Cambian Tyldesley School

Inspection of Cambian Tyldesley School Shuttle Street, Tyldesley, Wigan, Manchester M29 8BS

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Overall effectiveness Requires improvement

The quality of education Requires improvement Behaviour and attitudes Good Personal development Good Leadership and management Requires improvement Overall effectiveness at previous inspection Good

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Overall effectiveness Requires improvement

Does the school meet the independent school standards?

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What is it like to attend this school?

The school provides a safe, calm place, where pupils feel they can be themselves. Pupils join the school after having tricky prior experiences in education. Many of them have spent significant time outside of school. Staff form warm and supportive relationships with pupils. They spend time to get to understand pupils, who all have special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), individual learning and behaviour needs. This helps them to feel valued. Typically, in school, they behave positively. Staff help pupils to manage their own behaviour increasingly well.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The proprietor and school are ambitious for pupils. They want pupils to achieve the most that they can. In many areas of its work, the school is successful. However, other aspects of the school’s ambition for pupils’ achievement are not fully realised. There is more work to do to ensure that pupils achieve greater success across the curriculum.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The school offers some pupils a vocational pathway which suits their interests and wishes. This includes horse riding, vehicle mechanics or hair and beauty. This adds value to their educational experiences, helping pupils to think about what they might want to do as a future career.

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better?

The school has an ambitious curriculum in place, which includes academic and vocational subjects. The school aims for pupils to achieve formal qualifications. For example, pupils can work towards gaining a GCSE or functional skills qualification. In some subjects, the school has thought clearly about the knowledge and skills pupils need to learn and when. In these subjects, teachers use strategies which help to support the successful implementation of its intended curriculum. Teachers check in with pupils on their prior learning. They are more successful in ensuring that pupils build up a rich body of knowledge over time.

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better?

However, in other subjects, the curriculum content is less precise. In these subjects, there is less clarity about the knowledge which pupils need to know. It is not precise enough what the sequence of learning should be. As a result, teachers do not routinely highlight the most important learning or impart knowledge successfully to pupils. In addition, checks of pupils’ knowledge in lessons are not used as effectively to check out what they have remembered from their prior learning. When this occurs, some pupils repeat work that they already understand as they have completed it before. Pupils do not move on to new learning swiftly enough. This limits how well these pupils achieve all that they can.

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better?

Pupils study various texts in their lessons, which gives them access to different literature. In the form room, there are opportunities for them to read a newspaper or other books if they wish to. However, more ambition is needed to promote a wide culture of reading across the school. Recently, the school has introduced a more formalised phonics programme. It now identifies pupils who struggle to read or have 28 to 30 January 2025 gaps in their understanding. This is beginning to help those pupils who need support to read with more fluency. However, wider school staff do not have the necessary expertise to support pupils with their phonics throughout the curriculum. This particularly limits staff’s ability to support pupils with spelling difficult words.

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better?

Pupils move around the school sensibly, supported well by key staff. This means that they arrive at lessons on time. Typically, in lessons, pupils show positive attitudes towards their learning. They show increasing commitment to their learning, often persevering when they find the work challenging. The school works closely with parents and carers to encourage and promote regular attendance. It is successful, with many pupils attending school more regularly. For a small group of pupils, this is not the case. They miss school too often, which impacts how much they access the curriculum on offer. In some subjects, the school is more successful in ensuring that pupils catch up on their learning.

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better?

Pupils enter the school with an education, health and care (EHC) plan, which has identified their distinctive social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs. These challenges have created obstacles to learning for pupils in the past. The school works with pupils, parents and other services to fully understand these needs and identify the correct support. For example, pupils receive pastoral support from staff, including their key workers. This helps the school to meet pupils’ specific emotional needs more successfully.

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better?

Helping pupils to be ready for the next stage in their wider lives is a key priority for the school. Relationships and sex education (RSE) lessons provide necessary preparation. These help pupils to recognise potential dangers and learn how they can keep themselves safe. The school has designed an appropriate impartial careers information, education, advice and guidance programme. Pupils are given work experience opportunities, which help to support their transition into the workplace. Pupils work with local charities to support their understanding about people who are less fortunate than themselves.

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better?

Staff value the support the school provides for their workload and well-being. They feel that the school’s debrief meetings at the end of each school day helps them to support pupils.

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better?

The proprietor ensures that the independent school standards (the standards) are met. In places, the standards, particularly in relation to the premises, need to be monitored more closely so that they consistently meet the correct requirements. The proprietor has systems in place to ensure oversight of the quality of pupils’ education. The school complies with schedule 10 of the Equality Act 2010.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. 28 to 30 January 2025

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(Information for the school and proprietor)

 In some subjects, the school has not identified clearly enough what the important knowledge is that pupils should learn. This means that it is difficult for teachers to know what pupils should be learning at different stages of the curriculum. Pupils struggle to build up their knowledge over time. The school should ensure that it identifies key knowledge precisely in these subjects.  In some subjects, including phonics, staff do not have the necessary subject- specific or pedagogical knowledge. This means that they find it more difficult to impart knowledge to pupils or to deliver the curriculum effectively. The school should ensure that staff receive effective professional development in these areas so that they can deliver the curriculum effectively.  In some subjects, the checks that teachers make on pupils’ learning are not as effective as they could be. This limits their ability to know what pupils have

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(Information for the school and proprietor)

remembered from their prior learning or where any gaps in pupils’ learning remain. The school should ensure that teachers use assessment opportunities more effectively, so that pupils know more and can do more over time.  A small group of pupils are not in school as often as they need to be. This limits their chance to access the curriculum and learn new things. The school should ensure that these pupils attend school when they can and minimise how often they miss out on important learning.

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How can I feed back my views?

or to find out what other parents and carers think. We use information from Ofsted Parent View when deciding which schools to inspect, when to inspect them and as part of their inspection.

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How can I feed back my views?

The Department for Education has further guidance on how to complain about a school. 28 to 30 January 2025

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School details

Unique reference number 135557 DfE registration number 359/6009

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School details

Inspection number 10342063 Type of school Other independent special school

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School details

Website www.cambiangroup.com/specialist- education/our-schools/semh- schools/cambian-tyldesley-school Email address enquiries@cambiangroup.com

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School details

Date of previous inspection 23 to 25 November 2021 28 to 30 January 2025

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Information about this school

 The school is a small, independent special school. The main school address is Shuttle Street, Tyldesley, Wigan, Manchester WN3 8BS.  All pupils who attend the school have an EHC plan. The school caters for pupils with social, emotional and mental health needs. The school is registered to admit up to 34 pupils.  The school uses three unregistered alternative provisions.  At the time of the inspection, there were a small number of students in the sixth form.

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Information about this inspection

Inspectors carried out this inspection under section 109(1) and (2) of the Education and Skills Act 2008. The purpose of the inspection is to advise the Secretary of State for Education about the school’s suitability for continued registration as an independent school.

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Information about this inspection

The school meets the independent school standards. These are the requirements set out in the schedule to the Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspections are a point-in-time evaluation about the quality of a school’s provision.  Inspectors discussed the continued impact of the pandemic with the school and have taken that into account in their evaluation of the school.  Inspectors met with the headteacher, deputy headteacher and other senior leaders. The lead inspector met the director of education as a representative of the proprietor body.  Inspectors carried out deep dives in these subjects: English, science and personal, social and health education. For each deep dive, inspectors held discussions about the curriculum, looked at curriculum plans, visited a sample of lessons, spoke to teachers, spoke to some pupils about their learning and looked at samples of pupils’ work.  Inspectors looked at pupils’ work from other curriculum subjects.  To evaluate the effectiveness of safeguarding, the inspectors: reviewed the single central record; took account of the views of the school, staff and pupils; and

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Information about this inspection

considered the extent to which the school has created an open and honest culture around safeguarding that puts pupils’ interests first.  The lead inspector spoke with a representative of the local authority SEND team.  School policies and other documents were examined to check compliance with the standards and to provide other inspection evidence. These included: minutes from meetings between the headteacher and the proprietor body; information on pupils’ progress; the school’s evaluation of its own performance and its 28 to 30 January 2025 development plan. Behaviour and attendance records and information relating to safeguarding were also scrutinised.  As part of their checks on the school’s compliance with the standards, inspectors made a tour of the school premises accompanied by the headteacher and quality improvement leader.

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Inspection team

Stuart Perkins, lead inspector His Majesty’s Inspector

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Inspection team

Rachael Alarcon Ofsted Inspector 28 to 30 January 2025 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 and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for children looked after, safeguarding and child protection.

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Inspection team

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Inspection team

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Inspection team

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Inspection team

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