Ofsted orders school to improve for the third time

Queen Elizabeth Academy received the worst possible mark in four out of six key areas during a recent inspection.

These were leadership and management, quality of teaching, outcomes from pupils and the overall effectiveness from the previous inspection.

The Chesterfield Road South School, which has more than 555 pupils registered plus 83 enrolled in the further education programmes, was visited by Ofsted in November.

They highlighted a list of major concerns, among them claims that the teachers had been ‘too slow in bringing about the necessary changes to improve the quality of teaching and the progress pupils make’.

Achievements in maths and English had suffered, while senior leaders had not tackled previous poor leadership in science quickly enough.

In 2012 the school was found to be inadequate but turned its fortunes around months later.

However, a visit in late 2013 put the school back into special measures once again and following hard work by staff, inspectors noted once again that the school was moving in the right direction and that improvements had been made.

And headteacher Mike Smith has defended the latest results saying the academy had come a long way over the past three years.

“I believe the community can see enormous strides have been made,” said Mr Smith.

“We are working hard to turn around historic issues. I think the community understands this and can see the efforts being made to improve our students’ education.”

The report did list the academy’s strengths, saying there had been a ‘shift in the academy’s culture, with a clear focus on improving pupils’ attitude to learning’.

Inspectors noted that pupils ‘behave appropriately’ and they feel safe while sixth-formers’ achievement was ‘improving strongly’.