Bishop Perowne CofE College

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Bishop Perowne CofE College is an inclusive school.

Pupils feel safe in school. They know a trusted adult will listen to them and provide support.

The school has high expectations of what pupils can do.

Pupils live up to these. Their positive attitudes create a calm and well-ordered school. Pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), are eager to learn.

Teachers build on this enthusiasm to help pupils remember important knowledge. As a result, pupils achieve well.

Most pupils attend school each day.

Staff work effectively with many pupils and their families to improve attendance. However, the s...chool's oversight of why some pupils are often absent is not clear. These pupils' attendance is not improving and gaps in their knowledge widen.

The school offers pupils a thoughtfully constructed personal development and enrichment curriculum. Pupils can marvel at the wonders of a live orchestral performance. They can join in a diverse range of fun and friendly team-building and problem-solving challenges.

Their engagement in sporting events is inspired by female sporting role models. Pupils enjoy working together. They say everyone is welcome.

These experiences make this school a close-knit community, where pupils' well-being matters.

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

Pupils follow a broad and ambitious curriculum. For instance, they can study two modern foreign languages.

Pupils who speak English as an additional language master English quickly. Many of them then choose to study a further language. These opportunities have accelerated pupils' uptake of the English Baccalaureate.

This well-designed curriculum has subsequently bolstered pupils' post-16 academic study options.

The school has sequenced its curriculum content well. Teachers have strong subject knowledge and know what to teach and how to teach it effectively.

Pupils receive clear guidance and instructions about lesson tasks. Their teachers use 'visualisers' to model new learning, which help pupils to retain knowledge. Teachers deliberately check disadvantaged pupils' understanding first.

This approach gives these pupils immediate feedback, which irons out any misconceptions. Teachers' timely interventions help these pupils to consolidate key knowledge. As a result, pupils remember what they have been taught and apply this well with new tasks.

The school identifies the needs of pupils with SEND accurately. Staff know how to support these pupils well. Staff adapt tasks to help pupils deepen their knowledge and produce high-quality work.

The school provides effective support for pupils who struggle to read. Trained staff teach pupils the skills to read the same lesson material as their peers. As a result, they soon become confident and fluent readers.

The school has worked hard to improve pupils' behaviour. Staff reward those who meet the school's high expectations with achievement points. The more points secured, the more privileges a pupil receives.

This recognition motivates pupils to be the best they can be.

Pupils' attendance at school is improving. The school's tailored support for many pupils has increased their attendance.

However, a small number of pupils still have low attendance rates. Recent checks show that these pupils' absences are not coded correctly. This prevents the school's accurate identification and analysis of the reasons for these absences.

The school offers pupils memorable personal development lessons. For instance, they learn from guest speakers about Holocaust Memorial Day and Black History month. Tutorials focus on topical issues such as cyber-bullying, diversity and conflict.

These sessions help to deepen pupils' knowledge about equal rights. They also remind everyone to be kind and not mean. As a result, pupils are well prepared for community life in modern Britain.

Pupils benefit from a comprehensive and engaging careers curriculum. They are well-informed about a wide range of career options. This prepares pupils well for their next steps.

Staff value the school's effective actions to restructure the curriculum. This has addressed disadvantaged pupils' lower performance in recent external examinations. These pupils now make strong progress in their lessons.

Staff are proud to work here. Their morale is high.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• The school does not code absences correctly for some pupils who are often absent. This means that the school is unclear about the potential barriers these pupils face. The school should put in place clear systems to identify the reasons for absence and code these correctly, and use this information well to take appropriate and well-focused actions to improve attendance where needed.