OFSTED’S damning report on Warrington’s St Gregory’s High School – first revealed by Warrington-Worldwide on Wednesday – reveals that inspectors have judged the school to be “inadequate” in its overall effectiveness, the achievement of pupils, quality of teaching, behaviour and safety of pupils and leadership and management.
A team of four inspectors visited the school in December and decided it is a school that requires special measures.
At the time of the previous report, in 2011, the school was judged to be “outstanding” and in the past the school league tables have shown St Gregory’s to be Warrington’s top performing high school.
But the new report speaks of weak teaching, disruption to learning, bullying, use of homophobic language and swearing.
It says achievement in science remains low, too much teaching is weak and fails to meet students’ needs leading to poor behaviour.
Disruption to learning is not uncommon and leaders and managers have an inaccurate view of standards in school.
There are no effective policies or procedures in place to address behaviour, including bullying, safeguarding or inequalities.
Governors have not effectively challenged senior leaders to raise standards, nor ensured that statutory duties are met. Attendance is low for some groups of students.
But Ofsted says the school has the following strengths.
New executive head teacher David Lewis, appointed last April, has a clear understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the school.
The new chaplain is inspirational and is doing some very positive work with local primary schools.
Achievement in English and mathematics is strong and exemplary teaching was observed in drama.
The school library is well-stocked and popular, particularly among Key Stage 3 students.
Inspectors say the school needs to rapidly raise achievement in science and for students who are eligible for the pupil premium, those who are less able, those who are educated off-site and those who are disabled or have special educational needs.
There is an urgent need to improve behaviour and safety by improving the attendance of those who are persistently absent ensuring that students have a good understanding of prejudice, discrimination and human rights so they know what kind of language is acceptable and what may cause offence to others.
The report says students enter the school with attainment slightly above the national average. In 2012, attainment fell sharply in English and science. While standards in English recovered last year, attainment in science remains too low.
In about half of the lessons observed by inspectors, students failed to make good progress. In a small minority of lessons they made inadequate progress. Achievement in science is weak due to consistently poor teaching.
A few students who are educated through alternative provision were observed making good progress by inspectors but their achievement was not tracked over time – a key weakness particularly for those students who receive home tuition.
Achievement in some subjects including English, mathematics, drama and music is strong.
Inspectors observed inadequate teaching in science, physical education, religious education and design and technology – despite the fact that some of these lessons were suggested to inspectors by school leaders because they felt the teaching was particularly strong.
This served to re-enforce the fact that leaders and managers had an inaccurate view of the quality of teaching.
Teaching was often dull or too easy for some groups of students who lost interest.
Some books were unmarked and many were marked in a cursory fashion leaving students unable to ascertain how they clould improve their progress.
However, in some subjects, such as drama, high-quality written feedback was given to students, allowing them to make markedly better progress and achieve consistently strong results.
Many opportunities to promote social, moral, spiritual and cultural education were missed.
The behaviour and safety of pupils were inadequate and a “serious incident” which had occurred since the previous inspection was under investigation by the appropriate authorities.
However, all the students spoken to by inspectors said they felt safe in school.
But homophobic language, swearing and disruption to lessons were not uncommon and would not always be addressed by teachers.
Some students felt it was acceptable to use the word “gay” in a derogatory way.
Some students showed a distinct lack of respect for staff. Likewise staff were observed shouting at students.
A group of students was asked why students misbehave and replied “because we can”.
The report does not spare the borough council from criticism. Although the authority was rightly concerned about the quality of leadership and management and had challenged senior leaders it had not challenged robustly enough the continually poor standards in science.
It was working with the school to investigate financial irregularities.
A joint statement issued by the school, the borough council and the Archdiocese of Liverpool said staff and governors were confident standards could be significantly improved.
The school accepted the findings and recommendations of the Ofsted report but added that clear improvements plans are already in place to bring about positive changes in the areas of achievement, quality of teaching, behaviour and safety and leadership.
The archdiocesan director of schools, Tim Warren, said: “I believe it’s important to keep things in perspective, and remember that St Gregory’s is in fact one of the highest-achieving schools in the country. In last year’s GCSEs, some 73 per cent of pupils at St Gregory’s achieved five A*-Cs including in English and Maths.
“However, despite this high attainment, we recognise the failings and all parties are committed to working together to improve science teaching and outcomes for the most vulnerable pupils at the school. Also the archdiocese remains most concerned about the governance of the school, and we are taking immediate steps to address this.”
Executive head David Lewis said: “While there are many things that require a lot of work here, the Ofsted report did highlight key strengths at the school, ranging from achievement in English and Maths being strong to the observation of some exemplary teaching in drama.
“Last year 89 percent of our students attained A*-C grades in Maths, and 83 per cent in English. Our GCSE results were significantly better than the national average, and this is undoubtedly a firm grounding on which to improve.”
Warrington Borough Council’s operational director for children and young people’s universal services, Sarah Callaghan, said: “The school has our full support and we will be working with staff, governors and the
Liverpool archdiocese as we introduce a comprehensive package of support to help make positive changes and improve standards.
“Support has already been commissioned to address issues raised by Ofsted in relation to teaching and learning and behaviour and safety. The local authority has already deployed two National Leaders of Education to work with the school, one to focus on leadership, accountability, governance and behaviour and safety and one to focus on teaching and learning.
“In addition, we are working closely with the Liverpool archdiocese to review the governance and leadership at the school.
“We will be monitoring progress to help ensure that the school moves out of special measures as soon as possible.”
The full report can be accessed online via the Ofsted website at http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/inspection-reports/find-inspection-report/provider/ELS/111454
There will be a meeting for parents on Thursday February 13 at 7pm in the school in order to
discuss the current situation. Representatives from the governing body, the Archdiocese of Liverpool and local authority will be present to answer questions.
Parents/carers are invited to send any questions to [email protected]
St Gregory’s is part of a federation with Cardinal Newman RC High School, Latchford. They have a shared governing body and executive head. St Gregory’s has a new Head of School, appointed only in September.
