Government warning for school in special measures

Magdalen College School in Brackley was previously rated as good by Ofsted

A secondary school which was placed in special measures after it was rated as inadequate by an education watchdog has been given a government warning.

The Department for Education (DfE) issued Magdalen College School (MCS) in Brackley, Northamptonshire, with a warning notice following an Ofsted report which ranked it as "inadequate"

It means the secondary risks losing its funding if urgent changes are not made.

In a letter to the school's trustees, Carol Grey, the DfE's regional director for the East Midlands, wrote that "rapid and sustainable improvement at the academy" was required. MCS declined to comment on the warning notice.

Ms Gray wrote: "If I am not satisfied that this can be achieved, I will consider whether to terminate the funding agreement in order to transfer the academy to an alternative academy trust."

While she did "acknowledge the verbal and written assurances the trust has already provided", she called for "longer-term plans" to ensure improvements to safeguarding arrangements.

In June, Ofsted's report found pupils at the school had "failed to provide pupils with an acceptable standard of education".

The school was downgraded from a previous rating of good, with inspectors finding it failed to ensure "pupils' physical safety".

At the time of the report, the school said it "acknowledged" the outcome of the inspection and said it would take the judgement "seriously" as it committed to "urgent" improvements through a "rapid action plan".

What did the Ofsted report find?

The report, which followed an inspection in April this year, found "staff do not have high enough expectations of what pupils can achieve or how they should behave", with pupil outcomes at the end of key stage four "too low".

Inspectors found that "too often" pupils did not engage well or meaningfully with learning activities, with unacceptable levels of lateness or absence.

Although "most pupils feel safe in school", the report also said they "frequently hear other pupils using discriminatory and derogatory language" but did not report it as "they feel the school will not do anything about it."

But the report found the school had "developed a clear programme to support pupils' broader development", including online safety and adopting healthy lifestyles. It also found staff had "higher expectations" of its sixth-form cohort.

It said that 1,348 pupils aged 11 to 18 attend the mixed gender school, of which 195 are enrolled in its sixth-form.