Hall Green School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Main findings

Hall Green is a welcoming, friendly and good school. Students feel safe and well cared for; they achieve well because of good teaching and high levels of support.

The considerable and well-established expertise in supporting students with physical disabilities to achieve is notable. Students' achievement, particularly in English and mathematics, has improved markedly since the last inspection, including the achievement of different groups of students. Students' examination results are above average.

Students develop in confidence, gaining useful life and work-related skills which help almost all of them to move on highly positively in their next steps in education or employment. Students from... a range of different ethnic heritages work harmoniously and highly productively because of the excellent grounding they receive in learning how to respect each other and work together. The large majority of lessons are good or better.

Teachers plan carefully to ensure that their strategies match students' needs; strategies are mostly successful, although teachers sometimes miss opportunities to provide a high level of challenge for the most-able students. Learning in lessons is often of high quality but, in a small minority of lessons, teachers over-direct activities and do not make students think for themselves. Students' needs and interests are met well by the curriculum.

Carefully planned developments have broadened option choices alongside maintaining a strong focus on core subjects. Support for students at risk of underperforming is put in place promptly and is highly effective. Individual learning plans for students with special educational needs, however, are often over general.

The headteacher and senior managers provide strong and effective leadership with a clear focus on raising standards, as shown by the much improved results. The headteacher's clarity of vision, combined with rigorous self-evaluation and monitoring, give the school good capacity to improve further. Senior managers have helped middle managers to become confident and skilled in using assessment data and taking successful action for improvement.

Particularly effective action has been taken to close the gap between boys' and girls' achievement, illustrating the school's good promotion of equality. However, the leadership of work to develop provision for students with English as an additional language has been less strong.

Information about the school

Hall Green is similar in size to an average-sized secondary school.

It has held specialist arts college status since 2006. The school has a designated resource base for students with physical disabilities; currently, 34 students with physical disabilities attend the school. The proportion of students known to be eligible for free school meals is average.

The very large majority of students are from minority ethnic groups. The proportion for whom English is not their first language is considerably higher than average. A higher proportion of students than average has special educational needs and/or disabilities.