Express & Star

Anger as 'inadequate' Wednesfield school is put back in special measures

Former pupils and parents of children at a city school have questioned why it has slumped into special measures again after a scathing Ofsted report.

Published

Wednesfield High Academy was branded inadequate in every area by inspectors, who said security checks were chaotic, some pupils live in fear of bullying and teachers struggle to control classes.

The school in Lichfield Road, which has 884 pupils and 141 sixth-formers, was also found to be excluding pupils on a regular basis but failing to record them, while inspectors found pupils were struggling to make progress in many subjects due to the poor standard of teaching and high turnover of staff.

Governors and Educational Central, the multi-academy trust in charge of the school, also came under fire in the report for failing to tackle "key weaknesses in leadership" and for not effectively dealing with long-term absence of headteacher Claire Gilbert.

  • MORE: We don't feel safe, say pupils as inadequate Wednesfield school is put in special measures

Run by the University of Wolverhampton, Educational Central includes ten primary and three secondary schools - Wednesfield High, Smestow School and The Ace Academy Tipton. According to Ofsted, "the trust lacked, until very recently, the capacity and stable staffing to support the school effectively."

Meanwhile of the students who took part in an online Ofsted survey, nearly half said that bullying was a problem, a third said behaviour in lessons was never or almost never good and "a significant minority" stated that they do not enjoy school and don't always feel safe.

However, the vast majority said the academy encourages them to respect people from other backgrounds and treat them equally.

Behaviour, leadership and teaching were found to be more effective at the sixth form, but inspectors still rated programmes for 16 to 19-year-olds as inadequate.

The report was the school's first since it became a specialist engineering academy in 2015. It had previously been in special measures after an inadequate rating in December 2013.

That was its first inspection since moving to the new site after the old school was burned down in an arson attack.

After the Express & Star revealed the news on Tuesday, scores of people took to the internet to deliver their views with more than 500 sharing the story on Facebook.

Gina Butler wrote: "This is a terrible, terrible report and until you sit down and digest it, you don't realise how damning it is.

"I do hope there will be some proper leadership within the school and they can rise up from this before it's too late.

"Being in special measures may assist them in making this a good school now and I hope they turn themselves around quickly. Let's not write them off just yet."

Amy Wells added: "It must be so difficult for teachers who feel like they have to babysit other people's kids who can't behave, when there are so many lovely children who need that extra help to do as well as they can."

And Marion Mansell said: "It comes to something when the teachers know who the bullys are but can't do anything about it."

Following the publication of the report, a spokesman for the school said: "We are all naturally disappointed in the Ofsted inspection outcome but are determined to introduce the necessary improvements."

Sorry, we are not accepting comments on this article.