A school given one of the worst Ofsted reports in Bristol’s history is turning itself around quickly, inspectors have found. An Ofsted monitoring inspection at Lansdown Park Academy - a Pupil Referral Unit in Stockwood - said that while the school still required improvement and needed to be in special measures, the new leadership team at the school were already making ‘rapid’ progress.
The report released this week was from the first monitoring inspection that took place in December following last spring’s damning Ofsted inspection. In March last year, inspectors said there was a ‘regular potential for violence’ at the unit, and demanded huge improvements in the way the school was run.
Read next: Montpelier High School apologises to parents as Ofsted judges it 'still inadequate'
New headteacher Paul Todd had been in place just a few weeks before that Ofsted visit in February 2022, but since then he and a new leadership team has made big changes, the inspectors found.
A report by Ofsted inspector Leanne Thirlby, who visited the school in December, found almost half the teaching staff are new since the first inspection and that, as well as improvements to the buildings on the Stockwood site, were making a big difference.
“Since the previous inspection, there have been considerable changes to staffing,” her report, addressed to Mr Todd, said. “There is now a substantive leadership team in place who demonstrate a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities. Leaders work effectively to build consistency across both school sites.
“As headteacher, you have focused the newly-established leadership team to rapidly tackle the areas for improvement identified at the previous inspection. You have acted swiftly to ensure that there are clear plans in place to improve the curriculum for all pupils. Leaders have designed a curriculum which is now aligned with the length of placement for the majority of pupils on roll,” she added.
Lansdown Park is an academy run by national organisation Learn@MAT, a multi-academy trust that runs schools across southern England. However, since the damning Ofsted inspection of Lansdown Park and other schools under its umbrella, the Department for Education’s regional schools commissioner has acted to disband the trust altogether.
Now the school faces an uncertain future because the schools under the Learn@MAT umbrella are being ‘re-brokered’ - ie available to be taken on by other multi-academy trusts, but because of its special measurers status Lansdown Park - and the Sky Academy in Taunton, which also had a special measures judgement - are being re-brokered separately.
School leaders at Lansdown Park said they hope this re-brokering process doesn’t reverse the improvements they’ve made from working with other schools in the trust - something highlighted by Ms Thirlby.
“The academy council and the trust have taken the recommendations from an external review of their effectiveness and put systems of communication and accountability in place,” she said. “These improvements now mean that those responsible for governance have a more accurate view of the school. They are fully aware of the school’s strengths and areas they are still looking to improve. The trust has supported curriculum development by using subject specialists, for example in science, from other trust schools.
The Ofsted inspector concluded that Lansdown Park Academy is making sufficient progress from its 2022 inspection report, but still has some way to go to be taken out of special measures. This judgement contrasts with the other high profile damning Ofsted inspection in Bristol in 2022 - where an inspector said Montpelier High School required improvement. A first monitoring inspection also conducted in December found the girls’ school run by the Venturers’ Trust was still not making sufficient improvements and there were still safeguarding issues at the school.
Read next:
- All the Bristol primary schools rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ in the past five years
- Bristol school has become 'like a military boot camp'
- Parents and councillors demand independent inquiry into council special needs spying scandal
- Bristol City Council 'making sufficient progress' on SEND children but still failing parents
- 'Regular potential for violence' at Bristol school says damning Ofsted inspection
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