Shevington High School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

Shevington High School continues to be a good school.

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils are proud to be part of this welcoming community.

Pupils work hard and take advantage of the many opportunities offered to them by the leaders and teachers. Pupils are polite and respectful towards each other and adults. Pupils' behaviour matches the high expectations of their teachers.

In lessons, pupils listen, join in enthusiastically when invited by their teacher and concentrate thoroughly on their work.

Pupils told inspectors that they feel safe when they are in school. Pupils respect each other's differences.

They enjoy strong relationships with each ...other and with staff. Pupils are confident that if any bullying were to happen, teachers would sort it out quickly.

Leaders and governors are ambitious for all pupils.

They have a clear vision for the school. They have been innovative in how pupils make use of information technology in their learning. Pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), progress well through the curriculum.

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely restricted opportunities to take part in enrichment activities. However, leaders are now encouraging all pupils to enjoy the wide range of team games, clubs, societies and school visits available. Many pupils are responding eagerly.

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

Leaders, including governors, have ensured that all pupils, including those with SEND, have access to a suitably broad and ambitious curriculum. For example, leaders have promoted the study of modern foreign languages by introducing Mandarin into the curriculum, alongside European languages. This enables pupils to achieve well.

Subject leaders have designed curriculums well. They have thought carefully about the order in which content should be taught so that pupils can build their knowledge over time. However, the curriculum structure in a small number of subjects in key stage 3 inhibits pupils' learning.

This is because pupils are not able to deepen their understanding of essential concepts sufficiently well.

Teachers have secure subject knowledge. This helps them to deliver curriculums well across the school.

Teachers explain concepts clearly to pupils. Pupils are adept at using technology to access and use the well-designed resources provided by teachers. Teachers make sure that they recap important learning.

This helps pupils to remember what they have learned previously.

Teachers use effective strategies to check that pupils have learned the intended curriculum. Assessment information is used well by teachers to identify misconceptions and to adapt the curriculum to cover any gaps in learning.

Pupils value the feedback that they receive, which helps them to improve their work.

Around the school, pupils are polite and well-mannered. Lessons take place without disruption.

Pupils' positive attitudes support their learning across a range of subjects.

Leaders identify the needs of pupils with SEND accurately. Teachers use the information that leaders provide to support pupils with SEND to learn well.

This effective support helps these pupils to progress through the same ambitious subject curriculums as their peers.

Leaders have robust systems to identify pupils whose reading knowledge is weak when they join the school. These systems enable leaders to pinpoint and remedy the specific problems that individual pupils face in reading.

This support helps most pupils to become more confident and fluent readers. Leaders have introduced several schemes to encourage all pupils to read for pleasure. As a result, a stronger reading culture is developing across the school.

Leaders have a well-planned personal development curriculum in place. The curriculum provides pupils with opportunities to learn about and discuss a wide range of issues. Pupils told inspectors that they find the topics covered in the curriculum relevant to their present and future needs.

For example, pupils learn about relationships, sex and health matters and equality issues. They also find out about more practical issues, such as financial budgeting.

Pupils receive effective and age-appropriate careers education, information, advice and guidance.

They receive independent careers advice. Added to this, former pupils provide useful information about their career paths to current pupils.

Staff appreciate how leaders and governors protect them from an excessive workload.

Governors are well informed and give a lot of their time to support and challenge school leaders and to improve further the quality of education.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

There is a strong safeguarding culture across the school.

Leaders ensure that safeguarding training for staff is thorough. There are frequent updates for staff throughout the school year. As a result, staff know how to spot the signs that may indicate that pupils are at risk.

Staff share their concerns in a timely manner. Leaders work well with external agencies to ensure that pupils and their families get the help that they need.

Pupils are well informed about the potential dangers that they may encounter either in the community or online.

They learn how to keep themselves safe through the personal development curriculum and through assemblies.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• The curriculum structure for a small minority of subjects in key stage 3 hampers pupils' learning. This is because pupils are not able to cover some topics in sufficient depth.

As a result, they do not learn essential knowledge as securely as they should. Leaders should review the curriculum structure for these subjects to ensure that pupils gain the same rich body of knowledge in these curriculum areas as they do in others.

Background

When we have judged a school to be good, we will then normally go into the school about once every four years to confirm that the school remains good.

This is called a section 8 inspection of a good or outstanding school, because it is carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. We do not give graded judgements on a section 8 inspection. However, if we find evidence that a school would now receive a higher or lower grade, then the next inspection will be a section 5 inspection.

Usually this is within one to two years of the date of the section 8 inspection. If we have serious concerns about safeguarding, behaviour or the quality of education, we will deem the section 8 inspection as a section 5 inspection immediately.

This is the first section 8 inspection since we judged the school to be good in January 2017.