LIPA School rock bottom in every area

SPECIAL MEASURES AFTER OFSTED INSPECTION

- By LIAM THORP

A LIVERPOOL school branded “one of the most dysfunctional” teachers have ever worked in has been plunged into special measures after a damning emergency Ofsted report, which has rated it as 'inadequate' in all areas.

The ECHO has reported regularly on the crisis engulfing LIPA School in Liverpool city centre, which was visited by inspectors last month.

The city centre school, which includes a primary and high school, shares a name with the performing arts academy founded by Beatle Sir Paul McCartney but is run by a separate multi-academy trust that also includes a sixth form college.

Staff at the school, who have been involved in recent strike action, have told the ECHO about the chaotic, dysfunctional and at times dangerous situations within the school, in which pupil behaviour is out of control and much of the senior leadership team is absent and staff morale is said to be at an all time low.

Those concerns have now been recognised by Ofsted inspectors, who carried out an emergency, no-notice inspection on June 5 and 6 and have now placed the establishment into special measures, rating it as inadequate the lowest rating possible in every area that it was judged in.

LIPA School was downgraded to 'requires improvement' in its last inspection a year ago, but things have got much worse at the school.

Ofsted make it clear that since that last inspection, the quality of education pupils receive has declined and criticise the trust which runs it for not holding the school to account for this decline in standards.