‘SERIOUS CONCERNS’ RAISED OVER SCHOOL
Behaviour and leadership worries lead to inspectors’ visit
A SPECIAL school has been told to take urgent action after inspectors raised ‘serious concerns’ about the way it is being run.
Portland School – which has a primary site in Trent Vale and a secondary site in Blythe Bridge – supports pupils with social, emotional and mental health needs.
But over the last year, it has experienced a substantial turnover in staff. This has meant a high proportion of teachers and teaching assistants are employed on temporary contracts, with two teaching posts unfilled.
Ofsted’s visit in January was triggered by concerns about leadership and management, pupil behaviour and young people’s personal development.
Now the findings have been published in a letter, although the school has not been graded as full inspections are currently suspended due to the pandemic.
HMI Ann Pritchard confirmed that improvements are ‘urgently required’.
In her letter, she said: “The current leadership structure, including governance, is incomplete and fragile. This means that leaders’ capacity to further stem the school’s decline is severely limited.”
She described the relationship between the governing body and senior staff as ‘fractured’ and said this was hampering efforts to improve. The governing body has a number of vacancies and the gaps on the senior leadership team include having no head of school at the secondary site.
Ofsted does praise some aspects of Portland’s work, including its ‘comprehensive’ PSHE programme.
The letter adds: “Pupils feel safe in school. They have adults in school that they trust and know they can turn to if they have any concerns or worries.”
But young people themselves raised issues about ‘multiple changes’ to the school’s behaviour policy.
It coincided with a deterioration in behaviour last year, with a ‘high level of exclusions and serious behaviour incidents’.
Since September, behaviour has improved considerably and the school has become more orderly.
Yet inspectors found analysis of pupils’ attendance has been ‘haphazard’, which has made it difficult to track their access to education when learning remotely. Stoke-ontrent City Council has been supporting Portland School and recently brokered help from a consultant. Inspectors say it is too early to see the full impact of this work.
Executive headteacher Rob Faulkner said high staff turnover ‘at all levels’ meant Portland has been through a ‘particularly turbulent period’.
But he added: “The situation has now stabilised. We now have a number of very able, experienced people joining our governing body.
“The governing body, myself and the school’s recently appointed school improvement partner are working together to address all of the points raised in our recent section eight Ofsted.
“Keeping our pupils safe is our prime concern. Ofsted recognised that safeguarding at Portland was effective. However, Ofsted found that some of our systems needed to be reviewed.
“We take the Ofsted findings extremely seriously, and I’d like to reassure families that considerable, thorough work has already taken place in response to the visit.”
Portland School was rated as ‘good’ during its last full inspection.
Ms Pritchard said it will now be prioritised for a further inspection ‘as soon as possible’.