The E-ACT Burnham Park Academy is a small secondary school. It became an academy in April 2012 and is sponsored and governed by the E-ACT multi-academy trust. The trust is responsible for governance and this is arranged through a regional education team, with some aspects being devolved to a local ambassadorial advisory group. The school has 140 places in each year group but the number of pupils on roll has fallen significantly over the past five years. The proportion of pupils leaving before the end of Year 11 is much higher than is typical nationally. At the time of this inspection, the multi-academy trust was proposing to close the school. Although no final decision had been made, given the falling number of pupils applying to the academy, E-ACT were engaging in a public consultation process on closing the academy as a mainstream secondary school in September 2019. This consultation process began on 30 January 2019 and was due to close on 29 March 2019. Trustees and leaders took the decision not to produce school improvement plans since Inspection report: The E-ACT Burnham Park Academy, 6–7 March 2019 Page 8 of 11 taking the decision to consult on the closure of the school. These plans have been replaced by transition planning documents outlining the sequence of events needed to allow staff and pupils to transfer to E-ACT’s other local secondary school at the end of the year. Although designated as an 11 to 19 school, the school paused entry into its sixth form in 2017. There are currently no students studying key stage 5 courses at the school. The community served by the school has levels of deprivation in line with the national average. The proportions of disadvantaged pupils and those who speak English as an additional language are both slightly higher than average. The proportion of pupils with SEND is well above the national average. Similarly, the proportion of pupils who have an education, health and care plan is higher than that found nationally. The school’s ‘Aspire’ curriculum offers an alternative, mixed-age curriculum pathway for a small number of key stage 3 pupils with SEND. A small number of pupils attend an alternative provision at The Wycombe Grange Pupil Referral unit or at local colleges. The school is led by a headteacher appointed in September 2016, and three assistant headteachers. There have been several changes to leadership and some significant staffing turbulence over recent years. During the past year, declining pupil numbers have meant that teachers and leaders who have left the school have not been replaced. This includes the subject leaders of English and mathematics. In key stage 3, pupils are taught by teachers who are not specialists in the subject that they are teaching. Most teaching of the foundation subjects is being done by temporary teachers.