The Grangefield Academy

In December 2012, Grangefield School and Technology College in Stockton-on-Tees was judged to require Special Measures. Ofsted described students’ achievement as ‘inadequate with attainment remaining significantly below the national average’. They described behaviour as ‘boisterous, defiant and offensive’ with staff efforts to address this as ‘ineffectual’. Leaders and managers were labelled as ‘ineffective in taking action to improve the school and there were no whole-school, efficient and accurate systems for tracking students’ progress’.

Despite two new senior leaders joining the school in January 2013, the inadequacies were so endemic that outcomes continued to decline leading to only 33% of students achieving grade C or above in both English and Maths in the summer of 2013. As a result, a Section 8 Monitoring inspection in November 2013 stated that leaders were not taking effective action towards the removal of Special Measures.