Albany Academy

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Albany Academy is a friendly and welcoming school. It is a school where pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), feel happy and safe. Pupils know who to turn to if they have any problems.

They value the pastoral support that they receive from caring and committed staff.

The school is ambitious for all pupils' achievement. To this end, the school, together with the trust, has developed a broad and balanced curriculum that reflects its high expectations.

Pupils typically achieve well.

Pupils' behaviour embodies the school's high standards. The school is calm and orderly.

Pupils are polite and courteous... towards each other and to visitors. In the main, pupils behave well in lessons and during social times. They recognise the importance of accepting the differences between people.

The school places a strong emphasis on pupils' personal development. For example, many older pupils enjoy completing the Duke of Edinburgh's Award. Pupils are also offered a range of leadership opportunities, such as becoming high-performance learning ambassadors, where they are encouraged to support their peers.

Added to this, there is a variety of clubs that pupils can access, such as sports, chess and card games.

What does the school do well and what does it need to do better?

Following the previous inspection, the school, supported by the trust, made considerable changes to the curriculum. In many subjects, the key stage 3 curriculum has been overhauled.

The new subject curriculums are suitably ambitious for all pupils, including those with SEND. The school has carefully identified and organised the important knowledge that pupils should learn in these subjects. This is helping pupils to build their knowledge cumulatively as they progress through the curriculum.

Teachers have strong subject knowledge. For the most part, they use this to explain new concepts to pupils clearly. In many subjects, teachers assess pupils' knowledge and understanding regularly.

When this is done well, it is effective, enabling pupils to secure a strong body of subject knowledge. However, the school's strategies to check learning and to address pupils' misconceptions are not fully embedded in other subjects. From time to time, this hinders teachers' from identifying gaps in aspects of pupils' knowledge.

Occasionally, this slows down some pupils' progress through the curriculum.

The school identifies the additional needs of pupils with SEND quickly. It ensures that teachers receive relevant information about how to support pupils with SEND to fully access the curriculum, for example using detailed pupil passports.

This enables teachers to meet pupils' individual needs well. Pupils, together with their parents and carers, welcome the considered and appropriate support and guidance that they receive from the SEND team, including in the 'Base' room.

The school fully understands the importance of reading.

It has implemented a coherent programme to support those pupils who are not confident readers to improve their reading fluency and comprehension. This approach is helping many pupils to catch up with their peers. The school also promotes reading for pleasure, for instance through ensuring that the library is a welcoming and vibrant area.

Pupils across the school have the opportunity to read a wide variety of high-quality texts, including texts that link to the topics that they are learning in the curriculum.

Pupils display positive attitudes to their learning. Low level disruption in lessons is rare.

When it does occur, teachers deal with it swiftly and effectively. The school ensures that pupils and their families understand the importance of regular attendance to school. It rigorously analyses patterns and trends in pupils' rates of attendance and uses this information well to identify and remove the barriers that some pupils face in coming to school often.

As a result of the school's successful strategies, the attendance of some pupils has increased considerably.

The personal development offer helps pupils to build and develop their understanding of important topics over time. For example, the school builds in opportunities for pupils to respond to current issues that arise, nationally and within the local community.

Pupils learn how to develop healthy relationships and how to look after their mental and physical health. The school is aspirational for pupils' future success. As such, pupils receive comprehensive information, which guides them to make informed choices about their next steps in education, training or employment.

Improvements to the curriculum have been made at pace. Most staff are supportive of the positive changes that have been made to the quality of education that pupils receive. A few staff, however, expressed concerns that the school did not consider the impact of the changes to the curriculum on staff's workload sufficiently well.

Those responsible for governance fulfil their statutory responsibilities well. Trustees hold the school to account effectively.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• In some subjects, the school's approaches to assessment are not used consistently well to check pupils' understanding. This means that, on occasions, teachers do not know how well pupils have secured essential knowledge or understood key ideas. The school should ensure that assessment strategies in these subjects support teachers to identify and address any emerging misconceptions or gaps in pupils' knowledge.

• The rapid improvement that the school has made to the quality of education that pupils receive has inadvertently increased the workload of some staff. A few staff do not feel that they have been as well supported as they could have been during this process. The school should ensure that it fully considers the views of staff, and the impact on workload, when making changes to policy and procedure.