Ofsted says city school ‘secure’ and ‘effective
INSPECTORS JUDGED IT ‘INADEQUATE’ 20 MONTHS AGO
EDUCATION inspectors say they are satisfied that safeguarding arrangements they previously criticised at a Derby secondary school are now “secure” and “effective”.
Although full Ofsted inspections are not currently taking place, two inspectors carried out an additional monitoring visit at Chellaston Academy earlier this month – after the school was judged to be inadequate with serious weaknesses in July 2019.
Lead inspector Jayne Ashman’s letter to the school concluded that “leaders and those responsible for governance are taking effective action to provide education in the current circumstances”.
She wrote: “Since the previous inspection, there has been a positive shift in the culture of safeguarding within the school. Leaders make sure that safeguarding is the priority of all staff. Safeguarding arrangements are now secure.
“The safeguarding team has been strengthened significantly. There are more leaders with appropriate safeguarding training. They provide staff with effective safeguarding training that is responsive to the risks in the local area. Staff know how to identify when a pupil is at risk and take the right actions to keep pupils safe. Systems and procedures related to safeguarding are much more robust than previously.”
Head teacher Ryan Metters said the inspectors’ judgements represented “significant progress, and we are delighted that our efforts have been recognised”.
He said: “There are so many additional elements in the report that we are proud of, such as how our staff have supported pupils with remote learning and wellbeing during the lockdown period.
“They said that leaders ‘are creating a school community in which every pupil feels like they belong and can flourish.’
“There are things that we need to continue to work on too. The inspection team noted that we should ‘ensure that the curriculum is ambitious for all pupils, particularly pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities’ and that we should ‘improve the reading resources that are available to support pupils’ love of reading.’
“We fully agree with these findings and had already identified these as areas for further work.”
Since the original inspection, Mr Metters joined the school last September and a new deputy head and three assistant head teachers have been appointed. There is also a new chair of governors and four new governors.
Mr Metters said: “When I joined the school, I too described the library as a gloomy space and the reading resources I inherited were very poor. We had already been designing an incredible new library space.”
But the improvements have come too late to prevent the school losing its academy trust status and it had already been announced that it would join a Derbyshire trust from September.
It will transfer to the Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School Multi Academy Trust (QEGSMAT) in Ashbourne, which already includes another Derby school the City of Derby Academy, in Sinfin.
Chellaston Academy was originally invited to become an academy by the Government in 2011, because it had been rated “outstanding” by Ofsted.
Its trust PEAKMAT was formed in April 2019 and includes three other Chellaston schools, in addition to Chellaston Academy, which are Homefields Primary, Chellaston Junior and Chellaston Infant schools.
PEAKMAT trustees running the school were issued with an official warning notice in August last year. This was after a first monitoring inspection 14 months ago concluded that leaders and managers were “not taking effective action towards the removal of the serious weaknesses designation” and “senior leaders’ oversight and monitoring of safeguarding is not rigorous enough”.
Mr Metters added: “I would also like to recognise the excellent work of PEAKMAT, which has fully supported me and the school to undertake improvement work and make crucial appointments to our leadership team. This support has been instrumental in our progress.
“In conjunction with this, working with Derby City Council has been invaluable, and we will continue with this relationship moving forward.
Speaking on behalf of the PEAKMAT Trust Board, chair of trustees Ann Witheford said: “We are delighted the work of the Mr Metters and his team has been recognised in this excellent report.”