Beechen Cliff Bath- 'Inadequate' Ofsted

[LovelyBath77]

Just seen this, doesn't look very good.

www.beechencliff.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Ofsted-2018-Full-Inspection-Report.pdf

and previously-
files.api.beta.ofsted.gov.uk/136520__4.PDF

Goodness what a damning report. Glad my child is not there.

As someone outside the area, so completely neutral about the school, I think that the one element where the report is unfair is about GCSE results/school not achieving floor standards, when this seems to be purely down to the use of the IGCSE English. But the other criticisms seem justified - not being open with Ofsted about the recent racist incident/use of illegal exclusions/lack of data collection and general info on kids with EAL and educated offsite. Behaviour doesn't sound great for what would appear to be a very leafy comp

Yes i think that is what I was meaning Hamish

Well hopefully the school will learn from this and things will improve. I did get the feeling a bit that it might be resting on it's laurels a bit in terms of results and that they perhaps rely on boys general good results at the start to get them through.

It is concerning about how oversubscribed it has been and the larger classes etc which seems to be the cause of the behaviour issues- there is a bulge year (or two) I understand and hopefully this might be helped with more classes.

Shame it has taken this to get to that though.

Bit I don't think one incident should define a school..

If that incident stems from a severe lack of safeguarding and 6 months later leaders STILL don't understand what went wrong I think it's very fair for one incident to define a school.

If a nursery allowed toddlers to wander round a pond unsupervised and one child died as a result, and the staff still didn't realise they needed to change their procedures, I'm sure you'd agree that one incident should close the place.

I know what @LovelyBath77 is trying to say, the report four years ago was outstanding and if you compare it to the latest report it sounds like a completely different school and yet parents and children there have not noticed any change or raised concerns about teaching. I heard that the racist incident was dealt with by the head excluding all pupils involved but the governors let some of them back in on appeal, that was disgraceful and I am relieved the governors have stepped down, if they were responsible. I expected the school to fail on safeguarding and am glad they have as it must be addressed urgently. The other parts of the report surprised me. The safeguarding fail alone would be enough for an inadequate rating, but it looks as though Ofsted were unhappy with everything!

I was a female sixth form student here. The misogyny is palpable, and male pupils are bullied on a widespread scale in the younger years. When I heard a school in Bath had held a mock slave auction I knew it would be Beechen Cliff. There is something very toxic about the atmosphere there. I am very grateful I was only there for two years.

My son is a pupil at the school and is really happy there. The incident was horrific and the school clearly need to tighten up around safeguarding. It's right that they've had been so heavily criticised for this. I do feel a bit sorry for the head who had his decision to expel pupils overturned by the governors. The rest of the report doesn't reflect my experience - eg I've found the teaching excellent.

Crikey Buscake, that sounds awful. When were you there?

I know of a child with Asperger's who greatly grew in confidence through the first years of the school and the parents are happy with it. Others as well seem happy even though it seems to me sometimes one which is heavily into sport etc. So that isn't always the case. Sorry to hear of the experience of Buscake though, that isn't good. I hear they have loser links with Hayesfield, (the girls school) so wonder if things may improve there.

Bottom line is that the only possibility given the identified safeguarding issues was special measure. In theory safeguarding is a much easier fix than poor teaching etc.
I have noted that the Chair of the Trust Board and the Vice Chair have now resigned, which sounds like a step in the right direction. However my experience of school improvement says that when somebody with the right experience starts to dig, other issues for the school will come to the fore, Ofsted will not have identified all issues in the time they were in the school. So this is probably not going to be the quick fix of isolated incidents that people think it might be.

The school is pretty divisive in Bath. Many would cut off their right arm to get their sons in. Others run a mile.

It has excellent sport and Ofsted recognise this.

It's living in the past on the safeguarding and inclusion fronts and Ofsted has finally recognised this.

As a parent of a boy with Asperger's I was strongly advised against this school by all who had any dealings with it - teachers there and at other schools, primary heads, parents of other boys with additional needs who were at the school. The local education community has known for a long time that this school failed the vulnerable and it's about time it was out in the open.

Yet the social pressure in middle class communities is all about how 'amazing' Beechen Cliff is. Parents are 'distraught' when their boys don't get in.

"Leaders do not use additional funding for pupils who have special educational needs (SEN) and/or disabilities effectively. The special educational needs coordinator (SENCo) focuses on organising access arrangements for public examinations. Improving learning for pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities is not done well. Leaders do not monitor the progress, attendance and behaviour of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities, and do not know what impact interventions are having and whether these pupils are making good progress."

"Leaders do not ensure that disadvantaged pupils achieve well, as they do not monitor the impact of the pupil premium precisely. Too many teachers do not know which pupils are disadvantaged. Leaders’ analysis of the use of the pupil premium is perfunctory. No attempt is made to tease out which actions are working in order to refine them. Consequently, these pupils underachieve at this school."

I agree with the post above about the difficult and divisive nature of school admissions in Bath and wonder how things will pan out in future as I understand the numbers of children are rising further - new primaries are opening in new housing areas too.

Recently one school has been closed (former Culverhay) due to poor Ofsted and concerns, then the other choices are as I understand Ralph Allen (mixed) - but out of town. St Marks- not great reputation, may improve (?) and very small, Beechen or Hayesfield (single sex and oversubscribed) or St Gregories (Catholic)

It just all seems like a bit of a muddle and can;t see things getting any better with the increased numbers - in fact think this may be a cause of the recent problems highlighted with behaviour as I understand Beechen generally is quite strict on this. I understand some of the schools including BC have increased the admission number due to the increased numbers but don;t seem to have put on extra classes- we were told looking round secondaries class sizes were usually around 20 but they seem to be over 30 seeing that they intend to 'reduce to under 30 in the Autumn'.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but it seems quite a few people are not happy (understandably) in general with school places etc in bath at the moment.

Oh sorry I forgot Oldfield, now mixed, from the schools above.

And YY to needing to take account of disadvantaged / lower income families. I think they sometimes assume all families are wealthy and can afford private schools going by the intro to BC where they tell you how lucky we all are saving so much in school fees!

We (us included) are not all in that boat and it can feel quite marginalising- although they do offer to cover the costs of the school trip induction trip and some funding towards uniform I believe.

Some of the school trips are hugely expensive and could be open to many more children for example if they chose to go skiing in the Alps rather than the USA.

It's not enough to just say that most boys get the general required grades to pass, those children need support to do the very best they can.

Beechen actively takes in students from outside Bath. You see students getting off the train having travelled in from Wiltshire. It's bonkers.
There are 162 places.

For ease of maths if I assume 62 places go to LAC, siblings and staff offspring, then 20% of the remaining means 20 school places. 20 places going to eg Bradford on Avon while boys from nearby Odd Down are bussed across town to St Marks as Ralph Allen is full (of children from Bathford & Batheaston who get bussed in past St Marks).
Never mind the social engineering of the 40% north of river/40% south of the river. So handy to be able to exclude the unwashed masses.

Gareth, do you know whether the admissions policy is set by the school or the LEA? It is very strange indeed, I know lots of people this year who live very near the school and have not got in because of the 40/40/20 thing. There are kids in my son's class from Bristol, which seems so ridiculous.

I confess I've not given much thought to the social engineering side of things but you're right, this policy enables that.

Hayesfield also give 20% of places to outside of Bath but I don't think they do the BA1/2 thing. Which would imply that perhaps it is the school themselves setting the policy?

The school sets the policy.
For admissions to the school last year, the distances for the 40/40/20 categories were
BA1 - 2.639 miles
BA2 - 0.754 miles
beyond Bath - 5.848 miles
And the distance is from a point equidistant between Hayesfield and Beechen Cliff, rather than the actual school which is obviously much nearer areas such as Foxhill & Odd Down.

Oh yes, it's from the co-op in Bear Flat, someone told me that.

Is the siblings of Hayesfield thing new too?

It's hard to believe they would be so cynical. But the evidence suggests so. That's awful.

Maybe the 'unannounced' aspect of the inspection had something to do with the drop in rating. Having worked in several schools and seen the flurry of activity (not to mention panic) when Ofsted visits are announced, maybe all visits should be unannounced.

Having said that it does seem unprofessional of the inspectors to arrive in the middle of the exam season, then criticise the Senco for focussing on entitlement to exam concessions!! No secondary school functions as usual during those few weeks and, arguable, shouldn't be inspected. On the other hand ... maybe it should, but taking the difference from normal school functioning into account.

The trouble with Bath is that people would rather hush this sort of thing up , especially if their child is at the school - it’s all about keeping up appearances.
My son attended this school . He was on all the sports teams at his primary school. By year 8 he had completely stopped any sport apart from lessons at school. The school really loves the very sporty boys and doesn’t support the boys who aren’t always so great . As you can imagine this doesn’t turn out well in an all boys school . My son later admitted he was bullied at the school. He said fights were rife .
Academically he did well , luckily he was bright . He didn’t turn out the confident young man we had hoped for . He went to Kingswood for 6th form and has changed so much . He is so much happier .
Unless you are heavily involved in sport or Bath rugby then this might not be the school for your son.
There is a definite rich/poor divide . It is run like a private school - which is not inclusive to the less well off . ( I say this speaking as what one would call a well of parent)
The entrance criteria is a nightmare now too because it has boarding !! Why on earth a state school has a boarding school
Is beyond me!! This means boys from all over the country can attend and not just from Bath , this in its self is wrong when it is over subscribed locally . Why are they taking boys from out of Bath. As far as I can see it’s elitist.
They are also affiliated with Hayesfield so if you have a boy in Beecher your daughter gets in to Hayesfield - hence now people get son into school and then move to less expensive Trowbridge knowing their daughter will get in to Hayesfield. This is wrong !!
The pastoral care is shocking too . I expect the parents will want to hush all this up - good god- how awful for all their boys to attend a inadequate school . They all have shunned st Marks for this reason , so it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Gareth Southgate- those figures are terrible - the kids on the other side should be attending Oldfield and St Marks

I agree with pretty much everything you say bar the last para, don't think you can lump all parents of a big school together as 'they'. Why would parents want to hush it up? There will be different viewpoints surely?

Also st Greg’s takes many kids from out of Bath ( I know it’s catholic)all getting farted into Bath and Oldfield takes lots from Bristol!!! Again all lots of taffic coming into Bath

Dockets - not everybody - but Bath does have a fair few image conscious people - driving the right car , kids at right schools, shop at Waitrose etc etc