:  Leadership and governance  Inclusion

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Leadership and governance

Leaders are moving the school forward in multiple areas. For example, staff continue to access a range of professional learning, and improvements in the standard of behaviour have been built upon. Leaders, including the trust and the interim executive board, have focused on actions to ensure a sustained approach to improving the school. To this end, leaders have recruited staff ahead of need. Actions such as these are enabling the school to make necessary changes and have capacity to manage future challenges. Alongside other approaches, this contributes to staff generally feeling well supported, including in managing their workload.

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Leadership and governance

Leaders recognise that there remains much to do to secure the improvements that are necessary, including in the quality of teaching that pupils experience. Leaders continue to focus on these, including through a sharp focus on how the curriculum is organised and reinforcing expectations for how it is taught. The school continues to collaborate with external partners, such as trusts whose support has been commissioned by the Department for Education. Leaders’ approach is well considered and focused in the right areas. However, in some school priorities, such as rates of attendance, these are yet to lead to significant gains. The trust, through the interim executive board, maintains clear oversight of the school’s progress.

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Leadership and governance

The school has developed several approaches to improve communication with pupils’ families and to keep them well informed. However, a minority of parents and carers do not feel that the school communicates with them well. Monitoring Inspection report: Beacon Academy, 14 July 2026 3

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Safeguarding

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

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Inclusion

Leaders have enhanced the school’s capacity to support pupils with barriers to their learning, including SEND. Newly appointed leaders have taken steps to revise the school’s approach to inclusion and associated systems. This includes making sure that pupils’ needs are accurately identified and that support required by pupils’ education, health and care plans is in place. As necessary, the school supplements its own understanding of the support that pupils require with specialist advice. Leaders share information with staff about how to meet the needs of pupils. This is most detailed in relation to pupils’ social, emotional and mental health needs. For some other areas of SEND, the information that staff use is less helpful for planning any adjustments that pupils may need.

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Inclusion

The school’s pupil premium strategy is appropriately conceived. Leaders have used their understanding of the school’s context and relevant research to inform this. They have rightly prioritised improvements in important areas of pupils’ education, such as attendance, reading and personal development. Currently, the impact of this strategy is mixed. Despite improvements in pupils’ behaviour, other areas, such as pupils’ achievement, continue to lag behind leaders’ aspirations.

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Inclusion

The school commissions a small number of places for some pupils to attend alternative provision. The school has a clear rationale for these places and makes appropriate checks on the safety and progress of pupils who attend these.

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Additional next steps

Leaders and those responsible for governance should, in addition to the next steps raised at the school’s last full inspection:

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Additional next steps

 Develop the school’s approach to partnership working with parents further to strengthen the support that pupils receive in their education.

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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 significant improvement following the graded inspection that took place in June 2025.

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About this inspection

The school’s previous inspection was 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 have been cross- referenced to the relevant evaluation areas in the inspection toolkit for consideration on this monitoring inspection. Monitoring Inspection report: Beacon Academy, 14 July 2026 4 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 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 school’s graded inspection in June 2025 and the monitoring inspection in March 2026, there have been a number of significant changes to the school. Further staff have been recruited to the school and others have changed their roles or areas of responsibility. The trust’s chief education officer continues to be deployed routinely in the school and is the school’s substantive principal, supported by the school’s associate principal. The trust continues to operate an interim executive board in place of the now disbanded local governing board. This is chaired by the trust’s deputy chief executive officer (CEO).

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About this inspection

During this inspection, meetings were held with both the trust’s chief education officer and the school’s associate principal. The inspector also met with other senior leaders and the deputy CEO of the trust as well as pupils and 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

Thomas Wraith His Majesty’s Inspector Monitoring Inspection report: Beacon Academy, 14 July 2026 5

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About this school

Number of pupils on roll 632 Monitoring Inspection report: Beacon Academy, 14 July 2026 6 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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