Cleeve School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Cleeve is an aspirational school for its pupils. Expectations are high. The curriculum is ambitious, broad and sequenced carefully.

Staff engender positive relationships and look to make lessons challenging. Pupils respond positively. Most enjoy school.

They take pride in their work and achievements. Many realise their potential. Overall, pupils achieve well, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and those who are disadvantaged.

Pupils behave well. Staff aim high for pupils academically and holistically. Bullying is not tolerated.

The school has introduced some sensible changes to how the behaviour policy works. So...me pupils find the higher expectations on them hard. Occasionally, the application of the policy is varied, which means pupils' confidence in it is mixed.

Nevertheless, lessons are typically focused and purposeful. Pupils move around the school calmly and respectfully. Pupils make a positive contribution to the friendly atmosphere.

Pupils benefit from an extremely broad and varied offer. They embrace opportunities to enrich their understanding of the world through a wide array of extra-curricular opportunities and in ways that contribute to the life of the school and wider community. They are exceptionally well prepared for life in modern Britain.

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

Cleeve School strives, through authentic, distributed leadership, to help pupils achieve their potential. Staff work together relentlessly to find ways to continually improve provision further. Significant investment is made in the development of staff, including those who are in the early stages of their careers.

Trustees share leaders' ambition. They know the school well. They have put in place useful processes to hold leaders to account and check what leaders tell them.

For example, they challenge leaders to ensure that the English Baccalaureate is at the centre of the school's curriculum. Leaders act swiftly and appropriately to tackle areas that could be better. For example, pupils' attendance overall is strong and improving, while suspensions are reducing.

Pupils behave well in lessons and around the school.

The school has strengthened its work to identify how to support pupils with SEND. There are now much sharper processes for identifying pupils' needs and sharing this information with staff.

For many pupils with SEND, these improvements are effective. However, inconsistencies remain in the application of these improved processes in class. This means that for some pupils with SEND, their needs are not met as well as they could be and they do not achieve as well as they should.

The effectiveness of the school's actions to improve can be seen in the carefully constructed, ambitious and well-designed curriculum. Most pupils learn this curriculum well. This is reflected in the strong outcomes achieved at the end of key stage 4 and in the sixth form.

Pupils are typically very well prepared for the next stage of their education, employment or training.

Typically, the curriculum is taught effectively. Systematic approaches to teaching, known as 'STRIVE', help pupils know what to expect, and they learn the intended curriculum effectively.

Staff use assessment diligently to check what pupils are learning in lessons and over time. This helps to ensure that gaps in learning are identified and that the curriculum can be continually adapted and improved to promote learning better. However, the school's approaches to teaching, including meeting the needs of pupils with SEND and managing behaviour, are not applied consistently.

Whereas this does not affect most pupils' learning, it can mean that some do not learn or retain new knowledge as well as their peers.

Pupils' reading is prioritised. Pupils benefit from a range of strategies to help them to read better.

This includes exposure to the 'Cleeve Canon', delivered through the tutor reading programme. Furthermore, pupils who struggle to read benefit from a focused reading programme. This helps them read with greater independence and fluency.

Provision in the sixth form is excellent. The design and implementation of the curriculum is exceptionally strong and consistent here. Students, including those who are disadvantaged and those with SEND, achieve exceptionally well.

They rightly say that they learn the qualifications, which are broad and tailored to meet local demand, in detail and that they are supported very effectively into ambitious next steps.

Pupils' personal development is promoted and provided for exceptionally well. Pupils have plentiful opportunities to understand social, moral and cultural issues.

Extra-curricular activities enrich pupils' experiences considerably. Careers advice is woven carefully into the curriculum from Year 7. The school ensures that pupils benefit from advice that is sequenced logically, including for those who continue into the sixth form.

Pupils work together and develop leadership skills through wide-ranging opportunities, and through work experience. Consequently, pupils learn to be self-aware, are prepared well for the future and know how to keep themselves safe.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• There are inconsistencies in the implementation of the school's policies for teaching the curriculum and meeting the needs of pupils with SEND. This means that, while most pupils learn the curriculum well and show positive attitudes to learning, including many with SEND, a small minority do not do as well as they could. The school should ensure that staff apply the school's policies for teaching the curriculum and meeting the needs of pupils with SEND consistently, so that even more pupils reach their potential.

Also at this postcode