Inaura School

Inaura Manor Farm Cottage, Lower Godney, Wells, Somerset, BA5 1RZ Inspection dates 16 – 18 April 2013

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Overall effectiveness Adequate 3

Pupils’ achievement Adequate 3 Pupils’ behaviour and personal development Good 2 Quality of teaching Adequate 3 Quality of curriculum Adequate 3 Pupils’ welfare, health and safety Outstanding 1 Leadership and management Adequate 3

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This school is adequate because

 Students’ overall achievement is adequate and the vast majority successfully leave the school to continue their education or enter into training and/or employment. However, the progress that they make in reading, writing and mathematics at school is not fast enough for progress to be good.  Some teaching is good. But, not all staff are knowledgeable enough to teach literacy and numeracy to ensure students’ good or better achievement.  Students’ social and moral development is good. Their spiritual and cultural development is less secure because they are not systematically taught.  Leaders’ and managers’ monitoring of teaching and learning is not effective enough to enable students to make better progress in literacy and numeracy.  Leaders and managers have a good knowledge of how well students’ behaviour and personal development are improving when they are in school. They do not have a clear enough view on how well students are

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This school is adequate because

learning because some of the data on students’ abilities when they entered school are not detailed enough.

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The school has the following strengths

 The processes and procedures to promote and secure students’ welfare, health and safety are outstanding.  Students make great improvements in their personal development and management of their own behaviour.  There are excellent relationships with external professionals, other agencies, and students’ families. These help students to begin to enjoy learning often for the first time in their lives with the consequence that attendance is good.

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Compliance with regulatory requirements

 The school meets schedule 1 of The Education (Independent School Standards) (England) Regulations 2010, as amended by The Education (Independent School Standards) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2012 (‘the independent school standards’) and associated requirements.

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Information about this inspection

 This inspection was carried out with half a day’s notice.  The inspectors observed 10 sessions taught by 9 staff, most of which were joint observations with senior leaders. Discussions were held with students, staff, trustees and external professionals.  There were no responses on Parent View. Inspectors considered a phone call made by a parent, two emails and 21 staff questionnaires.  Inspectors looked at school documents, including data relating to students’ progress, planning for school improvement and records about behaviour and attendance. They also checked the school’s compliance with the independent school regulations.

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Inspection team

Steffi Penny, Lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector Sheila Ann Boyd Additional Inspector

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Information about this school

 Boys and girls admitted to Inaura have a statement of special educational need and exhibit severe and complex emotional social and behavioural difficulties. These are often displayed through high-risk behaviours which preclude their education within a mainstream school. Most have experienced multiple school exclusions or have previously refused to attend school.  The school works in collaboration with local mainstream and special schools in order to prevent exclusion and support re-integration.  The school is registered for students aged between 10 and 18 years. Currently, 20 students are on the school roll aged 10 to 16 years and six of them attend part time. Almost all the students come from Somerset and have their places funded by the local authority. Eight children are looked after by the local authority.  The school is in the ownership of Inaura – a registered charity. The school was last inspected

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Information about this school

in May 2010.  The school is located in four former residential properties. The main site is in Burrowbridge, near Bridgwater, in Somerset. The other sites and the school’s registered office are located approximately 14 miles away in the village of Lower Godney, near Glastonbury. The school does not use off-site alternative provision.  The school seeks to ‘develop well-motivated and self-regulated individuals’ by removing barriers to learning and by providing an education tailored to each student’s individual need.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve teaching and learning by ensuring that:  all staff are equipped to teach literacy and numeracy to the highest standard  students’ individual learning plans reflect the small steps that are necessary to help students achieve  more activities increasingly enable students to develop their skills to work without direct adult intervention  staff always challenge students to do better and that staff are not afraid to make this challenge.  Improve the curriculum by:  ensuring that more students have the opportunity to work with their peers  promoting more systematically students’ spiritual and cultural development  ensuring that the planned curriculum for each student is not modified to the extent that it adversely affects students’ opportunities to develop literacy and numeracy skills.  Improve leadership and management by ensuring that:  staff have further training that increases their confidence and knowledge to raise

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

students’ achievements in literacy and numeracy  the accuracy of assessment of students’ capabilities when they enter the school is improved  students’ academic targets are sharper and have a greater focus on meeting the gaps in their learning  students’ academic progress is reported as effectively as the other aspects of their learning and development.

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Pupils’ achievement Adequate

Students’ achievement is adequate. It is not good because students’ progress in literacy and numeracy, in particular, is not rapid enough. Staff do not have a sufficiently strong enough understanding of how to help the students develop good literacy and numeracy skills.

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Pupils’ achievement Adequate

Students’ attainment on entry to the school is generally below that expected for their age. After the initial settling period, students make adequate progress in a good range of subjects. Students develop communication skills effectively as class sizes are small. During their time at Inaura they gain skills, understanding and externally accredited certificates that help to ensure that most students are able to leave the school to continue with learning or gain employment. Placing authorities and professions who work in partnership with the school told inspectors that they are kept very-well informed about the progress that students make at school. They also said that without attending this school students’ future life chances would be significantly reduced.

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Pupils’ achievement Adequate

The school, students and their families are aware of students’ targets in their individual learning plans. However, they are too general and long term. They are not broken down into smaller learning steps. This prevents everyone knowing what the student needs to do next in order to improve

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Pupils’ behaviour and personal development Good

Students’ behaviour and personal development are good. They are not outstanding because arrangements to promote aspects of students’ spiritual and cultural development are not taught systematically which results in some topics not being fully explored.

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Pupils’ behaviour and personal development Good

Students often join the school with entrenched beliefs around equalities issues. However, the personal, social and health education programme and supportive relationships provided by staff enable students to reconsider their views with positive effect. Consequently, students are able to share their thoughts and views and increasingly develop their ability to express their opinions based on a rounded knowledge and understanding of the world about them.

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Pupils’ behaviour and personal development Good

All staff ensure that warm and trusting relationships are developed throughout the school and this ensures students develop increasingly improved levels of self-esteem, self-belief and confidence. This enables the students to be emotionally ‘ready to learn’. This is very well demonstrated by the high levels of attendance and the good behaviour of students. These represent dramatic, substantial improvements for all students.

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Pupils’ behaviour and personal development Good

Students benefit greatly from the very small numbers in class, along with the very positive relationships that exist between the school, their families and external professionals who work with them. Subsequently some students are able to return to mainstream school.

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Quality of teaching Adequate

The quality of teaching is adequate. It is not good because of the limitations of some staff in relation to teaching good literacy and numeracy skills.

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Quality of teaching Adequate

One-to-one teaching enables staff to have good discussions and communication with students. Staff are skilled at building up levels of trust with students and their families so that their fears about learning reduce. There are good opportunities for students to contribute their ideas, but often staff talk too much in lessons and do not give enough time for students to absorb information, do things for themselves or reflect on possible answer to questions.

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Quality of teaching Adequate

Students’ progress is regularly assessed and where possible, students are assessed soon after entry to the school to establish their understanding in English and mathematics. In some cases, due to prior experiences, students are reluctant to be tested and assessment is ascertained through lesson observation. These baseline assessments are not secure or detailed enough. Consequently it is hard for the school to fully demonstrate the progress that students are making.

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Quality of teaching Adequate

Staff performance is monitored formally by regular supervision, lesson observation and yearly appraisal. Informal discussions, peer support and training are effectively used to help raise the quality of significant aspects of teaching and other support. School leaders are aware of the learning needs of staff, especially in relation to literacy and numeracy and that sometimes there is reticence for staff to set challenging targets for students because of a fear of putting the students off learning. Further training and development are already planned for staff with the help of an educational psychologist to help sharpen students’ individual learning targets and study plans.

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Quality of curriculum Adequate

The quality of the curriculum is adequate. It is not good because, although all the required areas of learning are taught, cultural aspects are not covered in better detail and students do not have sufficient opportunities to extend and apply their reading, writing and numeracy skills in other subjects and activities.

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Quality of curriculum Adequate

Students have individual timetables and are encouraged to make choices that reflect their aspirations and interests. This means that students are interested in the activities they undertake but, as a result of their choices, they sometimes miss out on being able to develop the skills of working with their peers. Overall, the students’ planned timetables have a good balance of subjects, and appropriate time is allocated to teaching English and mathematics. However, the fluidity of the actual timetables, which are adjusted continuously to try and meet students’ developing needs, produces imbalances which means that literacy and numeracy do not receive the necessary emphasis to improve on students’ present adequate achievement in these areas. This situation is not sufficiently monitored to ensure imbalances are resolved.

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Quality of curriculum Adequate

The personal, social and health education programme and the outdoor education programme meet students’ needs, and helps them to build positive relationships and become responsible citizens. The Unit Award Scheme and Entry Level Certificate are used successfully to provide accreditation for students. Although some students undertake GCSE qualifications, senior leaders recognise that the proportion of students entered for GCSEs is too low.

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Pupils’ welfare, health and safety Outstanding

The provision for students’ welfare health and safety is outstanding. Excellent arrangements are in place to safeguard students. The school has thorough procedures for the safe recruitment of staff. All the required checks on the suitably of staff have been completed effectively. All checks are recorded appropriately in a single central record.

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Pupils’ welfare, health and safety Outstanding

There is a very high staff to student ratio. Staff are deployed very effectively so that supervision is efficient both in lessons and around the school. All staff are trained to the appropriate levels in child protection and to support those students who have the most challenging needs. Students, parents and carers report that they feel able to discuss any concerns that they have with staff and that students feel safe and extremely well cared for.

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Pupils’ welfare, health and safety Outstanding

Effective risk assessments are carried out covering all areas of the premises and activities off site. The range of policies relating to fire safety, health and safety, bullying, discipline and first aid meet the needs of the students exceptionally well. The on-site health and safety officer, along with the specialist firms who are utilised extremely well to provide advice and testing equipment, helps ensure students’ safety.

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Leadership and management Adequate

The quality of leadership and management is adequate. It is not good because the monitoring of teaching and learning is not helping students to make better progress in literacy and numeracy. However, this has been recognised by senior leaders who have a good understanding of the strengths and areas where improvements need to be made. They already have plans to remedy this as demonstrated in the school’s improvement plan.

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Leadership and management Adequate

The accommodation is clean, bright and welcoming. Buildings are maintained to a good standard and suitable for the number of students that work in them. Although outdoor spaces on the school sites are limited, excellent use is made of local areas and venues for physical exercise and learning about the natural environment. The new rooms for teaching are a positive asset.

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Leadership and management Adequate

All of the required information is provided, or made available, to parents, carers and others including termly written reports on the progress of their child. Daily records are kept and, for the most part, access to different levels of information about each student is carefully and appropriately controlled. However, reporting on students’ academic achievements is not reported as clearly. The complaints procedure complies fully with the requirements.

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Leadership and management Adequate

The headteacher and the trustees have ensured that all of the regulations for independent schools have been met.

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Grade Judgement Description

Grade 1 Outstanding A school which provides an exceptional quality of education and significantly exceeds minimum requirements. Grade 2 Good A school which provides a high quality of education that exceeds minimum requirements. Grade 3 Adequate A school which meets minimum requirements but needs to improve the quality of education it provides. Grade 4 Inadequate A school where minimum requirements are not met and/or the quality of education has serious weaknesses.

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School details

Unique reference number 135735 Inspection number 408743 DfE registration number 933/6000 Type of school Special school (for students with behavioural, social and emotional difficulties) School status Independent School Age range of pupils 10–18 years Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 20 Number of part time pupils 6 Proprietor Dr Adam Abdelnoor Chair Matthew Gibson Headteacher Dr Adam Abdelnoor Date of previous school inspection 25 May 2010 Annual fees (day pupils) £45,954 Telephone number 01458 830434 Fax number None Email address ce@inaura.net guidance 'Complaining about inspections', which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.ofsted.gov.uk . If you would like Ofsted to send you a copy of the guidance, please telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk .

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School details

You can use Parent View to give Ofsted your opinion on your child’s school. Ofsted will use the information parents and carers provide when deciding which schools to inspect and when.

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School details

You can also use Parent View to find out what other parents and carers think about schools in England. You can visit www.parentview.ofsted.gov.uk, or look for the link on the main Ofsted website: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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School details

inspects to achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children's social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, work-based learning and skills training, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for looked after children, safeguarding and child protection. Further copies of this report are obtainable from the school. Under the Education Act 2005, the school must provide a copy of this report free of charge to certain categories of people. A charge not exceeding the full cost of reproduction may be made for any other copies supplied. If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille,

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School details

please telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . You may copy all or parts of this document for non-commercial educational purposes, as long as you give details of the source and date of publication and do not alter the information in any way. To receive regular email alerts about new publications, including survey reports and school inspection reports, please visit our website and go to ‘Subscribe’.

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School details

T: 0300 123 4234 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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