TEACHERS at a Basildon secondary school “do not always have high expectations for pupils’ behaviour” which causes disruption to children’s education, Ofsted says.

The Basildon Lower Academy, in Timberlog Close, has 935 students, and was rated “good” in 2019.

But four years’ later Ofsted inspectors, who visited on March 29 and 30, have now said the school “requires improvement”.

The report, published yesterday, said: “Teachers do not always have high expectations for pupils’ behaviour and do not implement the school’s behaviour policy consistently. This means that the poor behaviour of some pupils is not always challenged. This disrupts the learning of others.

“Leaders should reinforce their expectations of behaviour and ensure that the behaviour policy is used consistently.”

However, leaders have improved processes and approaches to manage behaviour to help pupils behave positively.

Despite the “poor” behaviour, the report mentioned that pupils feel “happy and safe” and that incidents of bullying are “rare”.

While safeguarding is effective, leaders “do not record the actions” they take to keep the children safe in a consistent way, which makes it difficult for them to have a “full oversight” of safeguarding concerns or to review them quickly.

Ofsted have heaped praise on the Basildon Lower Academy, which is part of Basildon Academies Trust, for making improvements to the curriculum.

This includes the introduction of a wide range of subjects such as French and music. But there is now “too much variation” in how it is taught within and across subjects, due to some teachers being unable to “effectively build on what pupils already know”, resulting in the students “not being able to learn as well as they should”.

Headteacher, April Gurney, said: “Ofsted have validated the great work that takes place at the Lower Academy to support our students. This includes a ‘good’ judgement for personal development. 

“Ofsted have indicated three areas we can improve. It has been four months since the inspection and we have implemented a robust action plan to address these three areas.

“We take on board the next steps identified by the Ofsted team and continue to strive to support all our students achieve their potential.”