Carisbrooke College have received their latest inspection report from Ofsted.
Following on from the inspection in February 2017 which resulted in a ‘requires improvement’ rating, the college remains on the same rating after the most recent inspection in early October.
Highlights from the report include:
- Leaders are ambitious for pupils and are determined to improve their school.
- Attainment and progress in English, mathematics and history are improving and
examination results are around national averages. Teaching is strong in these subjects. - Safeguarding is effective. The majority of parents responding to the online questionnaire
say that their child is well looked after. - Governance has recently been strengthened.
- Progress in key stage 3 is stronger than in the rest of the school. Leaders make sure that disadvantaged pupils’ rate of progress is accelerating, especially in Year 7.
- The centre for pupils who have autistic spectrum conditions is a good provision and pupils do well.
Executive Headteacher, Mark Kingswood said,
“We have immediately begun to act robustly to address the key areas for development identified in the report:
- Improving standards of behaviour – a new pastoral system has been introduced with five Year Leaders in place, one for each year group. These Year Leaders will be responsible for providing a first point of contact for pupils and for parents, should there be any concerns about anything at all. We feel this will improve the quality of care provided to individual students and, vitally, our engagement and communication with pupils, families and members of the wider community. Year Leaders will also support teachers and Heads of Faculty, so that teachers and pupils can ensure that all teaching takes place in a calm and purposeful environment and that learning time is maximised.
- Improve the consistency of teaching, learning and assessment – the school has developed a personalised programme of professional development for all staff which allows good practice to be shared. The Ofsted team met with staff to discuss this and reported back to leaders about the excitement and motivation detected amongst staff for this programme. We are already seeing the impact of these changes on teaching, behaviour and outcomes in departments across the school.
- Improve the leadership and management of the school – Ofsted acknowledged the very positive working relationship which has developed between the Head of School and the Executive Head teacher and also the contribution to the senior leadership team of its newest members. School Improvement Plans are sharp with everything being directly measured against outcomes for students. This in turn has made it easier for governors to ensure that leaders are being held to account for improvements to the school.
“I would like to thank all our wonderful pupils, families and members of the wider community for the continued faith that they have placed in us over the last few years on our improvement journey. We are excited about the future and look forward to sharing our successes with the community.”
Where to improve
Areas where the college requires improvement:
- Since the last inspection, leaders have not made sure that the school has improved quickly enough.
- Leaders have not accurately assessed the strengths and weaknesses of the school.
- Leaders do not precisely monitor the impact of their planned improvements on pupils’ progress.
- Teaching learning and assessment is inconsistent across subjects. Pupils do not learn consistently well because the quality of teaching is too variable.
- Teachers do not plan precisely enough for the needs of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities
- Pupils’ outcomes in science require improvement. Recent improvements in teaching have not had time to have effect.
- The pace of learning in lessons is too slow.
- Most-able pupils are not challenged sufficiently well. Not all most-able pupils make the progress that they are capable of.
- Leaders do not promote reading sufficiently well. Pupils do not have easy access to reading material.
- Leaders and teachers do not consistently manage the behaviour of students. Pupils’ learning is disrupted by low-level disruption.
- Pupils’ attendance is below national average. Although the number of pupils that are persistently absent is decreasing, too many pupils do not attend regularly.
- Governors have not had sufficient impact since the last inspection because, until recently, they have not called leaders fully to account for the impact of planned actions.
Full details can be found in the report below. Click on the full screen icon to see larger version.
