Beacon Academy

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 24 June 2025

Standards at the school have declined since the previous inspection in 2020. Academic standards, and standards of behaviour, are poor. Although the trust's support for the school has intensified recently, the school does not currently meet the needs of many pupils. Many pupils do not behave well. Some staff have low expectations of pupils. This means that poor behaviour is often unchallenged. Consequently, pupils frequently disrupt lessons. Many pupils show a lack of pride in their achievements. Pupils state that prejudicial language and bullying occurs and that this is not always dealt with effectively. However, pupils feel safe and most have a trusted adult to speak to. The activities that pupils attempt in lessons are often not matched to their needs. In many subjects, pupils do not receive effective feedback and are not challenged to think deeply. As a result, pupils do not achieve well or understand how to improve. This has contributed to poor outcomes in national tests and assessments. Pupils enjoy taking part in the school's enrichment activities. These include sport, arts, craft and reading, along with trips to theatres and sports events. There are some pupil leadership opportunities. However, other aspects of the school's personal development offer require further improvement.

What the school should improve

• The school, including the trust, have not taken effective or swift enough action to address the decline in standards that has occurred. The school should ensure that actions to address the school's weaknesses are effective. This includes ensuring that staff have the expertise and knowledge to enact agreed actions.
• The school's quality assurance systems are not effective enough. This means that leaders' perspectives about the school's strengths and weaknesses are not accurate. Consequently, actions to improve the school do not happen quickly enough. The school should review the mechanisms in place for quality assurance at all levels and ensure that improvement actions are prioritised and robustly enacted.
• Teaching is not adapted to meet the needs of pupils, including pupils with SEND. The work pupils are provided with is not demanding enough. This means that pupils do not achieve as well as they should. The school should ensure that teachers have the expertise required to provide pupils with demanding work and that teaching is adapted to successfully meet the needs of pupils with SEND.
• Pupils do not benefit from a clearly sequenced programme of support for reading. As a result, pupils do not improve their reading well enough as they move through the year groups. The school should ensure that pupils receive a clear programme of support for reading and that pupils have regular opportunities to practise their reading.
• Assessment is not used effectively to gauge what pupils know and remember about their learning. This means that feedback is not effective in supporting pupils to improve. The school should ensure that assessment is used effectively across all subjects and that pupils benefit from accurate feedback on how they can improve.
• Some staff have low expectations of pupils' behaviour. Additionally, the behaviour policy is inconsistently implemented by some staff. This results in poor pupil behaviour, which causes widespread disruption to learning. The school needs to ensure that staff have high expectations of behaviour and that they consistently implement the behaviour policy.
• Strategies to improve attendance are not well developed or embedded. Too many pupils miss important learning. This impacts on the outcomes they subsequently achieve. The school should ensure that there is a well-developed and resourced strategy in place to improve pupils' attendance.
• The PSHE curriculum is undergoing development and is not currently having the impact that is needed. As a result, pupils have limited knowledge about key aspects of life in modern Britain and the importance of tolerance and respecting diversity. The school should ensure that the PSHE curriculum is fully developed and that pupils have a well- developed understanding of the importance of tolerance and respect for others.

Read the full Ofsted report (opens in a new tab)