Blackfen School for Girls

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Main findings

This is a good school. It combines a caring ethos with academic success.

Typical of comments received from parents was, 'Blackfen School has proven to be a very caring, supportive school and my child has received good results'. There is a strong record of improvement in recent years. The headteacher and senior leaders are held in high regard by students, staff, parents, carers and governors.

The results of improvements can be seen in several areas and most obviously in the accelerated improvement in GCSE results in summer 2011. These improvements, including raising attainment in the main school and the sixth form, improving behaviour and more systematic leadership at all levels, give powerful... evidence of the school's good capacity for further improvement. There is now a sharper focus on students' progress and many lessons are more engaging with varied learning activities.

The large majority of teaching is good or better. Teachers have secure subject knowledge and classroom relationships are productive. Throughout the school, students are well motivated and engaged.

As a result, the large majority of students make good progress. There remains a small minority of lessons that are no better than satisfactory. In these lessons activities are not sufficiently varied and paced so that students are fully engaged, and the needs of different ability groups are not met well enough.

Less successful lessons are more common in Key Stage 3 than in other years although even here most lessons are good. Teaching and progress are more positive in Key Stage 4. Across the school there remains some inconsistency in the quality of teaching and consequently in students' progress across subjects.

Management structures have been changed and middle leadership is becoming increasingly effective at reducing remaining inconsistency and driving improvement. The school has introduced a programme to identify and rapidly support and improve teachers where aspects of practice are less than good. This is having positive results.

In the summer 2011 examinations, attainment at the end of Year 11 was above average and represented a considerable improvement on recent years. Students' progress also improved and progress from entry to the end of Key Stage 4 is good. The proportion of students making better than expected progress is above average overall and especially so in mathematics.

In the sixth form, there has been a clear upward trend in attainment over recent years and students now make very good progress. The school's own evaluation of its strengths and areas for improvement is accurate. Part of the reason is that the school has strong systems for identifying and tackling individual underachievement.

As one parent reported, 'Particularly pleased with the way the school has dealt with my daughter's recent decline in effort. Steps were taken to get back to previous levels'. Some areas of the school's work are outstanding, specifically safeguarding and governance.

The school's arrangements for ensuring students' safeguarding are exemplary. This is partly due to the expertise and engagement in this area of teaching and non-teaching managers and members of the governing body. Behaviour is good.

Inspectors observed students in lessons, in the corridors and around the school during break and lunchtimes. They found the school to be calm and well-ordered. The vast majority of lessons were well-focused and students were engaged in their work.

Students' personal development is generally strong, but the extent to which students develop healthy lifestyles is a relative weakness identified by inspectors, parents and carers and students. The school's specialist mathematics and computing status has made a positive impact on raising standards especially through mathematics. The school recognises that there is more work to do in developing students' skills in literacy, numeracy and information technology across the majority of subjects.

Information about the school

Blackfen is a larger than average secondary school in a selective area. It has a mixed sixth form. The majority of students are White British.

A small number of students from a wide range of ethnicities make up the below-average proportion of minority ethnic students in the school. The proportion of students who speak English as an additional language is below average. The proportion of students eligible for free school meals is well below average.

A below-average proportion of students have special educational needs and/or disabilities. The school has recently established a centre for visually impaired students. The school has specialisms in mathematics and computing.