The ‘best’ school in Bristol has been given a damning Ofsted inspection, with inspectors rating the school ‘inadequate’ overall.
Ofsted inspectors said a ‘for a significant proportion’ of the pupils at Montpelier High School the school ‘does not feel like a safe place’ because of a bullying problem, but the quality of education, sixth-form provision and personal development of pupils there also requires improvement.
The leadership of the school - which changed its name from Colston’s Girls’ School in November 2020 - has written to parents acknowledging they will ‘feel shocked and let down’, and a number of open meetings with parents have been scheduled for next week.
Read more: Last push to save South Bristol's vital Zion community space
The Ofsted inspection report also says leadership and management at the school, which is run by the Venturers Trust, a multi-academy trust sponsored by the Society of Merchant Venturers and the University of Bristol, is inadequate.
The school on Cheltenham Road has for years been seen as the best state school in Bristol, and has consistently been the one most over-subscribed, with the best academic results. In 2017 and 2019, it was ranked by the Real Schools Guide as the best state school in Bristol, and currently has 925 pupils.
But Ofsted inspectors had not visited the school since 2010, two years after it converted from a fee-paying private girls’ school to a state-funded academy in 2008. Back in 2010, Ofsted rated it as ‘outstanding’, but have not been back since, with Ofsted saying the school had been ‘exempted by law from routine inspection’ until November 2020.
How do you feel about this report? Tell us in the comments section.
Ofsted inspectors visited the school on two days in March 2022 and things were so concerning they returned for a third day on May 5 this year.
Overall, Ofsted said the school was ‘inadequate’, the lowest of the four ratings used by inspectors. As well as the leadership and management being rated as ‘inadequate’, so too was the ‘behaviour and attitudes’, Ofsted inspectors found.
The other categories for the inspection: quality of education, personal development and sixth-form provision, were all rated as ‘requiring improvement’.
The report by the Ofsted team led by lead inspector Lydia Pride, is damning in many areas, but highlighted a bullying problem as being significant. “For a significant proportion of pupils, the school does not feel like a safe place,” the inspection report said.
“Some pupils say they experience bullying by their peers that goes unresolved and therefore persists. Many cannot identify an adult in the school they trust enough to share their worries with. They do not have enough confidence that staff will protect them from bullying, including physical and verbal abuse.
“Leaders have been too slow to act on pupils’ concerns. This has prolonged some pupils’ unhappy experiences of school. Furthermore, pupils consider that some staff apply the behaviour policy unfairly. This creates mistrust. Leaders have begun to review their approach to behaviour in response. However, it is too soon to see the impact of any changes,” they added.
Want the latest news delivered straight to your inbox? Click here to sign up for Bristol Live's newsletters. .
The inspectors said that pupils feel staff are inconsistent in dealing with bullying issues. “At times, this can lead to strained relationships between pupils and staff or between pupils,” the report said.
“In addition, there are sometimes tensions between pupils which lead to unruly behaviour around the school site. Although pupils are usually able to concentrate in lessons, they experience some low-level disruption,” it added.
The efforts of school leaders to deal with the bullying and behaviour issues have not been good enough, the inspectors found. “They routinely gather the views of pupils, but they have not done enough to respond. Where leaders have acted, they have not checked that this has made enough of a difference,” the report said.
Overall, the Ofsted inspectors said the most serious issues facing the school are ones of safeguarding - the pupils feeling safe there. “The arrangements for safeguarding are not effective. There is not a strong enough oversight of safeguarding issues, compounded by weaknesses in systems and record keeping. In addition, there are inconsistencies in the way that leaders follow statutory guidance when handling allegations about staff. Leaders do not ensure that every member of staff has essential safeguarding training,” the report said.
“Pupils describe not feeling safe in school. They feel threatened by unruly behaviour. A significant number of pupils and parents do not have the confidence that staff will tackle bullying effectively. As a result, some pupils feel vulnerable to the potential of physical and verbal abuse,” they added.
Quality of education
The report also concluded the quality of education at Montpelier High School requires improvement. The inspectors found that subject leaders have begun to identify the most important subject knowledge, but the curriculum is ‘not well developed in some areas’.
“In the absence of a well-designed and ambitious curriculum, teachers rely on exam specifications to inform their teaching. This limits the range of knowledge that pupils, including students in the sixth form, can learn,” the report said.
“The curriculum does not prioritise early reading sufficiently. Some pupils are not able to read accurately when they arrive at the school. Leaders do not use assessment precisely enough to identify the gaps in pupils’ knowledge. They do not provide a phonics curriculum where needed,” it said, adding that pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) have ‘mixed experiences’, and some SEND pupils are less well supported because staff ‘do not understand their needs well enough’.
The school’s response
School principal Kerry McCullagh “The Ofsted inspection found weakness in several areas and we recognise that parents and carers will want to know more about how we are addressing these. Below are some of the actions we’re taking to deliver rapid improvement,” she said, outlining a 20-point plan to tackle the issues highlighted by the Ofsted inspectors.
“Some students have very bravely shared difficult truths which are detailed in the report. Our task now is to ensure that every student feels the strength of our community in the positive way that we intend,” she added.
What the school has told parents
A letter has been sent to all parents, signed by school principal Kerry McCullagh, the chair of governors Chris Patterson, David Watson, the chief executive of the Venturers Trust and Gail Bragg, a member of the Society of Merchant Venturers, who is the chair of the trustees.
The four say they are ‘extremely disappointed’ to tell parents the school has been rated ‘inadequate’. “We accept the Inspectors’ findings that Montpelier High School is in need of significant improvement and we wholeheartedly apologise for the shortcomings identified in the report,” they said.
“We recognise that you will feel shocked and let down by this outcome and we want to reassure you that immediate steps are being taken to put things right,” they added.
The school leaders said it was ‘disheartening’ the report contains ‘minimal or no mention’ of the school’s ‘long track record of excellent results and outcomes, our ethos of diversity and inclusion and our extensive enrichment opportunities’, but: “We recognise that external scrutiny is an important factor in school improvement,” they added.
“We are determined to get MHS back to a rating of at least Good in all areas as soon as possible and to aim for the highest rating of Outstanding, which was the judgement the school received at its last inspection,” they added.
“Despite not having been inspected for over ten years, our results, outcomes and destinations for all students, including those from minority groups and disadvantaged backgrounds, have remained consistently high and far above the national state school average. However, we acknowledge that our track record of excellent results and good post-school outcomes needs to be accompanied by the same high standards for student wellbeing,” they added.
The school was a fee-paying private girls school from its founding by the Society of Merchant Venturers in 1895 to 2008, when it became a state-funded academy school. In 2017, the Venturers Trust was set up as a merger of Colston’s Girls’ School and other schools run by the Merchant Venturers.
In the years since the last inspection in 2010, the school has experienced a number of scandals: the conviction of headteacher Alistair Perry for a sexual offence against a teenage girl; followed by his successor blowing the whistle on the way in which the Merchant Venturers stymied moves to consult over changing the name in 2017. John Whitehead, who left the school soon after, said his experiences at what was then Colston’s Girls’ School led him to believe the Society of Merchant Venturers were ‘not fit to run schools in Bristol’.
