Quality of science teaching at Westminster academy sparks Ofsted warning
Published: 12 March 2010
by JAMIE WELHAM
SCHOOLS inspectors have warned the headteacher at one of the borough’s city academies to improve teaching standards in science.
While Ofsted’s monitoring report said Westminster Academy has made “satisfactory progress” since it was given notice to improve last year, it said that the quality of science teaching was “not always good enough”.
Indications suggests science results in this summer’s exams among pupils at the Harrow Road school would not match the level of progress achieved in other subjects, inspectors said.
The report says: “Evidence from lesson observations and data provided by the academy demonstrates that satisfactory progress is being maintained by the currently Year 11 cohort in both English and mathematics.
“This is confirmed by the results of early GCSE entries in English and modular tests in mathematics. However, data provided by the academy, a scrutiny of students’ work and lesson observations do not provide the same level of confidence in the science results.”
Last year the £27million academy was criticised for not encouraging enough pupils to play sports – a charge which has now been dropped.
The report said: “The academy has successfully encouraged more students to engage in sport. The head of physical education has introduced an ‘activity passport’ which has greatly increased students’ awareness of the range of opportunities the academy offers.”
Academy headteacher Smita Bora was unavailable for comment.