School in Dunstable ‘making considerable progress’ to address ‘serious weaknesses’ after damning Ofsted report

A report into Ofsted’s monitoring visit to All Saints Academy Dunstable, on Houghton Road was published this week, after looking around the school in May.

Last July, the academy was granted a judicial review into a report by Ofsted after it received the ‘inadequate’ rating in 2022. It had tried to stop the report from being published as it pursued legal action against the education regulator – but an interim injunction bid was dismissed.

In his report, Steve Woodley, His Majesty’s Inspector, said: “Leaders have made progress to improve the school, but more work is necessary for the school to be no longer judged as having serious weaknesses.”

All Saints Academy Dunstable did not respond to Luton News’ request for comment.

The latest report said that the school has continued to improve his visit in November 2023. Leaders now have “clear, well-considered plans to move the school forward”.

The report stated: “Leaders rigorously check how well these plans are being put into action. As a result, the school is making considerable progress towards the removal of the ‘serious weaknesses’ judgement in several key areas.”

Mr Woodley said: “Some teachers do not precisely identify what pupils need to know to progress. They do not check well enough whether pupils have fully grasped new knowledge before moving onto new content.

“They do not always match work closely to pupils’ needs. In part because of this, and because of historic issues with the quality of teaching, behaviour and attendance, there are gaps in pupils’ knowledge.

“Pupils do not always achieve well enough.”

He continued: “More work is needed to ensure that pupils have consistently high-quality learning experiences. This is reflected in last year’s published outcomes which are well below other schools nationally.”

The academy was praised for pupils’ behaviour continuing to improve, with “little disruption to learning” and the number of exclusions falling sharply.

Attendance has also gotten better, with persistent absences now below “national averages compared to other secondary schools”.

While almost all staff say they enjoy working at All Saints, the report stated that the “quality of education for pupils is not yet consistently strong enough.