Hera House

Inspection of Hera House Broughton Road, Appleby DN15 0DA

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Inspection dates: 29 April to 1 May 2025

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Overall effectiveness Good

The quality of education Good Behaviour and attitudes Good Personal development Good Leadership and management Good Does the school meet the independent school standards?

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What is it like to attend this school?

This school values pupils’ individuality. It cares deeply about identifying and meeting the needs of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). The staff embody the school’s ethos, ‘to every child a chance’. The school nurtures and supports pupils to be prepared successfully for adulthood. Pupils are happy.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The school has high expectations for pupils’ behaviour. Pupils understand the school’s behaviour code. This consists of five simple rules that pupils typically follow well. Pupils enjoy receiving rewards for behaving in accordance with the code. They appreciate that the school’s sanctions are fair and applied consistently. Pupils have access to a sensory garden or ‘break room’. This gives them the space and time to regulate and take responsibility for their behaviour.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The school has high expectations for pupils’ achievement. The school has redesigned the curriculum to ensure that it is engaging and appropriate for pupils. Pupils learn well. As pupils join the school throughout the year, staff continually adapt the curriculum to meet the needs of the changing cohort. Pupils benefit from a well-considered transition programme before they join the school. This helps them to understand the school’s routines.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The school proactively supports pupils and their families. Each family has a key worker. This ensures that parents and carers have a point of contact for communication, learning or emotional support.

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better?

The school understands its responsibilities connected to each pupil’s education, health and care (EHC) plan. It ensures that pupils access learning successfully, for example by providing specialist support from staff or additional resources. This means pupils make steady progress towards the identified outcomes on their EHC plans.

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better?

The school considers the knowledge and skills it wants pupils in each year group to remember. Staff check how well pupils remember their learning. However, the checks on pupils’ understanding are variable. Where this is strong, staff carefully identify any gaps in pupils’ knowledge, for example through effective questioning. Staff then adapt learning activities to enable pupils to succeed independently. However, on occasions these checks are less effective. This means that some misconceptions are not addressed.

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better?

The school prioritises the teaching of phonics to pupils who are at the early stages of reading. Pupils have plenty of reading practise. They read books that match the sounds that they know. Pupils work incredibly hard to read unfamiliar words. They show resilient attitudes to their learning. However, some pupils, at the early stages of learning to write, struggle to apply their phonics knowledge when spelling words. 29 April to 1 May 2025 Tasks, on occasion, require pupils to write words that include sounds they do not know. This hampers pupils’ ability to write with fluency.

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better?

The school is determined to reduce the high rate of persistent absence. It applies its procedure to follow up any absence consistently well. There are some early signs of improvement. However, persistent absence remains high for some pupils. This means that these pupils miss essential learning.

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better?

The school prepares pupils well for the next stage of their educational journey and for adulthood. As part of the personal social and health education (PSHE) offer, pupils develop basic life skills, such as tying their shoelaces. Pupils have a secure understanding of equality. They listen to, and show respect for, the views of others.

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better?

The school has an effective approach to teaching about healthy relationships and consent. Pupils know that a healthy relationship is built on trust. There are strong relationships between pupils and staff. Pupils share any worries or concerns they may have with staff.

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better?

The school ensures that secondary-age pupils access independent careers advice. It organises an annual careers event. This includes visits from local employers and businesses. This supports pupils to explore potential career opportunities. The proprietor has appropriate oversight of the school. The newly-appointed advisory board intend to provide additional challenge and support to the school. Staff enjoy working at the school. The leaders and proprietor engage effectively with staff.

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better?

The proprietor demonstrates appropriate skills and knowledge to ensure that the independent school standards are met consistently. The school complies with schedule 10 of the Equality Act 2010.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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(Information for the school and proprietor)

 On occasions, tasks for pupils at the early stages of writing do not accurately match their phonics attainment. This means pupils do not get the practise they need to consolidate their phonics knowledge. The school should ensure that learning tasks are designed well to help pupils to apply their phonics knowledge and become more fluent writers.  The systematic checking of pupils’ understanding is not done consistently well across the school. This means that some pupils’ learning is not as secure as it 29 April to 1 May 2025 could be. The school should ensure that the staff have the guidance that they need to identify and address gaps in knowledge effectively.  The attendance of some pupils is too low. This means that these pupils miss out on essential learning. The school should strengthen further its work to improve the attendance of these pupils.

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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. 29 April to 1 May 2025

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School details

Unique reference number 150927 DfE registration number 813/6018

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School details

Inspection number 10374870 Type of school Other independent special school

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School details

Annual fees (day pupils) £45,000 to £47,000

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School details

Email address herainfo@demeterhouse.com 29 April to 1 May 2025

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Information about this school

 This is the first standard inspection of this school. It was registered by the DfE on 15 July 2024.  The school operates from Broughton Road, Appleby, Scunthorpe DN15 0DA.  The school is registered to admit 50 pupils.  Hera House is a special school for pupils with cognitive and learning needs, speech, language and communication needs, autism, social, emotional and mental health needs and moderate and specific learning difficulties. All pupils have an EHC plan.  At the time of the inspection, there were no key stage 1 pupils on roll.  There is a newly-appointed advisory board who intend to provide quality assurance through its support and challenge.  The school uses one unregistered alternative provision.

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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 education provision.  This was the first routine inspection the school received since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Inspectors discussed the impact of the pandemic with the school and have taken that into account in their evaluation of the school.  Inspectors met with the headteacher and other leaders from the school.  Inspectors met virtually with the proprietor body.  Inspectors carried out deep dives in these subjects: English, mathematics, history and PSHE. For each deep dive, inspectors held discussions about the curriculum, visited a sample of lessons, spoke to teachers, spoke to some pupils about their learning and looked at samples of pupils’ work. Inspectors also looked at curriculum plans and spoke to leaders about another subject.  To evaluate the effectiveness of safeguarding, inspectors: reviewed the single central record; took account of the views of leaders, staff and pupils; and

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Information about this inspection

considered the extent to which the school has created an open and positive culture around safeguarding that puts pupils’ interests first. 29 April to 1 May 2025  The lead inspector completed a premises check.  Inspectors observed pupils’ behaviour in lessons and during social times.  The lead inspector spoke by telephone to a local authority representative.  Inspectors considered the responses to Ofsted Parent View, including the free- text comments. They also considered the responses to Ofsted’s online survey for staff. Inspectors spoke with groups of staff and pupils to gain their views about the school.

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Inspection team

Alison Stephenson, lead inspector His Majesty’s Inspector

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Inspection team

Kathryn McDonald His Majesty’s Inspector 29 April to 1 May 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

T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/ofsted

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