Report of Activity

CONFIDENTIAL 

Report of Activity 

Establishment Harrow Way Community School 

District Council Test Valley 

DFE No 4163 Area West 

Report Recipient Michael Serridge Date 26 February 2015 

Author of Record Jean Thorpe Term Spring 

Activity Reason: 

Additional Focus: 

LA funded 

Annual visit 

CONTEXT 

This is a report of the Local Authority’s (LA) annual visit to the school. The purpose of the 

visit is to work alongside the school, helping it to evaluate the progress that it has made in 

addressing key areas from its improvement plan and to identify any support required from 

the LA over the coming year. 

The school was inspected by Ofsted in July 2013 and judged to be good. The key 

improvement issue identified was to: 

 

Raise students’ achievement and the proportion of outstanding teaching by: 

o ensuring that homework is regularly set in order to encourage independent 

learning and develop students’ study, research and time management skills 

o making sure that marking provides students with useful feedback on how 

well they are doing and what they must do to improve their work and raise 

their achievement 

o promoting students’ numeracy and problem solving skills in all subjects 

across the curriculum. 

The school appointed a new deputy headteacher with responsibility for Achievement and 

Standards for September 2014. 

The focus of this leadership and learning partner review (LLPR) visit was to review the 

school’s data and the impact of its work in securing further improvements. A further 

element of the visit was to explore a school identified line of enquiry; how far has the 

school developed its inclusion practice and provision, and supporting 

disadvantaged students? 

There are approximately 870 students on roll with 25% known to be eligible for free 

schools meals (FSM), inline with that nationally. The special educational needs and 

disabilities (SEND) profile in the school is similar to that nationally with 18% at either 

SA+/Statemented or SA. 

During the visit an extended discussion was held with the headteacher to discuss the 

school’s internal data. A learning walk was carried out to view the school in session, 

including a Year 11 assembly, and then further discussions took place with inclusion staff 

to determine their approaches in supporting the most vulnerable students. A discussion 

Page 1 of 6 

LLP Report of visit Harrow Way Community School March 2015

CONFIDENTIAL 

also took place with the recently appointed deputy headteacher to consider the overview 

and strategic development thinking around supporting disadvantaged students. 

The chair of governors attended the meeting with the headteacher for the feedback. 

COMMENTARY 

The school’s self-evaluation and progress 

Evaluation 

against 

Ofsted 

criteria 

Overall 

Effectiveness 

Achievement Quality of 

Teaching 

Behaviour 

and 

Safety 

Leadership 

and 

Management 

Last 

Ofsted 

(07/13) 

School’s 

current 

view 

2 2 2 2 2 

2 2 2 2 2 

The school currently judges itself to be good across all areas, although its self-evaluation 

indicates that most of the areas are now stronger than when judged by Ofsted and are 

striving towards being judged as outstanding. 

The school has very robust and ongoing processes to ensure that whole evaluation takes 

place regularly and that all staff are clear about the ongoing priorities and areas of focus. 

The school’s culture of seeking to self-improve and in being committed to regular cycles 

of review means that there is a clear sense of direction from the most senior leaders, 

which is underpinned by a clear articulation of the school’s vision. Acknowledging that 

‘outstanding progress’, ‘high aspirations’, and ‘resilient learners’ as part of the Harrow 

Way DNA is the school’s aim, the school evaluates its progress against these ambitions 

regularly. 

The headteacher is clear that processes for evaluating progress across the school and 

determining its effectiveness must involve all middle and senior leaders, must be simple, 

clear and be dialogic requiring discussion and explanation across all groups of staff and 

departments, to ensure areas for improvement are known and understood. A recent 

example of this is the identification that assessment practices needed to improve since 

there was too much variation and that effective marking and feedback were not well 

enough embedded. Following whole school development, this has now been improved; 

regular ‘marketplace showcases’ take place in the library to share samples of quality 

marking to ensure greater consistency. Middle leaders also undertake work sampling, 

and the outcomes of this fed back to the senior leadership team. 

The headteacher rightly recognises the need to ensure that middle leader Head of 

Departments’ self-evaluation is as strong and accurate as that at senior leader level. The 

school therefore has in place a middle leader secondment programme whereby staff join 

the senior leadership team (SLT), enabling them to have greater awareness of the core 



CONFIDENTIAL 

decision making process at school but also to replicate the level of improvementthoroughness 

within their department. At least seven staff have benefitted from this 

programme. The rigour of line management is strong and supports consistent 

expectation of all staff. The headteacher is visible and views his involvement in the dayto-day 

life of the school as being critical to supporting and challenging staff and students. 

He acknowledges that the leadership of the school will be further enhanced by some 

greater delegation, particularly within governance, and that this will further raise levels of 

accountability. 

Improving and focusing on high quality teaching and learning is seen by all as being 

fundamental to the school’s continued success; teaching is judged to be at least good 

through the school with much of it outstanding. Discussion about teaching and learning is 

frequent and acknowledged to be the school’s core business. Regular teaching and 

Learning Summary Reports following systematic evaluation are shared with staff and the 

governing body and highlight areas of strength but also areas for development. This 

feeds in to bespoke and whole school continued professional development (CPD). 

Developments to the school’s approach to CPD now include both whole school and staff 

specific workshops, combined with regular feedback. The lead for CPD also line 

manages the school’s lead practitioners which ensures a balanced approach to both 

subject specific elements as well as excellence in teaching. 

Behaviour and safety is good; attendance has improved over the past three years as 

have exclusion rates and in-school behaviour. The school’s work on sharing the 

development of its ethos, together with the focus on the rights respecting work has 

contributed to staff and students drafting the school’s core values. Appointing two 

assistant Year Leaders is reported to have assisted in improving day-to-day student 

behaviour, preventing escalation of incidents and ensuring that the focus on learning is 

regained quickly. Attendance currently stands at 94.6% and persistent absenteeism has 

been reduced to under 4.8% (2013/14) and below the national figure of 5.8%. Fixed term 

exclusions have also improved markedly from 19% in 2013/14 to 7.9% to date during 

2014/15. The school is committed to maintaining this low level of exclusion. 

Pupil progress and attainment 

Outcomes for 2014 were strong and considerably improved over 2013; 5A*-C EM was 

61%, 6% above national attainment, and similarly above for most student groups. 

Attainment in English was particularly high, and also strong in humanities, art and 

performing arts, as well as some areas of science. Attainment was weaker in design and 

technology (D&T). This group of students’ prior attainment was below that nationally and 

therefore the students’ progress is strong. Overall value-added score of 1004.7 places 

the school’s progress above expectations and significantly so for English, languages and 

humanities. Expected and exceeding expected progress measures for English are very 

strong at 85% and 47% respectively, 15% above that nationally for each indicator. In 

mathematics the measure is also above that nationally by approximately 5% at 70% and 

33%. The school has identified that although in all subjects pupils make progress in line 

with that nationally, there remains some underperformance in science (core), D&T 

resistant materials/graphics, PE and English Literature. 



CONFIDENTIAL 

The school is aware that 2014 outcomes were affected by a small number of students 

who were educated off-site, and continues to work closely with external provision to 

ensure more effective support and intervention. 

A number of changes have been implemented to support improvement this year; the 

development of lead practitioners in core subjects is enabling a strong drive to support 

behaviour for learning as well as focus on continuous improvement in teaching and 

learning. A number of new middle leader roles have been appointed and with school 

induction are beginning to influence and contribute to the wider school effectiveness. A 

new head of department in technology, of food, and of ICT have been appointed. 

Improvements in science are steady; coursework results in physics and chemistry are 

looking strong, and matching that historically of biology. The school is rightly planning to 

ensure it is well prepared for the Progress 8 measure, appointing more staff in humanities 

including a second in department. 

The current year 11’s attainment of entry was overall significantly below national levels 

and slightly below that of the previous year; 26% are considered to be performing in the 

lower prior attainment band compared with 16% nationally. The school predicts 

approximately 60% will achieve 5A*-CEM. Analysis to date indicates that students are 

making good progress and that at least 85% in English and 72% in mathematics will 

make at least three levels of progress. This will consolidate the high expectations of the 

school and endorse the rigorous evaluation systems in place. 

Evaluation of Key Stage 3 indicates that attainment will further strengthen in both English 

and in particular mathematics; the school is predicting a neutral Progress 8 measure for 

2016 and +0.5 for 2017. 

Support for more vulnerable students 

The 5A*-C EM attainment gap between disadvantaged and other students began to close 

in 2014 to 20%. The school has a programme of support and mentoring for students in 

receipt of Pupil Premium, which is supporting accelerated progress. The school predicts 

that the attainment gap will further reduce in 2015 to 15-18%. Analysis of the impact of 

this through Key Stage 3 indicates that progress in English and mathematics between 

disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students will close to approximately 6%. 

The school has four children in care (CiC) students. 

Discussion with the team supporting inclusion explored the range of strategies in place to 

support the range of student needs. Linking the SEND needs and interventions with 

parent support advisor and welfare assistant support, as well as aspects of the Flexible 

Learning Centre enables the school to have a more holistic view and access to a range of 

strategies to ensure greater support. The use of inclusion mapping outlining a hierarchy 

of needs and analyses supports fortnightly inclusion meetings involving heads of year and 

pastoral leads. The team acknowledges the positive impact of the recently appointed 

assistant Year Leads in supporting students’ pastoral needs more effectively, and 

proactively, enabling Year Leaders to concentrate of student progress rather than 

behaviour. 



CONFIDENTIAL 

The use of an internal exclusion room has developed, with greater focus now on ensuring 

it provides alternative provision. The school‘s data shows that Year 11 exclusions are 

higher in 2015 than Year 11 students last year but that the number of days lost has 

halved, indicating a shift in culture across the school. 

The progress of SEND students is not yet sufficiently high; whilst attainment at School 

Action level is broadly in line with national expectations for 5A*-CEM measure, those at 

School Action plus (SA+) are below, although attainment in English is stronger. The 

SEND team has identified that the combined SA+/FSM profile is of particular concern and 

these students have been targeted as they join the school at Year 7 and into Year 8. A 

range of commercial approaches is being used, as well as intervention teaching 

strategies, including homework sessions, precision teaching, a focus on literacy and 

language skills, as well as close monitoring of behaviour and attendance. The range of 

outreach support for this group of pupils has now been extended. The school has a 

number of positive case studies, which can exemplify the impact of this work, but 

recognises that further work is required. The school is clear that improved linking of 

strategies and approaches used across primaries in to secondary needs to be more 

robust with higher expectations of the adult professionals and students’ engagement. 

Work has been established with the feeder schools to address this more coherently. 

The recently appointed deputy headteacher is exploring the school’s approach to 

supporting the most disadvantaged students. Work to date has focused on developing a 

greater understanding that a tighter and more holistic view needs to be held of these 

students in terms of their parental engagement, the independence of them as learners, 

their literacy skills, and their mental and emotional health and well-being, and that this 

information and approach needs to be better understood across the whole school on a 

student by student basis. The emerging view is that this work will then link more closely 

to that of the current inclusion practices and result in raised aspirations for these students 

at the outset. It is expected that this work will sharpen the work of support staff working 

with these students, increase the pace of literacy interventions, and raise the 

understanding of what students require beyond offering with the school has access to. 

This work is ambitious but appropriately aspirational and will fine-tune the approaches 

and the provision that the school already has in place. It is envisaged that a team of staff 

will support this work with the deputy headteacher. 

School improvement priorities 

The Strategic Improvement Plan is in place and has identified appropriate areas for 

development in line with the Ofsted priorities and in support of the school’s work towards 

being an outstanding school. A continued focus on improving achievement for all student 

groups underpinned by developing teaching and learning is at the core of the school’s 

work. 

Priority for support 

The school continues to be a low priority for LA support, due to its improved 

achievement, its strong approaches to self-evaluation and evidenced commitment to 

improve. 



CONFIDENTIAL 

ACTION 

In addition to the school’s priority to raise achievement for all students, the following 

aspects are identified: 

 

 

Further develop the approaches, expectations and provision, for the more 

disadvantaged students, building on and refining the inclusion work, 

Explore opportunities to strengthen accountability for further leadership delegation, 

particularly with regards to governance. 

Signed: 

Date: 

Copy To: 

Headteacher 

Chair of Governors 

David Hardcastle (AD) 

Ann Truman (SIM) 

Jean Thorpe (LLP) 

Author of Record 

Duration Preparation Follow Up Charge Code 

Day(s) 1 

Hour(s) 

Total Time Author of Record Day(s) Hour(s) 

1

Report of Activity

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