Contact: John Clarke, Deputy Director of Children's Services Tel 01962 846459 [email protected] or

Louise Brierley, Strategic School Improvement Manager, Tel 01252 814755 [email protected]

1 Summary

1.1 The school received its fifth monitoring visit by Her Majesty's Inspectorate (HMI), since requiring special measures in March 2004, on 8 and 9 March 2006. A copy of the Section 5 inspection report is appended. HMI concluded that the school now provides a satisfactory standard of education and no longer requires special measures.

1.2 This report to the Panel supports Aim 1 of the Corporate Strategy (maximising life opportunities) and the achievement of the 5 outcomes of the Children Act 2004. The quality of schools is clearly closely related to the educational achievement of pupils, and those educational achievements fundamentally affect each person's life chances. The purpose of this report is to inform Elected Members of the work being done to effect improvement in the school.

2 Background

2.1 Grenville Earney is headteacher of the school, which has 19.8% of its population entitled to free school meals. The number on roll is 373. The percentage of pupils identified as having special educational needs (SEN) and receiving additional support in the form of School Action or School Action Plus is 13.1%.

3 The findings of HMI in March 2006

3.1 HMI judged the school to be `an improving school, providing a satisfactory standard of education.' Overall effectiveness is graded as satisfactory and capacity to improve is also judged to be satisfactory, as demonstrated by the satisfactory progress that has been made since the last inspection. `Standards have risen, the quality of teaching and learning has improved, as have pupils' attitudes and behaviour. Collective acts of worship are now provided. Despite good systems and procedures attendance is still not good enough.'

3.2 Achievement and standards and personal development and well-being are judged to be satisfactory overall. Within the quality of provision, teaching and learning, curriculum and other activities and leadership and management are all judged to be satisfactory with care, guidance and support judged to be good.

3.3 The headteacher is described as having worked `with great determination' to secure improvements in the school. The headteacher and deputy headteacher `have developed into an effective partnership, complementing each other's strengths.' HMI judged that the governing body `is beginning to challenge the school more effectively' and that the local authority has provided `consistently good support and challenge to the school.'

3.4 In order to improve further, the report identifies two areas for development:

· develop a more interesting and imaginatively taught curriculum for years 7, 8 and 9 to meet the needs and interests of all pupils, in particular the girls

· ensure the developing range of strategies for assessment for learning are consistently used by all teachers to help raise standards.

4 Activities since the visit of HMI

4.1 The strategy group for the school, chaired by the Strategic School Improvement Manager (SSIM), continues to meet and there are no plans at present to terminate this group as the school continues to face a number of challenges.

4.2 The School Improvement Partner (SIP), who is a School Improvement Manager (SIM) in the local team, continues to provide support and challenge for the school which remains a high priority for the deployment of resources through the Secondary Strategy and Hampshire Ethnic Minority Achievement Service (EMAS).

4.3 The school has energetically embraced the Extended Schools agenda and is developing effective partnership work. HMI judged this development to be good and commented on the positive contribution it is making to improving pupils' attitudes to learning.

4.4 The school is one of three in the county to take part in the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) Pathfinder project and will therefore play a pivotal role in this important area of development for the Children's Services Department. The headteacher is a member of the project group for the county.

5 Legal Implications

5.1 None

6 Financial implications

6.1 None

7 Personnel implications

7.1 None

8 Impact assessment

8.1 Race and equality impact assessment has been considered in the development of this report and no adverse impact has been identified.

9 Crime prevention issues

9.1 None

10 Views of the Local County Councillor

10.1 Not sought in the drafting of this report.

Recommendations

1 That no further reports are required.

2 That the committee write a letter of congratulations to the headteacher and the chair of governors.

Section 100D - Local Government Act 1972 - background documents

The following documents discuss facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and have been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB: the list excludes

1. Published works

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

None