The Kemnal Academies Trust Ofsted inspection

Ofsted Press Release: 'Today Ofsted has published the outcome letter for the recent focused inspection of academy schools in Kemnal Academies Trust (TKAT).


Her Majesty’s Inspectors carried out a series of inspections of academies within the Trust because of wider concerns about schools’ performance within the chain. Of the 39 schools in the Trust, less than half are good. There are no longer any outstanding academies in the chain.

Ofsted inspected six primary academies in TKAT, over a two-week period, where inspectors judged the effectiveness of each school and also gathered information on the quality and impact of support provided by the Trust to headteachers and governors. In addition inspectors conducted telephone interviews with the headteachers at 12 further schools.

The outcomes from the inspections of the six academies were:

• one was judged inadequate and placed in ‘special measures’
• three were judged to require improvement
• two were judged to be good.
• This means that an overwhelming proportion of pupils attending one of the academies inspected are not receiving a good education.

The inspections highlighted key weaknesses across many of the six academies inspected, including:

• teaching that was not good enough to enable all groups of pupils to make enough progress
• insufficient challenge for more-able pupils and expectations that are not high enough
• weaknesses in pupils’ writing and mathematical skills
• ineffective marking and feedback to pupils which does not help them to understand how to improve their work
• a lack of urgency in taking effective action to close the gap between disadvantaged pupils and others
• governance that has not secured effective leadership, displays a lack of urgency to bring about improvements and does not provide sufficient challenge in holding school leaders to account.

Although inspectors found that support for academies was becoming more effective, in too many schools, the improvements in support have come about too late to make a significant difference.

However, recent improvements as a result of restructuring the leadership have meant the Trust is in a stronger position to support academies.

Notes to Editors:
All the academies selected for inspection fortnight were due to be inspected during the current academic year. As with all standard s5 inspections, an individual inspection report will be published for each school. TKAT currently manages 14 Secondary Academies and 25 Primary Academies.


Ofsted outcome letter link
From the TES
From the Daily Mail: