Prestigious school rated as inadequate

Beechen Cliff governors resign after damning Ofsted report in wake of ‘serious incident’ Staff and parents give their whole-hearted support to headteacher

The chair of governors at a leading Bath school and his deputy have resigned following a highly critical inspection report which condemned the school’s handling of a serious incident earlier in the year.

Ofsted’s report, published on Tuesday, branded the overall effectiveness of Beechen Cliff School one of the most popular in Bath - as inadequate. The inspectors stated: “The language that leaders and governors used during the inspection to describe a recent serious safeguarding incident gives serious cause for concern. “They still do not appreciate its true gravity and little appears to have been learned from the way the issue was handled.” And the education watchdog’s criticisms extended well beyond this one incident. It rated the effectiveness of leadership and management and of the personal development, behaviour and welfare of pupils as inadequate. Quality of teaching, learning and assessment, outcomes for pupils and the sixth form provision were all ranked as requiring improvement. Behind these assessments, inspectors cited problems with “low level disruption in lessons” at key stage three; inconsistent teaching

quality due to weak monitoring; misuse of extended study leave as a form of unlawful exclusion; not having secure procedures for safely recruiting staff; and a failure to closely monitor pupils who were on the school roll but being taught elsewhere. The report stated: “Leaders’ responses to a recent serious safeguarding incident have been insufficient and too slow. In addition, leaders did not tell inspectors about a recent racially motivated incident. Safeguarding is ineffective. Leaders’ and governors’ poor understanding of the principles and practice of safeguarding and child protection puts children at risk.” By contrast, inspectors only highlighted two strengths for the school, in Kipling Avenue, Bath: that progress made in some subjects at key stage four - especially maths - is consistently above average and sixth form students receive strong guidance to help them make informed choices about their futures. The findings of the unannounced inspection at the end of May will come as a shock to many as Beechen Cliff was rated outstanding at its previous full inspection four years earlier. Head teacher Andrew Davies hopes to reverse the rating within 12 months. “We take the report seriously, we accept the recommendations and will act swiftly to deal with them and have already done so on a number

of the points,” he said. The school outlined some of those steps in letters sent to parents. Chair of governors Charles Oldham has resigned along with vice chair Charles Draper. Nigel Stevens, who has three children at the school and became a governor in November 2016, has been appointed acting chair. In addition, the school has: n Recruited additional teachers to reduce class sizes to under 30 in years eight and nine, to tackle behaviour issues highlighted by inspectors; n Stopped the use of study leave as a form of unofficial exclusion, despite remaining convinced its approach was lawful n Hired an external inspector to help ensure the school is “Ofsted ready” in future; n Tightened up its process for ensuring all paperwork and checks are in place and signed off before new recruits join the school; n Brought in an expert advisor to review its safeguarding procedures with the goal to become “best in class” for the region. Mr Davies was keen to put some of the specific criticism from the report into context and said the school was “making representations to Ofsted regarding the basis on which it came to some of its conclusions”. One particular area of contention was inspectors saying many pupils did not study “qualifications consid-

ered by government to be worthy of inclusion” in the league tables. This relates to the school teaching the IGCSE, instead of the GCSE, a qualification favoured by many private schools but no longer supported by central Government. Mr Davies has defended the school’s performance saying: “Our performance for boys is amongst the highest in the country. The progress for boys is also among the highest in the country - in the top four per cent nationally for progress in maths and the top 13 per cent nationally for progress in science. “Our monitoring of progress is very good, we keep parents well informed and we make interventions where necessary. “We couldn’t be a school as successful as we are in terms of academic outcomes if we did not do that. Ofsted has assumed progress and attainment is not strong enough on the basis of a non-inclusion of a qualification. Our academic strengths are absolutely clear.” The school will stop using the IGCSE next year as Government will no longer be funding it. Regarding the question of monitoring pupils being educated off site, he said this related to one child at the time of the visit who had been placed on the school roll and was therefore the school’s responsibility but had never actually been to the school. But he did say the school would be improving its monitoring of such pupils in future. Mr Davies was keen to stress that while safeguarding had been criticised, children had not, in his view, been put at risk, adding that 94 per cent of parents questioned by Ofsted

felt their child was safe at the school. Mr Davies has led the school for 13 years and has seen applications rise and rise while it has been one of the best performing schools academically in Bath and North East Somerset. But he and the wider school leadership had not become complacent, he said, and he vowed not to follow the chair of governors out the door. “The parents are very supportive of the leadership at the school, the Ofsted inspectors themselves have said very clearly they believe myself and the team have the capacity to move us very quickly away from the situation we are in and to seek quick reinspection. I enjoy the full support of the staff body. “This is a very successful school, oversubscribed and among the highest achieving in the country with the best progress and have an extra curricular provision which is the envy of many people. We have children who are happy, loyal and proud of the school. I am a parent whose children have only recently gone through the school, as such I understand how people will feel if they read the report and don’t understand the context. “I am determined to take us through this phase and get back to where we should be in Ofsted terms and also to hold on to those key things that give us our distinctive ethos which make us very special. Every other Ofsted inspection has noticed that and that has not changed. Is this a very different school to those previous inspection reports? Absolutely not.” Parents have been invited to briefings by the school.