Patchway Community School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 10 December 2024

The school has experienced significant challenges since the previous inspection. With support from the trust, the current headteacher has worked effectively with staff to raise standards and ensure that Patchway Community School is a place where pupils want to be. Expectations of pupils' conduct and what they can achieve have not been high enough. This means that older pupils have significant gaps in their knowledge and often lack confidence. Improvement work is in its early stages, so it has not had a consistently positive impact in some areas of the school. Pupils feel safe. Behaviour in lessons is calm and orderly. However, sometimes this is not the case during unstructured times when pupils' poor behaviour can go unchecked. Much recent work has taken place to improve the quality of the curriculum, including the way in which it is delivered. However, this is still not consistently strong, as reflected in the school's published outcomes. Pupils have many opportunities to develop their talents and interests, from sports and drama clubs, to reading and crochet. Pupils enjoy going on trips to the theatre and museums, as well as taking part in the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme. The sixth form is a strength of the school, and the students have highly positive attitudes to their leaning.

What the school should improve

• The implementation of the curriculum is not consistently effective. In particular, some staff do not check effectively how well pupils remember their learning. This means pupils' misconceptions sometimes persist. The trust must ensure that staff accurately identify and resolve gaps in curriculum knowledge.
• The school's monitoring of some areas of the curriculum does not provide sufficiently precise information about where there are weaknesses. In these cases, this means that the actions taken by leaders do not directly address weaker practice in curriculum implementation. The trust must ensure that leaders accurately identify areas of weaker practice and address these robustly, so pupils are able to learn more effectively.
• Many pupils do not attend school regularly enough. These pupils miss too much learning, have gaps in their knowledge and then lack the resilience and confidence to work effectively in school. This means that they are not well-prepared for the next stage of education, training or employment. The trust must sharpen its focus on ensuring that pupils maintain high attendance, so more pupils are better prepared for their next steps.
• Sometimes, pupils do not behave calmly, or follow the rules, during unstructured times. The expectations of pupils' conduct at these times are not as high as they are in lessons. This has a negative impact on the experiences of some, particularly younger pupils. The trust must ensure that there are systems in place to support positive behaviour at these times, so that pupils move around the school calmly and respectfully.

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