Ofsted
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T 0300 123 4234
www.gov.uk/ofsted

7 February 2017
Karen Begley
Head of school
Medina College
Fairlee Road
Newport
Isle of Wight
PO30 2DX
Dear Miss Begley
Requires improvement: monitoring inspection visit to Medina College
Following my visit to your school on 26 January 2017, I write on behalf of Her
Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to report the
inspection findings. Thank you for the help you gave me and for the time you made
available to discuss the actions you are taking to improve the school since the most
recent section 5 inspection.
The visit was the second monitoring inspection since the school was judged to
require improvement following the section 5 inspection in March 2015. It was
carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005.
At its section 5 inspection before the one that took place in March 2015, the school
was also judged to require improvement.
Senior leaders and governors are taking effective action to tackle the areas
requiring improvement identified at the recent section 5 inspection in order to
become a good school.
The school should take further action to:
 increase the rigour of monitoring and robustly evaluate improvements to
teaching, learning and assessment by their impact on pupils’ progress
 strengthen school improvement plans by adding measurable milestones which
governors can use to evaluate the impact of actions taken by school leaders.

 Evidence
During the inspection, meetings were held with the executive headteacher, head of
school, other senior leaders and middle leaders and members of the governing body
to discuss actions taken since the last inspection. I spoke to a representative of the
local authority by telephone. I reviewed some pupils’ work with two leaders. You
accompanied me on a brief visit to a number of lessons around the school. I
evaluated a range of documents, including your self-evaluation and improvement
plans.
Context
The previous headteacher of Medina College left the school at the end of June
2016. In July, the headteacher of Carisbrooke College became executive
headteacher of the three schools within the Island Innovation Federation: Medina
College, Carisbrooke College and the Sixth Form Campus. In September, one of the
previous deputy headteachers became head of school and the responsibilities of
other senior leaders were adjusted. Another deputy headteacher from Medina
College changed role to lead the joint sixth form provision.
Main findings
School leaders have built on the improvements noted during the first monitoring
inspection which took place in October 2015. Re-organisation of the roles and
responsibilities of the senior leadership team in September 2016 provided impetus
for further improvement. The executive headteacher has a strategic role and you,
as head of school, are responsible for the day-to-day running of the school. You,
together with senior and middle leaders, have welcomed the opportunity to work
more closely with colleagues from Carisbrooke and local authority advisers. There is
a greater culture of openness and collaboration throughout the school, which has
helped to increase the pace of improvement in teaching and learning.
In September you launched a new assessment system which provides information
about the expected progression of pupils from Years 7 to 11 in every subject. These
progression ladders are used by teachers to plan lessons and by pupils to see the
next stages in their learning. Leaders have not yet gathered enough information to
analyse the impact of this new methodology.
A revised feedback policy outlines expectations of teachers to provide precise advice
to pupils about how to improve their work and how pupils are expected to act on this
advice. Your monitoring information suggests that these expectations are being
implemented; however, there are some inconsistencies, which I also noted when
reviewing pupils’ work. During my visits to classrooms the atmosphere was generally
purposeful and pupils were appropriately involved in a range of activities. In drama
and mathematics lessons it was clear that the pupils knew what was expected of
them and they were using assessment guidance to help them progress well.
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 Following the previous inspection, leaders set out to improve reading with
determination. The library was stocked with very many more books and a librarian
was appointed in September. She has improved the use of a structured reading
scheme and worked closely with the English department to develop reading
journals. This work is still at an early stage. Early signs are positive, with pupils
reading more, but the full impact is not yet evident.
Middle leaders are positive about changes which have taken place in the school
since September. The pastoral system was re-organised from ‘houses’, with pupils
from all years mixed in tutor groups, to a year-group system. Both pastoral and
subject leaders report that this has brought benefits, particularly regarding
academic mentoring and age-related interventions. Middle leaders appreciate their
increased levels of responsibility and accountability for implementing improvement
within the school.
In September, leaders also relaunched the school’s behaviour policy with increased
clarity about consequences for poor behaviour. Your tracking shows that behaviour
in lessons has improved and fewer pupils were excluded in the autumn term. School
leaders work hard to support the most vulnerable pupils. The ‘Wave’ provision
provides significant support for groups of pupils most at risk of underachievement
and is increasingly successful. The industrious ‘fast track’ team is successfully
identifying and plugging learning gaps and helping pupils who need to catch up to
do so.
Overall attendance at the school has improved a little, but school leaders are not
checking the levels of attendance and persistent absence of disadvantaged pupils.
Attendance by disadvantaged pupils was low during 2015–16.
Improvements made throughout the school during the first year following the
inspection had a positive impact on the 2016 outcomes for Year 11. The proportions
of Year 11 pupils who achieved at least a GCSE grade C in both English and
mathematics was higher than 2015, but still well below national levels. The progress
made by disadvantaged pupils shows wide gaps in their achievement compared
with other pupils nationally with the same starting points. Leaders have prioritised
the need to improve the performance of disadvantaged pupils and there is a sharp
focus on pupils in Year 11. Leaders are able to describe in detail examples of
successful interventions for individual pupils, but there is limited information about
the progress of groups of pupils across the school, including disadvantaged pupils.
Pupils from Medina and Carisbrooke Colleges are taught together in the separate
Sixth Form Campus. This provision has improved since the leadership reorganisation in September. The new head of sixth form has tightened the day-today operation and introduced better systems for gathering information about
students’ attendance and progress. Students now have mentors to help support
them with their studies and personal development. The school’s tracking
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 information shows that currently students are making progress in line with similar
students nationally in many, but not all, subjects. There is limited monitoring of
teaching and learning by subject leaders with responsibility for sixth form
performance, most of whom are based at Medina College. Although improvements
are underway, there is scope for strengthened monitoring and more rigorous
evaluation of this 16 to 19 provision.
A single governing body is responsible for all three provisions in the federation.
Since the previous inspection, the governing body has been strengthened by the
addition of new members with helpful skills, expertise and experience. Since the
leadership re-organisation in September, the governing body has worked more
productively with school leadership teams. There is evidence of greater challenge by
governors and they have the capacity to hold leaders to account effectively as well
as providing appropriate support. However, governors’ ability to fully evaluate the
impact of leaders’ actions is hampered by the lack of milestone information about
pupils’ progress towards meeting success criteria.
The governors’ decision to promote the headteacher of Carisbrooke College to the
post of executive headteacher has been instrumental in enabling improvements in
all three provisions in the federation. His determined, personable and effective
leadership has promoted much greater openness and collaboration between staff at
Carisbrooke and Medina Colleges and he has sensibly welcomed support by
Hampshire local authority advisers. Much has been achieved in the first four months
of this new leadership arrangement.
In summary, faster improvement is now taking place at Medina College, but there is
still much to do. Leaders have carried out a range of actions to address most of the
areas for improvement identified in the previous inspection in March 2015. Since
then, the school’s own self-evaluation has rightly identified some emerging
strengths and other areas of concern. School improvement plans have become
overloaded with tasks. Leaders, including governors, now need to re-evaluate the
school’s current position and focus sharply on the actions necessary to sustain
improvements and address remaining weaknesses.
External support
School leaders and teachers are benefiting from effective support by advisers from
Hampshire local authority who have played an important role in driving
improvements at the school. The link adviser offers appropriate challenge and
support and subject advisers are helping to improve leadership, teaching and
learning across the curriculum, particularly in mathematics. The mathematics
department is also participating in a project to improve teaching and learning for
subject leaders and teachers across the Isle of Wight. Senior and middle leaders
report very positively about their work with a range of local authority advisers, who
have helped leaders to develop their thinking and implement new systems. Support
provided has been at both strategic and practical levels and advisers have modelled
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 good practice. The local authority has recently brokered additional support from a
teaching school on the mainland.
I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools
commissioner and the director of children’s services for the Isle of Wight. This letter
will be published on the Ofsted website.
Yours sincerely
Theresa Phillips
Her Majesty’s Inspector

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