Chesterton Community Sports College

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 21 September 2022

The school has a calm and orderly atmosphere. Pupils behave well in lessons and during social times. Relationships between staff and pupils are very positive. Pupils feel safe and happy in the school. They trust staff to help them if they have any problems. Bullying is rare. If it occurs, then staff deal with it well. Lessons are purposeful. Teachers have high expectations of their pupils, who respond by working hard. The school provides electronic tablets to every pupil to support their learning. Pupils make good use of these to retain knowledge and develop themselves as independent learners. Many pupils involve themselves in the wide choice of extra-curricular activities on offer. These include a range of sporting activities, dance, drama and gardening clubs. In addition, pupils in Years 9 to 11 can attend after-school GCSE 'booster' classes in different subjects. The vast majority of parents and carers recommend the school. They say that staff care about pupils and express confidence in the school's leaders. Many praise the range of subjects on offer and say they feel well informed. One parent represented the views of many when saying: 'This is a great school, where my children are looked after in a caring and safe learning environment.'

What the school should improve

• The strategies in the school's 'pupil passports' detailing how to support pupils with SEND sometimes lack sufficient precision. At the same time, the use that teachers make of these strategies to adapt their lessons is inconsistent. This means that the quality of SEND pupils' learning varies between lessons. Leaders should ensure that information in the school's pupil passports:
• includes sufficiently precise strategies to guide teachers in their support for pupils with SEND
• is used with greater consistency by all teachers.
• Leaders do not routinely evaluate the impact of the school's pupil premium plan on pupils' learning. Consequently, they do not always know how well strategies are working and to what extent pupils are benefiting. Leaders should ensure that strategies in the pupil premium plan are fully evaluated for the impact on pupils' learning. They should do this so that they have a more informed view about what is working well and what could be improved.

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