Blackfriars Academy

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is an outstanding school. Leadership and management are exceptional. Leaders have successfully led the school through all the changes, strengthening teaching and learning extremely well through highly effective checking of performance and very well targeted training.

All students whatever their ages or backgrounds make outstanding progress in all subjects, including English and mathematics, and in their personal development. This is because the teaching is outstanding and everyone is ambitious for students so that students achieve, and often exceed, their challenging targets. Teaching is so good because teachers and their teams work highly effectively together; te...achers pitch the work at exactly the right level for students, building their confidence and their ability to work on their own.

Students' behaviour is outstanding. They make excellent progress in their communication skills and the ways in which they work with others and manage their own behaviour. They feel extremely safe and are safe at school.

The sixth form is outstanding. Sixth form students are extremely well supported towards the next steps in their lives and education. This is because of excellent teaching and the range of highly relevant qualifications and courses the school has developed for them.

Students' spiritual, moral, social and cultural and their personal development are outstanding. A climate of mutual respect and celebration of each others' achievements and differences underpins everything the school does. Governors check up very well on the school's work and the difference that additional funding and measures to support students are making.

The federation and extensive partnership links enable a rich array of additional experiences and courses to be available to students so that the school is able to provide impressively well for a very wide range of abilities and backgrounds. The very strong leadership within the school has secured rapid improvements since the last inspection and ensures that it continues to get even better.

Information about this school

Blackfriars is a large community special school, located on two sites, which has been subject to redesignation as a generic special school since its last inspection.

It caters for students from 11 to 19 years of age on two sites six miles apart; 103 students aged between 11–16 are based at the Newcastle-under-Lyme site and 85 sixth form students are based at a site in Bucknall, Stoke-on-Trent. Although the school is within Staffordshire local authority, its students are also drawn from surrounding local authorities and in particular the majority in the sixth form are from Stoke-on-Trent. Students often enter the school part-way during their educational career.

The majority who attend the school's sixth form did not attend the 11–16 provision, being drawn from other special schools in the area and sometimes mainstream schools. Five pupils, who are in Years 5 and 6, also attend the school and are taught alongside Year 7 students. These pupils were already attending the school at the time of its redesignation in 2011.

All students have a statement of special educational need, usually for learning difficulties; many have multiple difficulties such as physical and medical needs; behavioural, emotional and social difficulties; sensory needs or autistic spectrum disorders. The very large majority of students are White British with very few from other ethnic backgrounds. A very high proportion of students are eligible for the pupil premium, which is special government funding to give extra support to students who are eligible for free school meals or are in local authority care.

Since April 2009 the school has been part of a federation with another special school, The Coppice. The two schools share an executive headteacher and a governing body. The school does not offer any alternative education for its students.

The school has numerous prestigious awards and in 2011 became a National Support School. Its executive headteacher is a National Leader in Education. The school provides an outreach support service to local schools for pupils with physical and medical needs.