Religious education

Provision in religious education is good.

Main strengths and weaknesses

• Pupils achieve well as a result of teaching that is consistently attentive to their individual needs and uses assessment well.
  
• The leadership and management of the department are clearly focused on the further improvement of pupils’ learning.
  
• Pupils enjoy the many opportunities they get to discuss issues of relevance to their lives.
  
• Opportunities to develop pupils’ discussion skills in order to support writing are occasionally missed.

Commentary

84. Overall standards of attainment are above average in Year 9 and Year 11, This represents good achievement in relation to the average levels of attainment, particularly in writing, that pupils bring to the school. Pupils attained above average standards in the 2003 GCSE examinations. There were too few pupils entered in the 2004 GCSE examinations to make meaningful comparisons with results nationally. However, most pupils attained the higher grades A to C and all attained at least a pass grade. Pupils build quickly on their earlier attainment and achieve well, exceeding the expectations of the Locally Agreed Syllabus by the end of Year 9 and being above average by the end of Year 11. In all years, pupils write well for a good range of purposes and readers, handling questions of faith, belief and practice with increasing sophistication. This is a result of good and sometimes very good teaching, which is particularly effective in building pupils’ confidence and their skill in handling often challenging ideas of morality and religious belief.

85. Teaching and learning are good across the school, with much that is very good. The teachers are effective in stimulating the interest and curiosity of the pupils who, in turn, show a real enthusiasm for tackling questions of belief. Teachers use assessment well to support learning, often giving pupils good opportunities to assess their own work. They are good at relating questions of faith and religious practice to pupils’ own lives and aspirations. The teachers are skilful in developing strategies for including all pupils in discussion and debate. Group work is generally used well. However, there are some missed opportunities to use discussion before pupils progress to writing, and this limits the range of ideas that they are able to explore.

86. The department is well led and managed. It has moved forward on many fronts since the previous inspection and has the drive and enthusiasm to improve even further. Standards have improved, teaching is more focused on learning, and the time allocated to the subject in Years 10 and 11 is at the recommended level. The department uses lOT well to support learning.

TECHNOLOGY

Design and Technology

Provision for design and technology is very good.

Main strengths and weaknesses

• Attainment is well above average by Year 11.

• Very good teaching is based on high expectations of pupils.

• Leadership of the department is very good.

• Teachers give freely of their time to help pupils achieve high standards.

• Pupils enjoy their work and are motivated to do well.