Bramley Oak Academy

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

This school changes many pupils' lives and gives them and their families renewed hope.

Pupils often arrive with complex needs after a much-disrupted education. Caring staff seek to rebuild and nurture pupils to believe they belong and are safe.

The expectations for all have risen as a result of the school's ongoing, impressive work.

Clear rules and structures guide pupils in how to behave, interact appropriately and regulate their behaviour and emotions. The trust's therapy team positively complements pupils' restart in education by supporting good mental health and well-being. This in turn enables pupils to access their academic education.

Each morn...ing, staff greet pupils with a smile, and each class has breakfast together. During this time, pupils share their feelings, learn to play games together positively and take on classroom responsibilities. This settles pupils so they are ready for their education.

The school is ambitious for pupils to learn a wide range of subjects.

The school's enrichment offer develops pupils' character. Pupils enjoy choosing activities, such as sport, cooking and art, to develop their talents and interests.

The school actively promotes pupils' personal development and experiences of the wider world. Pupils love the school trips and celebration assemblies, where they share each other's learning successes.

What does the school do well and what does it need to do better?

The trust has been instrumental in making significant improvement in this school.

Opening the school amid the COVID-19 pandemic and beginning a complete rebuild of the school has been no mean feat. The school has galvanised a committed staff team to live out the school's vision of preparing pupils for a successful pathway to adulthood.

All pupils have special educational needs and/or disabilities and they arrive with different educational starting points.

The school works intensely with families and other professionals. On entry, leaders assess pupils carefully in literacy and numeracy.

The school's well-thought-out, positive behaviour support plans identify what pupils need in order to self-regulate.

The school trains staff skilfully in agreed techniques for de-escalation. Over time, pupils pick up the right habits to learn and to focus in lessons, and there are planned movement breaks when needed. The high staff-to-pupil ratios mean that if pupils do struggle with their behaviour, adults can provide immediate care.

In addition, pupils' attendance is on the rise because of the school's effective support.

The curriculum is well sequenced and carefully planned in the core subjects. Content meets the ambition of the national curriculum, with learning steps clearly identified.

However, in some other subjects, the school has not finalised the precise knowledge that pupils should learn. Furthermore, some education targets in pupils' education, health and care (EHC) plans are not as well aligned with the planned curriculum. This impacts on pupils' successful learning across subject areas.

Staff use meaningful, hands-on experiences to teach pupils new ideas and content. These engage pupils well and enable them to discuss their observations with each other. Nevertheless, some teachers lack sufficient subject knowledge in designing tasks that best match what pupils need to learn.

Some work set is not as ambitious as it should be, which hinders pupils' achievement.

Learning to read is prioritised daily, with extra sessions for pupils who need these the most. A highly effective phonics programme is developing pupils' reading skills and confidence.

Individualised reading sessions are helping pupils to read with greater fluency and quickly close any knowledge gaps. The school is passionate in wanting to inspire pupils to read for pleasure.

The personal development programme is well crafted to prepare pupils for future destinations.

Up-to-date content teaches pupils how to keep safe outside school. There are plentiful opportunities for pupils to develop responsibility, optimism and teamwork. Pupils enjoy eating the freshly cooked hot lunches and learn to think smartly about physical health.

Pupils show appreciation of, and respect for, differences in others.

Trustees maintain a clear line of sight of the school's development priorities. Robust accountability systems ensure that trustees have an excellent insight into how well the school is performing.

They rigorously challenge and scrutinise what they are told.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• The school's curriculum in some non-core subjects needs further refinements.

This includes embedding the academic starting points of pupils' EHC plans. This means that currently, pupils are not learning as well as they could across the entire curriculum. The school should continue with its consideration of each pupil's personal curriculum pathway so that pupils achieve as well as they can in different subjects.

• Some staff do not have the specific subject knowledge to teach the curriculum well. This can lead to planned activities that do not help pupils practise and master the knowledge and skills they need. The school should ensure that staff expertise is consistently strong so that pupils build knowledge securely over time.