Lighthouse School Leeds

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school.

Students make good progress from their individual starting points in both their personal development and in gaining academic skills. Teaching is skilfully matched to students' individual needs. Careful planning of learning helps students take the small steps needed to develop their communication and social skills.

Students' behaviour is managed well. An in-depth analysis of the behaviour that inhibits students' learning enables staff to promote improvements, including through the use of frequent rewards. The Principal provides dynamic leadership, ensuring that the ambitious vision for the school, shared by governors, staff and parents, i...s becoming a reality.

The Principal and the governing body draw effectively on professional support to make sure they have a realistic view of the quality and impact of the school's provision. Based on this, through considerable training and support for staff, leaders have established consistent approaches resulting in good teaching and achievement. It is not yet an outstanding school because : The systems for tracking students' academic and personal progress operate separately, making it more difficult to gain a coherent overview of students' achievement.

Activities aimed at monitoring and evaluating the quality of provision are not sharply enough focused on areas being developed or the impact of training. The leadership's capacity for educational development is restricted by the lack of a head of school.

Information about this school

This free school serves the needs of students with autistic spectrum disorders and related communication difficulties.

It opened in September 2012 with seven students and has plans to grow by about 10 students each year up to a total of 50 students. The 20 students currently on roll are in Years 7 to 11. All students have a statement of special educational needs.

In addition to conditions linked to autism, some students have physical disabilities, including sensory impairments. Admissions to the school may be at any point during the year. There are approximately four times more boys than girls on roll.

The school receives pupil premium funding for just over a quarter of the students. The pupil premium is additional government funding to support the learning of students known to be eligible for free school meals, those who are looked after by the local authority or those who have a parent serving in the armed forces. About a quarter of students are from minority ethnic backgrounds.

None are at the early stages of learning English as an additional language. Alternative provision is made at Meanwood Farm for one student for a day each week. The school employs a range of specialist staff including a speech and language therapist and a consultant in autistic spectrum conditions.

Four school improvement partners work with the school, providing educational support and challenge to the Principal. The Principal is the school's strategic leader but is not an educationalist. There is currently a vacancy for a head of school to which the governing body is seeking to recruit.

The school receives support from the headteacher of Treetops School in Thurrock, who is a National Leader of Education. The school is accommodated in a discrete section of the City of Leeds High School and is able to share the use of some specialist facilities such as those for food technology and physical education. Work, due for completion next year, has recently commenced on adapting a building on another site as the school's permanent home.