Broom Valley Community School 'inadequate'

A STRUGGLING school has been placed in special measures after going from being rated “good” to “inadequate” in two years.

Broom Valley Community School has been criticised by Ofsted inspectors for failing to provide an acceptable standard of education.

Staff now have two years to reverse the downward trend in attainment—or face more serious sanctions.

Rotherham Borough Council described the news as “very disappointing”, but  was confident of an upturn in fortunes.

Ofsted inspector Ken Valentine said of the school: “Too much teaching is inadequate or barely satisfactory and this severely limits improvement in pupils' achievement.

“Work lacks challenge, particularly for the most able pupils and in some lessons the pace of work is too slow resulting in a deterioration in pupils’ behaviour.

“Pupils’ achievement is inadequate. Their progress stalls in Key Stage 1 and it is poor in Key Stage 2.

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“As a result, standards attained by pupils at the age of 11 are very low in comparison with the national average.”

Assessment of work and progress is said to be too generous, leading to inaccurate teaching plans.

Literacy and maths were noted as particular weaknesses, despite a “satisfactory” curriculum.

The 445-pupil community school was formed when the junior and infants were amalgamated at the start of the 2008/9 school year.

Head teacher David Saunders said this week he was disappointed with the Ofsted grading, and felt that recent changes were not reflected.

“However, we are committed to improving learning for our pupils and that commitment is shared by staff, governors, pupils and parents,” he added.

“Inspectors have raised a number of issues which we were already working on to help our pupils attainment improve and we now have a full action plan to boost that work.

“Changes already in place include strengthening pupil-tracking systems, identifying appropriate targets for individual pupils and ensuring intervention programmes impact on accelerated progress for individual pupils.

“It is clear from the report that the school does have strengths and is seen in a positive way by parents and pupils.

“The school has been through a challenging time with our amalgamation but as the report says this has been a successful transition.”

Mr Saunders said youngsters that enjoyed their time at school, pointing to impressive attendance records as proof.

He added: “Community cohesion was identified as a significant strength of the school due to our full involvement in community life and the way in which we work in partnership with other agencies.

“We are confident that with the introduction of our new initiatives, coupled with the support of the local authority and our school community, we will see major positive changes at Broom Valley in the coming months which will take our rating back to the good standard we had before.”

Catharine Kinsella, the borough council’s senior director for Schools and Lifelong Learning, said: “Clearly it is very disappointing when Ofsted decides to grade a school as requiring ‘special measures’.”

“Ofsted’s new inspection regime does bring new and increased challenges for schools.

“The local authority is confident that Broom Valley will improve its Ofsted rating when inspectors return to the school.

“The school has already to put together an action plan to pick up on the issues raised by the inspectors and the council is supporting the head teacher and staff to do this.”