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

Interesting. Mine is also in year 8...hopefully it will help.

Are they saying 3 out of 36 classes observed? Or three out of the thirty six classes in years seven to nine that exist? Those are two very different things. If Ofsted observed 36 lessons over two days, that would be very surprising.

Sorry to get lucky about this, but...there were five Ofsted inspectors. If they observed thirty six lessons over two days, that is seven lessons each, roughly. They also will have had in depth meetings, work scrutiny, interviews with students. It seems unlikely they each spent over a day of their time in lesson observations.

Couple of things from what people have said.
Firstly they claim that there was a board school inspection in March which was good but that they did not publish it and then when they came again in May it was inadequate. The boarding school report has been published and what it says is
"Very occasionally, Ofsted will delay the publication of a report to ensure full consideration of concerns identified during the quality assurance process. In a rare instance, this process may suggest gaps in the inspection evidence base, which will cause Ofsted to conclude that the inspection is incomplete. This happened at Beechen Cliff School when the boarding provision was inspected in March 2018.
Social care inspectors returned to the school in May 2018 to gather additional information to secure the evidence base in respect of the boarding provision. In such cases, the inspection report is not published until Ofsted is satisfied that the inspection is secure. "

That is quite different as an explanation from the schools it was good and then you changed it. You can read between the lines that the inspectors carrying out the initial inspection of the very small board school part of the school saw things that they were not happy with across the school and therefore a no notice safeguarding inspired inspection of the whole school was carried out.

Secondly 3 out of 36 lessons is a low figure which does not tally with the Ofsted statement that low level disruption of lessons in KS3 is common. Common implies that is something that is frequently happening.

Thirdly getting more diversity on the Governing Board is frankly a sticking plaster in relation to the multiple issues that Ofsted identified. The Ofsted report also required the school to have a governance review carried out by an independent source, did this get mentioned at the meeting? Would love to be a fly on the wall when this is carried out.

My take from it was that they inspected 36 classes and disruption was observed in three, and these three were from KS3. Might be wrong about that.

Yes, they are getting external input, from another school and somewhere else, I can't remember the detail.

I'm not really sure what they were saying about the boarding. I think that it was judged one way and then another 2 months later and that everything got slammed in the latter inspection, not just safeguarding-related points.

I thought the reason behind the whole school inspection was the incident. Not sure about how many classes they observed or how many were disruptive. I know they're quite strict in general, they have a warning, detention or go to the work room, which seems to work OK. I know a boy was suspended for being cheeky - swearing and chewing gum, for three days I think. So, it isn't tolerated.

They do seem to have a couple of supply teachers at present I noticed.

Wonder if they will work with Hayesfield which would make sense seeing as they are linked anyway.

Well it seems the issues continue to mount!
There’s an article about the school and its mock slave auction in today’s Sunday Times. In fact the article suggests the school may have to close.

Don't worry-there are masses of parents of able, white, middle class boys who support the school and believe a deep injustice has been done. In 18 months, if BC sorts issues and is no longer adequate, they will believe that this shows the first report was wrong, not that progress has been made.

Sorry-that was a bit catty, but I've slightly had it with those who can't read a disturbing report for what it is.

“termination warning notice” by the government, threatening to withdraw its funding. From the article here www.thetimes.co.uk/article/top-state-school-beechen-cliff-in-bath-may-close-after-mock-slave-auction-vtks3tq5z

Yes and then there are simply parents like me on low incomes and not with especially middle class children who are just concerned about their school as well. Talk about lumping everyone together.

"The Department for Education said it was awaiting a response from the school to its termination warning notice before deciding what to do."

Wonder what happens in this kind of situation, anyone know? What kind of response would the school give to this and how it would affect it.

The last sentence sound like they want it to improve, not close, though.

It added: “The department is working to ensure there is rapid and sustained improvement in Beechen Cliff School.”

Ok, I had a look online and it clarifies about these notices here. schoolsweek.co.uk/what-are-warning-notices-and-how-do-they-work/

It doesn't mean it has to close, that would be a 'notice of intention to terminate', with this one it means they have some time to change things. Think it was a bit wrong of the Times article to suggest that to be honest.

Ah, see "Somerset Live are now wrongly reporting in this, saying the school has the notice of intention to terminate, instead. Helpful.

www.somersetlive.co.uk/in-your-area/beechen-cliff-school-could-close-1787246

As an outside observer, having read the report + the head's response on the website, as well as bits of the parental report on the Twitter feed, I actually think that the 'shock effect' of these articles, however erroneous they are in detail, may be useful in demonstrating to the parent body how serious the issues are.

That said, again as an outside observer but someone involved in education, the focus on the single incident in the press coverage remains really unhelpful in addressing the much more worrying cultural and educational issues within the report - of progress, of behaviour, of teaching, of safeguarding, of critical paperwork, of governance, of e.g. abuse of extended study leave...

It might leave those particularly 'head in the sand' parents & teachers & management team with the impression that if they can 'live down' the single incident, everything will be just fine, whereas there are obvious, much wider, deep-seated educational issues that need to be addressed as well.

Of the 10 'summary bullet point' issues that start the report, 7 have nothing to do with the incident, and 1 is only partially to do with it.

Within the rest of the report, only a tiny minority of the critical comments refer to, or are anything to do with, the incident.

However, someone reading the press coverage could easily decide that, without this single incident, the school would still be excellent in all other ways.

I have seen a report of a school reported and inspected for a safeguarding failure, which was otherwise Outstanding ... and believe you me, it looked NOTHING like Beechen Hill's.

@lovelybath77 You asked about Oldfield upthread, I have one in year 7, mild SEN and SFSG. One incident of some bullying behaviour dealt with inside 48 hours and no further probs. Lots of clubs and they seem to value the arts as well as the other stuff. Used to have a huge catchment as Bath is rare (and I don't think people living there appreciate how lucky they are) in having a choice of good schools, and spare capacity but the catchment is shrinking and will be mostly siblings from out of town soon I expect. Nice mix of kids. My child is shy and not good with change but has grown up a lot and made nice friends. Its overlooked by a lot of Bath parents, but I'm selfishly glad about that as it meant my child got a place.

Thanks, I wasn't considering a change in school to Oldfield, just commenting about the catchment area and a previous head / Ofsted.
My son is really settled at BC so wouldn't consider moving, he'd be really upset if he knew it might be closing.

It is political to make the School join a MAT. Always been a good School with a fab head.
Sadly the Governors didn't support the Head when he permanently excluded 2 boys over a racist incident!

www.somersetlive.co.uk/in-your-area/beechen-cliff-school-could-close-1787246

Teachergirl,

Have you read the full Ofsted report?

It certainly doesn't sound - and I read a LOT of Ofsted reports - as if the only problem with the school is the governors not supporting the head?

Probably more pertinently, I read a lot of Ofsted reports for stand-alone (ie non-MAT) academies.

If your view that 'it is all political' was correct, then all of these reports should be worse than corresponding MAT schools of similar standards, and LA-controlled schools should be even worse. There is no general pattern of this type (though there is a general pattern of Ofsted result being statistically linked to nature of intake - schools with low %PP are much more likely to be outstanding than those with very high %PP).

The Beechen Cliff's full Ofsted report is, genuinely, one of the worst I have ever seen, with very few glimmers of light.

I have read the full report. It is political to make it become part of a MAT.

Does the governing body know what the staff think?

The governing body should ask staff to complete an anonymous survey with both direct and open questions.

I would be surprised if there was overwhelming support for the head among the staff.