Roade School In Special Measures

18 March 2010, 09:39 | Updated: 18 March 2010, 10:03

Roade School has been placed into Special Measures by the inspectors Ofsted.

The secondary school, which enjoys specialist status as a sports college, used to be one of the more respected schools in Northampton.

But it's now been labelled as 'failing' after an inspection in February.  A team of five inspectors found that standards of teaching were variable, behaviour in some lessons was poor with a minority of students disrupting classes and that pupils weren't making enough progress from Key Stage 2 through to GCSE.

You can read the full inspection report here.

The school last night confirmed that a meeting for parents would be held in the evening on April 21st to discuss any concerns.

Chair of Governors, Christine Marshall, issued a letter to the parents of more than a thousand pupils saying: "This result is disappointing to the staff and Governors, especially in view of the changes that have been made since September.  A lot of work has been done in the areas of concern highlighted by the inspectors but they judged that additional assistance will be needed to for the school to make progress on these issues quickly enough."  You can read the letter here 

The letter does go on to point to some positives from the report, including: 

• Areas for improvement had already been correctly identified by the school and the Self Evaluation Form is accurate

• Reliable school data indicate that the percentage of pupils who gain five good passes at GCSE including maths and English will be higher in 2010

• The majority of pupils behave in a satisfactory fashion around the school and in
lessons. As a result the school is generally calm and pupils feel safe

• Provision in the sixth form is satisfactory and has improved since the last inspection

The school has now drawn up an action plan in conjunction with Northamptonshire County Council which will be regularly checked by a Government inspector.