CONFIDENTIAL
Report of Activity
Establishment
Prospect School
District Council
Havant
DFE No
850-7001
Area
East
Report Recipient
Marijke Miles
Date
9 March 2015
Author of Record
Sylvia Kopecek
Term
Spring 2015
Activity Reason:
Annual visit of LLP
Additional Focus:
School Self-Evaluation
CONTEXT
Prospect School currently provides for boys aged 11-16 who have behavioural, emotional
and social difficulties. These include students with disabilities including autistic spectrum
disorder and students with moderate learning difficulties. The majority of students have
low literacy skills and have challenging social circumstances.
The school was last inspected by Ofsted on 26–27 February 2014. The school’s overall
effectiveness was judged to be good as were the achievements of students and the
quality of teaching. Leadership, management, behaviour and safety of pupils were also
judged to be good. The previous inspection judgement was satisfactory.
The school’s issues for improvement in 2014 were to:
Improve teaching so that more is outstanding by making sure that teachers:
give students time to practise the advice given so they can improve their work
further
give more opportunities for students to use their English and mathematics skills in
a range of ways, including investigations and solving problems
provide early family support from the school’s well-being team for students who are
due to start school and who have had a pattern of poor attendance in their
previous school.
Activities undertaken
Discussion with the headteacher
Learning walk in English, science and art
Discussion with a senior leader and head of maths
Meeting with the Chair of Governors
Feedback to headteacher and Chair of Governors
Key questions
Has the school acted on the findings from the most recent Ofsted report and what
is the impact?
What action is the school taking to ensure that its system for recording progress
data is of high quality and easily accessible for all staff?
Are governors able to challenge the school effectively when they are presented
with school data about progress and student outcomes?
What evidence can senior leaders provide to demonstrate that the school is
moving towards outstanding?
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Prospect School
HF 8863675
CONFIDENTIAL
Report of Activity
COMMENTARY
The school’s self evaluation and progress:
Evaluation
Overall
Achievement Quality of
Behaviour
Leadership
against Ofsted
Effectiveness
Teaching
and Safety
and
criteria
Management
Last Ofsted
2
2
2
2
2
(26-27
February 2014)
School’s
2
2
2
2
2
current view
The school has robust systems in place for monitoring the quality of teaching and learning
and supporting teaching staff to improve their practice further through well planned
professional development and coaching. The headteacher’s work beyond her own school
and membership of a national group ensures that she has wide knowledge of school
improvement.
The majority of students have low literacy skills and have challenging social
circumstances. Currently the school has a total of 55 students of these 30 are eligible for
pupil premium (PP) funding. The gap between PP and non PP is small. Of the three
looked after children (LAC) pupils one has a target of C grade at GCSE. Another student
with level 3c on entry has a D grade target. Three further students are taking functional
skills tests. One student is part time at Park Community School and part time at Prospect
School. Each student’s individual needs are planned for to achieve good progress and
outcomes, for example: a small target GCSE English group has been formed and is
taught by a visiting further education (FE) lecturer on a weekly basis to ensure that they
achieve a GCSE grade in the subject.
During the learning walk with the headteacher, the quality of teaching and learning seen
was good in English. The team is relatively new and the teacher seen has brought a
freshness of approach which students appreciate. There was effective preparation and
planning. Books were well presented and regular marking was evident. The environment
was well organised and supportive to learning. Students made good contributions to
questions asked by the teacher. Relationships between the teacher, the teaching
assistants present and students, was good. Behaviour was good and supported their
learning. In science, the approach to the teaching of evolution was imaginative and
techniques for engagement such as introducing colourful resources and spending time in
discussion all helped to accelerate progress. Similarly, books were well presented and
marked up to date. In art it was noticeable how much students enjoyed their work and
they had produced a substantive portfolio for GCSE. The environment, as in science and
English, was stimulating and well organised and created a positive work ethic where
students’ behaviour was good. More attention could be paid to the quality of marking to
ensure that written feedback is precise so that students know what it is they need to do as
a next step and the students themselves should be encouraged to respond to those
requests.
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Prospect School
HF 8863675
CONFIDENTIAL
Report of Activity
The leadership team is more coherent, especially as a result of staffing changes. The
headteacher has a very good overview of the strengths and areas for development across
the school and continually strives for excellence. Her team models this approach well and
the assistant headteacher (AHT) and head of maths are driving forward the next stage of
assessment and data management effectively. The headteacher demonstrated the
school’s revised approach to accurately recording progress as students move through the
school by starting with establishing capability in four areas. These are: cognitive ability
through CAT testing, the testing of working memory using an educational psychology test,
testing for resilience/mental strength and lastly, using a life events matrix which will be
implemented for each year group. The senior leaders are following this with a more robust
process of tracking progress and an appropriately pitched target for each student based
on good progress leading to GCSE grade targets. The process is not yet fully operational
and will be looked at once it is fully implemented.
Attendance is an issue which the school rightly treats as an ongoing priority. Since the
last visit a target group of ‘poor’ attenders has been identified with swift action taken to
improve daily attendance as English and maths are taught every morning. Additional
resources have been allocated to ensure that students get into school daily, through a
planned later start. This has improved attendance, in some cases dramatically, from
20%+ attendance to 80%+ over a short period of time. Overall attendance has improved
by 3% over the past year to 86% in February 2015.
The strengths of the school are demonstrated through the ways in which it is constantly
striving to improve and use staffing to good effect. The quality of teaching seen was good
and students were calm and behaved well in lessons seen. The sense of purpose across
the school could be identified and the improvements in learning clearly seen. Strengths in
the leadership and management were also contributing well to developments across the
school.
Recommendations for further action
Further improve marking by ensuring that teachers’ comments are clear and
precise about what students should improve next, and that students carry out the
requests which teachers make and respond to written comments themselves.
Continue to develop the quality of teaching so that more teaching is outstanding
and impacting positively on both attendance and progress.
Consolidate the promising work on data management and assessment which is
judged to be well led.
Trial the use of flight paths in students’ books so that tracking takes place across
the year and students can see this for themselves.
Ensure that the information on the front cover of students’ books is consistent
within and across subjects.
Priority Level
The school is judged to be low priority. It has clear and appropriate priorities for
improvement. The headteacher welcomes the support provided by the local authority.
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Report of Activity
Future school improvement priorities
Priorities include:
improving performance by the time pupils reach the end of Key Stage 4
continuing to improve attendance so that all pupils are able to make good progress
achieving a high percentage of outstanding teaching across the school
consolidating the structure of the leadership team.
LA Action
LLP 1 day summer term to test out the impact of the revised data and assessment
methodology Suggested dates to be confirmed are 11 May or 15 May
English support 1 day summer term and 1 day spring term 2016
Signed:
Date:
10 March 2015
Copy To:
Headteacher
Chair of Governors
Brian Pope (AD)
Eric Halton (SIM)
Sylvia Kopecek (LLP)
Author of Record
Duration
Preparation
Follow Up
Charge Code
Day(s)
Hour(s)
5
2
2
LA funded
Total Time Author of Record
Day(s)
Hour(s)
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Report of Activity
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