Highfield Leadership Academy

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 12 March 2024

Some pupils readily embrace the wealth of opportunities that the school provides, particularly opportunities to develop their leadership skills. Pupils spoke convincingly about how well they are supported by staff. Pupils appreciate that their views are represented by the school council and taken into consideration when decisions about school life are made. The school offers a range of clubs. For example, some pupils participate in a cookery course at a local college. Others enjoy getting active in badminton. The school has created an environment where pupils feel safe and happy. At the school's entrance, staff greet pupils warmly. However, many pupils are persistently absent despite the school's efforts to encourage them to attend. Pupils generally behave well in lessons. They mostly follow the school's rules diligently. Pupils are typically respectful to their peers and to their teachers. However, with the introduction of a new behaviour policy, the number of occasions in which a small minority of pupils are internally excluded because of poor behaviour has risen over time. The school's expectations of what pupils should achieve are rising. The trust has supported the school to considerably strengthen the curriculum offer. However, the delivery of the curriculum is variable across year groups and subjects. As a result, many pupils do not achieve as well as they should.

What the school should improve

• Many pupils do not attend school regularly. The number of pupils who are absent and persistently absent has risen over time. These pupils miss out on their learning and the gaps in their knowledge widen over time. They also do not benefit from the array of wider opportunities to support their personal development. The school should review its work with parents, pupils and external agencies in order to successfully raise attendance rates.
• Pupils in key stage 4, who find reading difficult, do not receive the support that they need to overcome gaps in their reading knowledge. This hinders how well they can achieve across the curriculum. The school should make sure that struggling readers receive effective support to enable them to read with fluency and accuracy.
• The curriculum is not implemented consistently well across different subjects and year groups. Some teachers do not design suitable learning activities to help pupils to learn the content of the curriculum. This hinders some pupils from being able to build on their prior learning and to develop a deep understanding of the subjects that they study. The school should ensure that teachers are suitably supported to design learning that matches the ambition of the curriculum.
• Some teachers do not use assessment strategies effectively to check what pupils know. As a result, gaps in their learning are not addressed. This means that some pupils struggle to build on their prior learning and to recall their learning over time. This hampers how well they achieve. The school should ensure that teachers check what pupils have learned and use this information to overcome gaps in their knowledge.

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