Almondbury Community School’s march ‘onwards and upwards’ has suffered a setback at the hands of Ofsted.
Government inspectors have downgraded the new through school from Good to Requires Improvement, although Early Years remains Good.
Their verdict was based on last year’s worst-ever GCSE results of a 37% pass rate, despite the school being on track to achieve 55% this year, according to leaders.
Ofsted singled out maths for criticism, along with marking, teachers’ expectations and not enough sharing of outstanding teaching practices.
The inspection could not have come at a worse time, as it is too soon to judge the impact of all the new staffing and learning structures.
Headteacher Trevor Bowen took over in January after a term without a leader and has overseen the expansion of the former secondary school into a through school catering for 700 three to 16-year-olds. The juniors have just moved into the main school building following extensive building work.
Mr Bowen could have expected Ofsted to wait until after this year’s exam results. However, due to an administrative error, the new Community School retained the same registration number as the old High School, which was last inspected three years ago.
And inspectors had not expected to find primary school children. On the main day of the inspection, there were no lessons at all for the 268 juniors, who held their sports day in the morning and a ‘Memories’ event in the afternoon for children and parents to bid farewell to the old building.
Despite describing the timing as “challenging,” Mr Bowen said: “This draws a line in the sand.
“Inspectors accepted that the timing was unfortunate. This has been a very dynamic year in terms of development, but they were not able to take our latest data into account; their judgement was based on our worst-ever set of results.
He added: “The report is not a surprise. It is fair and very positive for the school, it gives us a clear framework in terms of moving the school towards Good.
Jackie Eams, Kirklees learning partner and former headteacher at Batley Girls’ High School, has been working with Almondbury since last September.
She said: “The timing is incredibly frustrating, Trevor Bowen has made a very impressive start here. There have been huge structural changes, and it would have been nice to have had a set of results before the inspection.
“Last year’s results showed a terrible dip. Ofsted didn’t need to tell us where improvements were needed; we had already identified them.
“The through school is on very firm foundations and everyone is very focussed on giving the community’s children a bright future.”
Ofsted praised teaching in Key Stages 1 and 2, high pupil attendance, progress for pupils with extra needs, care and support for all pupils, and support for the headteacher.
Almondbury had already taken steps to deal with issues raised by Ofsted: a new head of maths, Sheila Hodgson, has been appointed, along with achievement leaders in all subjects, and outstanding teachers have been trained to help others.
