NCEA Duke's Secondary School

Overview: NCEA Duke's Secondary School has made significant improvements since the previous inspection, with a welcoming environment, strong relationships between staff and pupils, and a calm and orderly environment. However, the quality of education and standards achieved by pupils are not good enough, and leaders are working to improve this.

Strengths:

• Strong relationships between staff and pupils
• A calm and orderly environment in school
• Leaders successfully promote pupils' personal development and well-being
• Enrichment is built into the school timetable, enabling pupils to experience a range of activities
• The sixth form benefits from its small size, with students receiving personalised support and being taught well

Areas to improve:

• Leaders have not ensured that their records of visits to alternative providers are clear enough, and they do not have sufficient detail to evidence that pupils who attend these providers have the quality of their curriculum thoroughly monitored
• There is variability in how well teachers deliver the curriculum, with some teachers not checking systematically what pupils know and understand in lessons
• Some reading and wider literacy interventions do not include all pupils who have weaknesses in these areas, meaning that too few pupils can access the support they need to improve
• While leaders have a good understanding of individual pupils and their involvement in behavioural incidents, there is not enough analysis of patterns and trends, meaning that leaders are not fully aware of which groups of pupils are involved in different types of incidents

Safeguarding: The arrangements for safeguarding are effective, with leaders ensuring that staff know how to keep pupils safe, staff receiving regular training, and accurate and detailed records of reported concerns being kept.