Rhyddings

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

With help from the trust, the school has raised its expectations of pupils' behaviour.

This has helped to foster a more respectful culture than in the past. Typically, the relationships that pupils have with their teachers and peers are positive. Most pupils enjoy school.

The trust has high expectations for pupils' achievement. Recent improvements in staffing and leadership at the school have helped to raise pupils' achievement in key stage 3. However, in some subjects, the key stage 4 curriculum is not designed and delivered successfully.

This limits how well older pupils learn. Furthermore, a small minority of pupils' high absence rate means that they miss ...vital learning. This hinders some pupils from achieving as well as they should.

Some pupils have begun to benefit from the recent improvements that have been made to the programme to promote their wider development. The school has started to organise activities that help pupils to learn about life in modern Britain. For instance, pupils celebrate and mark faith events at relevant times of the year.

Some pupils relish their roles on the junior leadership team. These positions help pupils to feel heard and valued. Reading ambassadors enjoy supporting their younger peers to develop confidence when reading.

However, these opportunities are not as rich or as broad as they could be to enable more pupils to take advantage of such experiences.

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

The work to develop a broad and ambitious curriculum is further developed in key stage 3 than in key stage 4. Where the curriculum is better designed, the school has identified the key knowledge that pupils should know and remember to develop their learning over time.

However, this work is not complete in key stage 4. As a result, older pupils struggle to access new learning, as their previous learning is insecure.

In the main, staff have strong subject expertise.

This helps them to choose teaching activities that engage pupils with their learning. However, at times, staff do not check that pupils have learned the subject content in sufficient depth. This results in some staff moving on to new learning before pupils are ready.

Consequently, some pupils do not learn as well as they should.

The school has effective systems in place to identify the additional needs of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). However, for some pupils, staff do not implement strategies effectively enough to ensure that pupils can access the curriculum well.

As a result, some pupils with SEND do not achieve as well as they could.

The school is increasingly prioritising reading. Recently, it has strengthened the support for younger pupils who struggle to read.

However, the school's processes to identify deficits in older pupils' reading knowledge are not well developed. This means that some pupils do not receive the support that they need to read with confidence and fluency.

The school has worked with the trust to reshape its behaviour policies.

Most pupils behave well and live up to the school's expected standards of conduct. The school has begun to support pupils who continue to repeat unwanted behaviours better than in the past. This means that pupils can, at most times, learn without interruption.

The school has sharpened its focus on raising attendance rates. However, the absence rate for a small minority of pupils is still consistently high. This is because, at times, the school does not monitor why pupils are absent closely enough.

Consequently, the support that pupils receive to encourage them to attend school regularly does not have the desired impact.

Pupils learn about age-appropriate topics through the personal, social, health and economic education curriculum. They know how to keep safe online and in the community.

The careers programme is designed to give most pupils sufficient insights into different career pathways. Some pupils benefit from opportunities that are designed to promote their wider development. For instance, some pupils enjoyed visiting Madrid to practise their Spanish language skills.

However, for many pupils, the extra-curricular opportunities are not broad and rich enough. This hinders aspects of pupils' personal development.

The trust has recently made substantial changes to governance arrangements at the school.

This is helping the school to refine its policies and practices to ensure that weaknesses in the curriculum and behaviour are better addressed. Staff value the increasing support that they have received to raise pupils' standard of education. They also appreciate the consideration shown for their workload and well-being.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• In some subjects, the curriculum at key stage 4 is underdeveloped. For instance, the essential knowledge that pupils should learn is not identified clearly.

This limits how well some pupils secure their understanding of the subject content. The school should ensure that the key stage 4 curriculum identifies what pupils need to learn, and when this will happen, so that pupils can build on their knowledge well over time. ? Some teachers do not check and remedy gaps in pupils' knowledge as well as they should.

This means that some pupils do not build a deep enough understanding of subject content. As a result, they are unable to understand more complex ideas as they progress through the curriculum. The school should ensure that teachers are equipped to design activities that help them to check and support pupils to gain a deeper understanding of the subject so that they can achieve well.

• The school does not diagnose and address older pupils' reading knowledge gaps as well as it should. This limits how well some of these older pupils access the curriculum. The school should strengthen its support for older pupils who struggle to read to ensure that pupils develop their reading knowledge so that they can access the curriculum and achieve.

• At times, teachers do not adapt teaching activities well to meet the additional needs of pupils with SEND. This means that some pupils do not access the curriculum as well as they could. The school should ensure that lesson activities are suitably adapted to meet pupils' additional needs so that they can achieve as well as they should.

• The programme to promote pupils' wider development is not as rich and broad as it should be. As a result, some pupils do not gain sufficient opportunities to expand their interests and talents. The school should ensure that its extra-curricular programme is strengthened so that more pupils take advantage of wider enrichment activities.

• The school does not identify and analyse the reasons for some pupils' absences closely enough. This means that, for a small number of pupils, absence rates remain high. The school should improve how it monitors and analyses the absences for these pupils so that the barriers that stop them from attending school are removed more effectively.