• Pupils, including those with SEND, make excellent academic progress from their initial starting points.
• Pupils demonstrate excellent oral communication skills; they are highly articulate and express themselves eloquently.
• Pupils learn to be highly independent in their approach to work and understand the need to take responsibility for their own learning.
• Pupils’ information and communication technology (ICT) skills are excellent and often exceptional; their use of ICT is seamless and integral to their learning.
• Pupils have excellent self-understanding and a well-developed sense of self-worth.
• Pupils demonstrate a strong sense of right and wrong and speak up when they see injustice.
• Pupils take responsibility for their own behaviour and are quick to challenge their peers if they show any intolerance of others.
• Pupils are excellent collaborators and effectively work together to achieve common goals.
• Pupils demonstrate notable appreciation and respect for people from different religious and cultural backgrounds.

The March 2023 inspection also looked at all areas of our statutory compliance and, although in every other area we were found to be compliant, we had one issue (recorded as three action points, but relating to one individual). The inspectors found that our Independent Listener was not well enough known to students, though they had contact details, which are promoted in assemblies and on posters in houses. This individual had also been inadvertently omitted, as a result of clerical error, from safeguarding update training since the Covid pandemic.

We undertook an immediate review of our training processes, to ensure that no individual can be missed from the annual update training in future, and made changes to the way we promote the role of the Independent Listener. This action plan was agreed with the ISI and, in Septemeber 2023, they made an unannouced reinspection of these areas, which confirmed that the school now fully meets all the required compliance standards.

There are many fantastic comments in the report, illustrating the success of the students and the school, some of which you will find below. Our thanks go to the staff, Governors and, above all, the students, for the hard work that is documented in this report, and for the contribution made by parents in responding to inspection questionnaires.

“Through its ‘learn differently’ strategy, the school identifies and builds upon individual pupils’ aptitudes in an exciting and creative manner. Pupils feel empowered to achieve, thus fulfilling the school’s ambitious aims.”

“The school’s approach of ensuring that every pupil follows a bespoke curriculum suitable for their needs, clearly supports pupils to achieve results well above those expected for their abilities.”

“Pupils demonstrate overwhelmingly positive attitudes towards their learning. As pupils progress through the school, they become independent thinkers and develop inquiring minds.”

“Pupils possess a wide range of study skills which they apply successfully across a range of subjects.”

“Pupils’ numeracy skills are well-developed for their abilities. Pupils of all ages are highly competent in their use of numeracy across the curriculum.”