Mortimer House School

Mortimer House School

Address: Mortimer House, 17 Victoria Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 7HS Unique reference number (URN): 135259

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Safeguarding standards met

The safeguarding standards are met. This means that leaders and/or those responsible for governance and oversight fulfil their specific responsibilities and have established an open culture in which safeguarding is everyone's responsibility and concerns are actively identified, acted upon and managed. As a result, pupils are made safer and feel safe.

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How we evaluate safeguarding

When we inspect schools for safeguarding, they can have the following outcomes:

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How we evaluate safeguarding

Met: The school has an open and positive culture of safeguarding. All legal requirements are met. Not met: The school has not created an open and positive culture of safeguarding. Not all legal requirements are met. Insufficient evidence: Inspectors were unable to gather sufficient evidence to judge whether safeguarding standards are met.

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Personal development and wellbeing Exceptional

The school's provision for pupils' personal development and wellbeing is highly impressive. It threads through all aspects of the school's work. The quality of the school's provision for personal development is seen in how it transforms pupils' experiences in their time at the school. This includes how successfully pupils learn to manage their own behaviours, their interactions with each other, the qualifications they achieve and the highly impressive destinations that they secure.

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Personal development and wellbeing Exceptional

Leaders have a clear overview of the key knowledge that pupils need for their personal development. This includes how they learn about health relationships, other cultures and the difference between right and wrong. This curriculum is impressively responsive to pupils' development needs and gaps in their understanding. Thanks to consistently effective teaching, the school ensures that pupils secure this learning in depth. Pupils all take a qualification in personal, social, health and economic education as a part of this learning. This is highly effective in supporting pupils' wider development. The school takes considerable care to support pupils to regulate their own behaviours and emotions. This is thanks to consistent approaches across all staff, as pupils' needs are exceptionally well understood. The journey that the school takes pupils on is highly impressive.

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Personal development and wellbeing Exceptional

Within the school's personal development programme, pupils develop a secure understanding of how to look after themselves and thrive in modern Britain. This means that they are very well-prepared for independent living. Leaders carefully track how each pupil progresses across the wider curriculum and how this meets the targets identified in their education, health and care plans. Pupils make highly impressive progress against these targets thanks to the consistent and personalised support they receive.

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Personal development and wellbeing Exceptional

Leaders have a clear eye on pupils' next destinations. They ensure pupils have the information and guidance they need to select a destination which is right for them. Thanks to the school's dedicated and personalised support, significant numbers of pupils secure places in many impressive destinations including colleges and universities.

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Achievement Strong standard

Pupils achieve very well. All are pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities. The school ensures that pupils are very well-prepared to pass a suite of appropriate qualifications. These include a qualification in personal, social and health education. These qualifications are carefully selected to match pupils' prior learning, interests and aspirations for the future.

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Achievement Strong standard

Leaders identify and close gaps in pupils' learning rapidly. This means pupils achieve well. The school does effective work around pupils' reading, literacy and numeracy so that they secure essential knowledge. Pupils take pride in their work and complete tasks to a high standard. This includes some highly impressive pieces of extended writing and analysis. Pupils progress to high-quality and ambitious destinations. These destinations often include places at colleges and other mainstream settings. Pupils can access these places thanks to the methodical work of leaders to support applications. Leaders ensure that pupils secure the qualifications that they need for their future aspirations.

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Attendance and behaviour Strong standard

Pupils who join the school have had a highly disrupted experience of education. They have often had long periods without attending school. Leaders identify barriers to pupils' attendance and wellbeing rapidly. They are able to instil the importance of regular school attendance in pupils. Leaders use part-time timetables appropriately. They rapidly move these pupils to full-time provision. There is appropriate, strategic, management of attendance, meaning that leaders address patterns of non-attendance quickly. Leaders have ensured that relationships, with parents and carers and pupils, are a particular strength of the school. These enable pupils to have the confidence to attend school regularly. As a result, pupils attend well.

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Attendance and behaviour Strong standard

Pupils' needs are consistently well-understood. They are supported well to understand and meet the school's high expectations for behaviour. Pupils understand that bullying is not tolerated. They learn to celebrate difference and that discriminatory behaviour is not acceptable. Pupils promptly receive effective additional support should they need this to meet the school's expectations. Pupils learn to manage their own behaviour and emotions. They follow the school's expectations even when staff are not prompting them. Pupils work hard in lessons, even if the learning is challenging. They learn to listen to each other and respect other points of view.

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Curriculum and teaching Strong standard

All pupils have special educational needs and/or disabilities. Leaders have devised an ambitious curriculum with considerable breadth, which leads to high-quality qualifications. Leaders skilfully adapt each pupil's curriculum to match their interests and needs. Leaders have ensured the key learning for each subject is clearly laid out in a logical order. Teachers understand that pupils arrive with many gaps in their learning. There is highly effective support to ensure that pupils have the strong foundations they need in reading, writing and mathematics. This means that pupils are well-equipped to learn the curriculum. Pupils are set up well for their next steps.

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Curriculum and teaching Strong standard

Teachers are skilled in re-engaging pupils with their learning. They gradually build up pupils' ability to sustain their concentration for sustained periods of time. Teachers have strong subject knowledge for the qualifications that they they teach. They select tasks that are well- matched to pupils' prior learning. Teachers adapt activities consistently well so that they are adapted to pupils' individual needs. Teachers are skilled at checking that pupils understand their learning. They consistently identify and close gaps in pupils' understanding or any misconceptions. As a result, pupils consistently produce high-quality work. They are prepared well for future education, training or employment.

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Inclusion Strong standard

When pupils first join the school, leaders take considerable care to understand their previous experience of education, as well as their current needs and barriers to learning and/or wellbeing. Leaders take the time to gather the views of pupils and their parents and carers. They use pupils' education, health and care plans and external expert advice to craft an individual learning plan (ILP) for each pupil. This identifies pupils' needs with a very high degree of accuracy. This information is very well communicated to staff, so that the agreed approaches are consistently put in place for each pupil. Leaders regularly review how pupils are progressing against the targets in their ILP. This means that pupils' targets are updated promptly. As a result, leaders systematically and consistently reduce barriers to pupils' wellbeing and/or learning.

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Inclusion Strong standard

The school liaises effectively with external partners, such as children's social care, to ensure that pupils receive prompt and highly effective support. Leaders ensure the support that is in place is of high quality and is well targeted to support pupils to achieve well and to thrive.

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Inclusion Strong standard

The school makes appropriate use of alternative provision. Leaders ensure that any alternative provision effectively supports pupils' personal and academic progress.

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Leadership and governance Strong standard

The proprietor has put in place a significant network of support for school leaders at all levels. This means that leaders have a clear understanding of their role and how to achieve high-quality provision. Through links with other schools, leaders have many opportunities to reflect on and refine their practice. The proprietor regularly reviews provision, which means that there is an accurate understanding of the quality of provision and where refinements need to be put in place. The independent school standards are consistently met. All of this results in consistently high-quality provision in all aspects of the school's work. The proprietor ensures that leaders' work around safeguarding is well-informed and that interventions are timely. This helps to ensure that there is a high-quality culture of safeguarding in place.

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Leadership and governance Strong standard

Parents speak very highly of the school thanks to the quality of the provision which leaders have put in place. They especially appreciate the regular communication from staff. They have opportunities to offer feedback to leaders Staff are positive about how leaders work with them around questions of workload, and how they have many opportunities to develop in their roles.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

This is a school which consistently enables its pupils to be the best versions of themselves. Pupils typically arrive at the school with a highly fragmented previous experience of education. Thanks to leaders' care and expertise, pupils are consistently well-supported to re-engage with school and with their learning. They study an ambitious curriculum, which is well-matched to their aspirations and experience. Pupils secure high-quality qualifications, enabling them to access strong destinations. The school's work for personal development is transformational for pupils. Pupils are exceptionally well-supported to thrive when they leave the school. They benefit from highly personalised opportunities for their development based on their needs and interests.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

Pupils are involved in all aspects of the school's work. They are well-understood as individuals. Pupils are nurtured so that the enjoy positive relationships with each other and with the staff who are there to support them. Through the school's exceptional work for their personal development, pupils enjoy many broader experiences, often tailored to their own journey. They also benefit from an extensive range of trips and activities. These all help to build pupils' confidence and readiness for their next steps.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

Pupils behave very well. They are quickly supported to treat staff and pupils with respect thanks to leaders' highly effective work. Pupils understand that bullying is not tolerated. Any examples of behaviour that does not meet leaders' expectations are dealt with quickly and effectively. As a result of all this, pupils feel safe and well cared for. Thanks to the high- quality provision, pupils learn to attend regularly. They have personalised support to help them to choose their destination for when they finally leave.

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Next steps

Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure continued refinements to their curriculum implementation through their regular quality assurance. This is to achieve and sustain exceptional standards of teaching that have a transformational impact on all pupils.

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About this inspection

The name of the proprietor is Young Foundations Limited. The chair of the proprietor body is Lynette Edwards.

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About this inspection

The fees currently charged are £74,446 to £104,219.

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About this inspection

The school's email address is: info@youngfoundations.com. The school does not have a website.

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About this inspection

Inspectors carried out this standard inspection under section 109(1) and (2) of the Education and Skills Act 2008, and checked the school’s compliance with 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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About this inspection

Following our renewed inspection framework, all inspections are now led by His Majesty’s Inspectors (HMI) or by Ofsted Inspectors (OIs) who have previously served as HMIs.

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About this inspection

Inspectors spoke with the headteacher, senior leaders, staff and pupils during the inspection. An inspector also spoke with the regional director and a local authority which

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Independent school standards

Independent school standards are either met or not met for each category. commissions places. Several parents were contacted by telephone during the inspection.

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Independent school standards

The school offers provision for up to 21 pupils aged 11 to 18 with social, emotional and mental health needs. All pupils have an education, health and care plan. Pupils are placed at the school through several local authorities, including Staffordshire, Coventry and Warwickshire.

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Independent school standards

The school does not have a religious character.

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Independent school standards

The school uses one registered alternative provision.

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Independent school standards

The school caters for post-16 students. However, the numbers are too few to provide a separate judgement.

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Independent school standards

1. Quality of education provided Standards met

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Independent school standards

2. Spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils Standards met

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Independent school standards

3. Welfare, health and safety of pupils Standards met

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Independent school standards

4. Suitability of staff, supply staff, and proprietors Standards met

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Facts and figures used on inspection

This data was available to the inspector at the time of the inspection.

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School capacity

5. Premises of and accommodation at schools Standards met

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School capacity

6. Provision of information Standards met

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School capacity

7. Manner in which complaints are handled Standards met

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School capacity

8. Quality of leadership in and management of schools Standards met

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Exceptional

Practice is exceptional: of the highest standard nationally. Other schools can learn from it.

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Strong standard

The school reaches a strong standard. Leaders are working above the standard expected of them.

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Expected standard

The school is fulfilling the expected standard of education and/or care. This means they are following the standard set out in statutory and non ‑ statutory legislation and the professional standards expected of them.

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Needs attention

The expected standards are not met but leaders are likely able to make the necessary improvements.

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Urgent improvement

The school needs to make urgent improvements to provide the expected standard of education and/or care.

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Insufficient evidence

Inspectors were unable to gather reliable enough evidence to grade an evaluation area. This is rare and normally only happens if there are no pupils on roll at the school.

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Insufficient evidence

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Insufficient evidence

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Insufficient evidence

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Insufficient evidence

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

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