A failing school has been placed in special measures after a damning Ofsted report.
Inspectors said teaching standards at the Sir Robert Woodard Academy in Lancing were “weak” and “inadequate”.
The school was given the worst possible score both for its overall effectiveness and its capacity to improve and was judged to be “failing to give its students an acceptable standard of education”.
Angry parents have called for the resignation of senior managers who were heavily criticised in the report.
The school, previously the Boundstone Community College, was reopened as an academy in 2009 after being taken over by Woodard Schools, which now own 19 other schools across the UK.
No improvement
Experienced headteacher Carole Bailey was appointed by the new management to drive improvements in exam results.
The Ofsted report revealed there had in fact been “no positive impact on achievement” since the academy opened.
Mrs Bailey left the academy in December after handing in her notice in July.
Inspectors heavily criticised teaching standards at the school, which looks after 1,200 pupils.
Governors “relied too heavily on regular reports from Mrs Bailey rather than acquiring a detailed knowledge for themselves by probing, and asking detailed, challenging questions”.
Inspectors said middle managers at the school were unable to improve teaching standards because their own lessons were not good enough.
Parents' anger
The school now faces regular short-notice inspections to monitor its improvement.
A father of two children at the school, who did not wish to be named, said: “The move to an academy has spectacularly failed, plain and simple. The scale of mismanagement has been unbelievable.
"The Woodard lot should all be kicked out. When they took over they said there would be this wonderful dynamic head who was going to change things – but that was rubbish.”
A new head, Collete Singleton, was appointed in December to oversee the school’s move into a new building.
David Bilton, chief executive of Woodard Academies Trust, said: “As soon as Woodard Academies Trust was aware of issues, as highlighted by Ofsted, at the academy last year it took action to investigate and then address these issues."
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