Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Shocking Ofsted report reveals ‘regular potential for violence’
OFSTED has said there is “regular potential for violence” at a south Bristol school, in a damning inspection report.
And the actions taken by leaders at the school to split up the pupils now mean their educational needs aren’t being met.
The inspectors judged every single aspect of the education and leadership at Lansdown Park Academy in Stockwood to be “inadequate”, after discovering most of the staff and leaders were new, the buildings had been neglected and pupils with special education needs were left in a school that didn’t meet their needs, with staff that didn’t know how to deal with them.
The shocking report followed an inspection by three Ofsted staff on February 9 and 10 this year.
Lansdown Park Academy was a three-site pupil referral unit mainly based at the Stockwood site, with units at two other schools until recently – at Rush Hill in Bath, and for primary-aged pupils at Broadlands Academy in Keynsham, although the Ofsted report states primary-age provision was consolidated to the Stockwood site and away from Broadlands in January this year.
The inspectors were critical of what they found at the Stockwood base, saying the quality of education secondary school age pupils received there was “poor”.
“There is regular potential for violence between groups of pupils,” said lead inspector Stephen McShane.
“Leaders have taken action to safeguard pupils and stop fights by adjusting when different pupils and groups of pupils attend the site. This now means that pupils have timetables of activities that do not meet their needs.
“Pupils’ attendance is sporadic. When they do attend, the quality of education and support to meet their needs are poor. They are not learning well enough.
“They do not have the opportunities to address their social and emotional needs... they are not well prepared for life when they leave.”
The pupil referral unit was originally a mainstream primary school called Stockwood Green, run by Bristol City Council.
But just over ten years ago, after a lengthy battle with parents in Stockwood,
The quality of education and support to meet their needs are poor. They are not learning well enough LEAD INSPECTOR STEPHEN MCSHANE
it was closed and the buildings used as “specialist secondary provision” for the Lansdown Park pupil referral unit, still run by the council.
In 2017, it was handed over from the council to the Leicestershirebased Learn-AT multi academy trust.
The February inspection was the first at the school in nine years, and the first since the trust took control.
In April 2021, then-chief executive of Learn-AT, Peter Evans, was named by Schools Week as the second best paid multi-academy trust boss per pupil in the country – reporting that his minimum pay was £135,000 a year running a trust with only four schools and 323 pupils.
At Lansdown Park Academy, the
inspectors acknowledged that the interim headteacher there had been in post for just four weeks when they arrived in February, but said the problems at the school were deepset.
And the inspectors did say the new leadership at Lansdown Park knew the scale of the challenge facing them.
The inspectors said they found a few staff who were proud to work there, but many were ‘very unhappy’ and were ‘concerned about their treatment and the quality of education that pupils receive’.
Neither the Learn-AT multi-academy trust nor Bristol City Council had responded to a request for comment as the WDP went to press.