Compass Community School Vicarage Park

Inspection of Compass Community School Vicarage Park The Old Vicarage, The Bullring, Stottesdon, Kidderminster, Shropshire DY14 8UH

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Inspection dates: 30 September to 2 October 2025

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Overall effectiveness Requires improvement

The quality of education Requires improvement Behaviour and attitudes Good Personal development Good Leadership and management Good 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?

Being a pupil at this school means joining a friendly community that cares for everyone and values happiness and safety. Pupils particularly enjoy the range of outdoor equipment in the school’s spacious, beautiful grounds. They feel happy because staff are caring and know their needs well. Horse riding, animal care and taking walks around the local area add to pupils’ enjoyment and learning.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The school has high expectations for pupils. However, due to recent significant changes to staffing and leadership of the school, these expectations have not been fully realised. Pupils make progress from their starting points in their personal, social and emotional development. For example, being able to communicate a feeling, work in a classroom with a peer being present or eat alongside others in the dining hall. However, for some pupils, adaptations are not fully meeting their needs in some areas of learning.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Behaviour is typically positive. Staff know each pupil well and the warm relationships between staff and pupils are clear to see. This helps staff to be in tune with pupils’ shifting emotions and behaviours throughout the day. Staff, alongside the support of the therapy team, use a range of strategies to help pupils to learn to recognise and manage their emotions.

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better?

The school’s curriculum is designed to meet the diverse and complex needs of its pupils. However, its delivery is inconsistent. In some lessons, clear explanations, instructions and the effective use of resources, help pupils to develop their understanding. Where this is the case, behaviour is often more settled, which supports pupils’ learning. However, in other lessons, such practices are less evident, which impact upon what pupils know and can do. The school recognises this and is working to address these inconsistencies.

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better?

The phonics programme has been revised recently. Staff are developing their understanding of the programme and are typically delivering this well to support pupils’ reading and communication stage. Stories, songs and rhymes are an important and intrinsic part of each day. Pupils respond well to this. Hearing pupils echo back the days of the week or snuggling up in a beanbag as they listen intently to a story shows their enjoyment and engagement.

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better?

The school has reviewed, and is currently refining, its curriculum for communication and interaction across the curriculum, beyond reading. This is a work in progress. Some strategies are known, understood and followed by staff. Others are newer and require greater consistency in use for pupils to benefit fully from their introduction.

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better?

The school takes a comprehensive approach to identifying and supporting pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities. This includes close and regular partnership working with professionals involved in a pupil’s life, alongside strong 30 September to 2 October 2025 involvement of the therapeutic team based at the school. Tailored learning programmes are in place. It is commendable how well the new leadership and staff team know and understand each pupil’s individual needs, interests and strengths. Many external professionals recognise this as an impressive aspect of the school’s provision.

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better?

A newly formed staff team have worked quickly and effectively to form strong relationships with pupils. This is supporting pupils’ wider development well. Regular meetings, involving parents and carers and including multi-disciplinary teams, help identify pupils’ social development and their evolving needs. However, such checks are less secure in teaching and learning. The school does not typically use information about gaps in pupils’ knowledge to inform teaching. As a result, some learning activities are not well matched to pupils’ learning needs. This impacts on how successfully pupils deepen their learning.

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better?

Behaviour across the school is generally settled. There is a sense of calm with an increasing focus on learning. Staff are increasingly recognising when a pupil is ready to learn. The school has identified that learning can ‘happen anywhere, anytime’. Staff are responding to this and take learning to the pupil. For example, counting the scoops of mud or identifying numbers on the trampoline. The school is supporting staff to extend the range of support to manage pupils’ emotions and behaviours. Increased sensory regulation activities have been introduced across the school day. This is reducing the number of times that pupils are upset, anxious or distressed. It has also led to a reduction in the number of physical interventions required.

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better?

Pupils enjoy coming to school and show smiles and ‘high fives’ as they settle to their day. This enjoyment is shown through high attendance, which is well managed by the school. They have a range of opportunities to develop personally and to engage in the wider world around them. This starts from the safety of pupils’ own personal space and extends to working alongside others as well as experiencing a range of activities. Pupils are safe and communicate what they should do if they are worried and how staff support to keep them safe.

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better?

The school knows and understands its improvement priorities. It is determined to address these swiftly. The proprietor ensures that the independent school standards (the standards) are met. This includes ensuring that the school complies with schedule 10 of the Equality Act 2010. The proprietor has been a stabilising force over time and is providing significant resources to support the school to be the best it can be. Indeed, it is clear that the school is now prioritising the right things in the correct order.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. 30 September to 2 October 2025

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(Information for the school and proprietor)

 The school has not ensured that staff are supported to have the subject-specific knowledge that they need to teach some of the subjects that they are required to. This means that pupils’ learning, and achievement is not as strong as it could be across the curriculum. The school should ensure that staff are provided the professional learning and support that they need to deepen their subject-specific expertise, so that they can deliver and adapt the curriculum for pupils consistently well.  Sometimes, the school does not check pupil’s understanding or match learning activities sufficiently well to pupils’ needs. As a result, some learning tasks can be too easy or too hard. This leads to pupils feeling unsettled and unable to engage with learning. The school should ensure that staff receive the necessary support to make effective checks on what pupils know and can do and match learning accordingly.  The communication strategies used by pupils to express their wants, needs and

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(Information for the school and proprietor)

ideas are not always consistently supported. This reduces pupils’ ability to express their feelings and emotions and impacts upon the development of their independence. The school should strengthen their communication strategies, making use of therapeutic services on offer when doing so.

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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. 30 September to 2 October 2025

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School details

Unique reference number 148587 DfE registration number 893/6079

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School details

Inspection number 10391808 Type of school Other independent special school

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School details

Annual fees (day pupils) £99,000 to £127,000

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School details

Website www.compass- schools.org/schools/public/vicarage-park Email address education.compliance@compass- schools.org Dates of previous inspection 21 to 23 September 2022 30 September to 2 October 2025

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Information about this school

 Compass Community School Vicarage Park is an independent special school for pupils who have severe and complex learning needs, including autism spectrum disorder.  The school is sited in spacious grounds in a rural locality.  All pupils who attend the school have an education, health and care plan. They are placed at the school by a number of different local authorities.  The school is part of Compass Community Ltd. This is a company that runs other special schools for pupils with mild, moderate and severe/complex learning needs.  The school does not currently use alternative provision.  The school does not have a religious character.  The headteacher had been in post for four weeks at the point of inspection. For the summer term, Compass Community Ltd put in place interim support for the school while there was no substantive headteacher.

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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.  Inspectors discussed any continued impact of the pandemic with leaders and have taken that into account in their evaluation of the school.  Inspectors met with the headteacher, regional director, deputy director of education and senior leaders. They also met with the chair of the proprietor body, the chair of the governing body and members of the proprietor body.  To evaluate the effectiveness of safeguarding, the inspectors: reviewed the single central record, considered the views of leaders, staff and pupils, and considered the extent to which the school has created an open and positive culture around safeguarding that puts pupils’ interests first.  Inspectors considered pupils’ behaviour throughout the inspection. Inspectors also spoke with leaders to consider how they support pupils’ behaviour.  During the inspection, inspectors completed deep dives in the following subjects:

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Information about this inspection

communication and interaction, including early reading, sensory and physical, and personal, social, health and economic education. For each deep dive, inspectors 30 September to 2 October 2025 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.  The lead inspector carried out a detailed tour of the site and premises to consider how well the school meets the standards. Inspectors considered documents, policies and plans linked to the health, safety and welfare of pupils, including the fire risk assessment, checks on fire safety equipment and site safety.  A range of documentation was scrutinised, including school policies, curriculum documents and the school’s website.  During the inspection, the inspectors spoke with pupils and other members of staff to gather general information about school life.

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Information about this inspection

 The lead inspector considered the responses to Ofsted’s online survey for staff.

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Inspection team

Kirsty Foulkes, lead inspector His Majesty’s Inspector

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Inspection team

Tony Bradshaw His Majesty’s Inspector 30 September to 2 October 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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