A Merseyside primary school previously rated as ‘good’ has seen its performance decline after becoming an academy.
Park View primary school in Huyton became part of the Dean multi academy trust in January 2016. The trusts runs a number of schools across the north west, including Lord Derby academy in Knowsley.
Before Park View’s conversion to an academy, the school – which caters to over 360 children aged between three and 11 – was rated ‘good’ by Ofsted, with “exemplary” leadership, “outstanding” behaviour from pupils and good attainment.
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In 2018, after it had converted, the school was subject to an initial “short inspection” where it was also deemed good.
Inspectors spoke of “great emphasis on pupils’ aspirations” and effective leadership, although it was also noted the school’s development plan “lacks the refinement needed to ensure that leaders, including governors and members of the trust, can plan for, and check on the school’s progress towards improvement.”
In the most recent inspection carried out by the education watchdog in November 2021, inspectors said there had been a decline in standards.
Rating the school as ‘requires improvement’, inspectors noted that while pupils feel “happy and safe” at the school with a well-planned curriculum, progress was “patchy” for some pupils.
Inspectors said a recently redesigned curriculum was not being fully implemented, meaning the situation for pupils was “variable” across subjects.
Problems in terms of leadership were also identified, with inspectors stating that leaders do not “ensure that teachers make effective use of the assessment information that they gather.”
Inspectors also said provision for pupils with special educational needs has at times “not enabled pupils with SEND to achieve as well as they should.”
The report said this meant children “sometimes miss out on key learning that their peers have experienced.”
Listing recommendations for improvements, inspectors said the school needed to ensure that curriculum plans were fully rolled out, teachers used assessment more effectively, to plan to fill gaps brought about by the pandemic as well as build up children’s early years knowledge, particularly in terms of reading.
To improve the experience and achievement of pupils with special educational needs, inspectors said the school needs to ensure staff have knowledge to put in place suitable adaptations and support to enable pupils to learn as well as they can.
Commenting on the findings of the report, operations director for the multi academy Dean Trust, Andrew Shakos, said: “We were naturally disappointed with the judgement, particularly as we had received such a glowing Ofsted report a few weeks earlier at our sister school Blacklow Brow which is served by the same leadership team delivering the same curriculum.
“The Ofsted team had also recognised that improvements had been made since the last inspection.
“We nevertheless take into consideration the feedback we received and move forward positively so that our pupils receive high-quality education within a safe, supportive and aspirational environment.
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