Students have been subjected to "derogatory and discriminatory" language at a West Derby school according to education officials.
Ofsted inspectors called on St Edward’s College to make improvements after an inspection held at the school last November. St Edward’s, which describes itself as having a “explicitly Catholic culture” has around 1,100 pupils aged between 11-16 on the roll. It converted to become an academy school in May 2011 and when its predecessor school was last inspected, it was judged to be outstanding overall, but has now been given a "requires improvement" rating.
The school is part of the Archdiocese of Liverpool. While the quality of education was described as being good, education officials found that “some older pupils do not feel able to discuss concerns about homophobia or sexual harassment with adults. Leaders have not created a culture that enables all pupils and staff to feel confident in discussing concerns about the protected characteristics.
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"As a result, some pupils continue to experience verbal abuse.” It added how some pupils have experienced “derogatory and discriminatory language” in school and have not felt able to talk to staff about such incidents “and the impact of this discriminatory behaviour on their mental health and well-being.
“This means that these pupils continue to suffer.” The report said leaders needed to develop a culture where this sort of behaviour was not tolerated and pupils felt safe to report it.
The inspection also found that older pupils at the school had not been taught about relationships and sex education in an age-appropriate way. This limits how well they are prepared for their future lives, a report said.
An accurate and up-to-date knowledge of the number of behaviour incidents including reports of derogatory language was not in place, inspectors said. The report added: “This means that they are not able to analyse information about pupils’ behaviour sufficiently well.
“Leaders should ensure that they use the information that they hold more effectively to bring about improvements to pupils’ behaviour.” Stephen Morris, St Edward’s headteacher, said the findings of the Ofsted report would spur the school on to do better but admitted disappointment at the inspectors’ judgement.
He said: "We released the report to parents last week. We were disappointed, there’s no hiding from that.
"We were very pleased with some aspects of the report, which highlighted some strengths of the school, particularly around the quality of education. There are some areas that we are determined to improve on.
"Our pupils deserve the best every day and Ofsted are telling us how we can do better to improve. Anything that spurs us on to do that can only be a good thing.”
Ofsted inspectors have also called upon a childcare facility in Mossley Hill to improve. After being stripped of its registration in 2021 over its ability to keep safe, Mossley Hill Childcare has been able to reopen for children, but still has work to do according to an inspection held last January.
While acknowledging the improvements made and the happiness of children and staff, inspectors said management did not identify all areas of development within the setting. The report said management had failed to recognise that some staff need further training and support to understand effective strategies which may help children to settle.
Mossley Hill Childcare declined to comment.
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