Progress Schools - Stockport

Overview:

The school has experienced considerable turbulence in staffing and leadership in recent months, but staff morale is high. New leadership is providing greater stability, and leaders are starting to help staff to manage their workload better. However, the school requires urgent improvement in several areas.

Strengths:

• Pupils feel welcome at school and generally behave well when at school, being polite and respectful in their interactions with staff and each other.
• Pupils respond well when staff help them to reset or regulate their emotions, and staff understand the challenges that pupils face.
• Pupils who attend school regularly enjoy aspects of school life, valuing the effective pastoral support that staff provide.
• Pupils are safe, and incidents of bullying or racism are dealt with swiftly and well.

Areas to improve:

• Attendance rates at the school are low, with some pupils having prolonged periods when they have received little or no formal teaching.
• The school's personal development programme is not as effective as it could be, and pupils are not prepared as well as they could be for making a positive contribution to society.
• Pupils do not achieve as well as they should, with many pupils being ill-prepared for the qualifications that they are entered for.
• The curriculum does not meet the needs of pupils at the school, and teaching staff lack the expertise that they need to support pupils' learning effectively.
• The school does not provide staff with the professional development and support that they need to carry out their respective role efficiently and effectively.

Safeguarding:

The safeguarding standards are met, with leaders and/or those responsible for governance and oversight fulfilling their specific responsibilities and establishing an open culture in which safeguarding is everyone's responsibility and concerns are actively identified, acted upon and managed.