Shrewsbury Academy placed in special measures following Ofsted inspection

Shrewsbury Academy on Corndon Cresent was visited by inspectors in May with the results of the inspection made public today.

The report rated the effectiveness of leadership and management, quality of teaching, learning and assessment, personal development, behaviour and welfare as well as outcomes for pupils - all were rated as inadequate.

Key findings

In the summary of key findings listed in the report a number of areas were highlighted including:

Disadvantaged pupils make particularly slow progress and, as a result, underachieve.

Staff regularly absent with a high number of vacancies.

Most of the parents who responded to Parent View questionnaire were not happy about the quality of education their children are receiving. Only a third of those who responded would recommend the school to others. Their main concerns are poor-quality teaching and poor behaviour.

A new board of trustees at the school was brought in last year but 'due to the poor financial position inherited by the new board, trustees have had to contribute a significant amount of time to dealing with a significant deficit'.

Quality of teaching inadequate

Inspectors said that the quality of teaching at the school was also found to be inadequate. Pupils, including disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational need, were found to be underachieving across all subjects.

The report said that many teachers do not have high enough expectations of the quality and presentation of their pupils’ work. They are too willing to accept work that is of a poor standard and untidily presented. Inspectors saw many books containing poorly presented or incomplete work. In some cases, pupils had no books.

The inspectors added that much of the teaching was seen as poorly planned by the inspectors and did not meet individual pupils needs. In mathematics, they found teaching to be 'weak and does not develop pupils’ deep understanding of mathematical topics'.

The report, however, said there was a 'small amount of good teaching in the school, most notably in science'.

The report did though find that since the appointment of the new interim Chief
Executive officer and the newly constituted trust board in June 2018, is now providing effective support to the school. Pupils with social and emotional needs also received effective support.

It also praised the new headteacher, who took up the post in June 2018, the report stated the headteacher: "has strengthened the leadership of the school."

School Response

The school responded to the report by agreeing with the judgment to place the school into special measures. In a letter to parents they said:

“Ofsted have placed the school in Special Measures and as the new team we unfortunately have to agree with their judgement. The school(s) were last inspected in 2015/6 and so although this does not take account of the improved GCSE results which we will get in 2019 they are entirely accurate when they say about 2016-18 GCSE results.

“They recognised the severe financial pressures, which have been covered in the media, and which have necessitated many of the structural changes we have been implementing this year, to allow improvement to start.

“This report now marks the end of that prolonged phase of low standards and financial challenges which the new Board and senior staff have been addressing.

“We are very pleased that they have named the new Headteacher Jon Arnold as one of the key strengths of the school working with the new Interim Trust Board

“As a result of the curriculum and staffing changes currently being implemented the school will have a balanced budget for 2019-20. However, clearly and understandably Ofsted must report on the financial position the school has been in over the last few years and the effects that has had.

“There is much work to do in almost all areas of the school with the exception of safeguarding which was praised. Standards are still too low and the quality of teaching needs to improve much faster. Although we are looking forward to improved GCSE results in a few weeks time for Year 11 and then again next year for Year 10 this is only one aspect of the school.”