The Beacon School

Overview: The Beacon School is a secondary comprehensive school that has made significant improvements since the arrival of new senior leaders. However, it still requires improvement in several areas, including behaviour and attitudes, the quality of education, and sixth-form provision. The school has a good leadership and management team, and personal development is a strength.

Strengths:

• New leaders have raised expectations significantly and are committed to ensuring that the school's values are understood and demonstrated by all.
• Pupils feel much safer in school, particularly at social times, as adults supervise them regularly.
• Pupils benefit from a well-organised careers programme and enjoy exciting visits to enrich their learning.

Areas to improve:

• Behaviour and attitudes have improved significantly, but incidents of physical aggression still occur, and some pupils continue to display poor attitudes to learning and disengagement in lessons.
• Too many pupils, including vulnerable pupils, do not attend school as regularly as they should, affecting their learning and progress.
• The school's new, ambitious curriculum is not yet fully embedded, resulting in variability in the quality of lesson delivery.

Safeguarding: The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.