The Pioneer School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

The Pioneer School has taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at the previous inspection.

The principal of this school is Joanne Allain. The school is part of the Lift Schools Trust, which means that other people in the trust also have responsibility for running the school. The trust is run by the chief executive officer (CEO), Rebecca Boomer-Clark, and overseen by a board of trustees, chaired by David Hall.

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils thrive at Pioneer School. The hugely committed staff leave no stone unturned in their efforts to ensure that all pupils make significant progress from their starting points. The school ensures that the curriculu...m, and the wide range of interventions and activities that pupils do, is precisely matched to pupils' individual targets.

Strategies such as core communication boards and the use of British Sign Language (BSL) are used in highly effective ways. Pupils develop their ability to express their emotions, needs and knowledge.

Pioneer School is a safe, welcoming, and happy place for pupils.

If pupils become dysregulated, staff work patiently and positively with them to help them to calm and re-focus.

The school prepares pupils exceptionally well for adulthood. Older pupils learn about the world of work when they help in a local care home.

Sixth-form students run an enterprise café in school twice a week. Pupil 'safeguarding ambassadors' teach others about topics, such as consent. Pupils learn how to spot when people are being unkind to them.

Pupils can enjoy a range of clubs, including choir and football. This rich diet of opportunities develops pupils' confidence, resilience, and independence.

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

The school has thought very carefully about the curriculum to ensure that it meets pupils' complex needs.

The school has put communication and language at the heart of its work. Staff have trained pupils, and parents, in techniques such as the use of core communication boards. These boards are adapted for pupils' needs.

They help pupils access the curriculum and enables them to share their feelings.

Staff have high expectations of how well pupils can do. When it is appropriate, pupils follow the national curriculum, and in some cases, are entered for formal qualifications to recognise what they have learned.

The curriculum is highly personalised. Pupils will typically start lessons together. For instance, in science, pupils predict which objects will float or sink, and then experiment with them.

They go on to complete tasks related to their own individual targets. Staff rigorously check how well pupils have learned key knowledge. When teachers revisit previous learning, they use this information to adjust the curriculum to close any gaps in pupils' knowledge.

This supports pupils to know more and remember more across a range of subjects.

The school develops pupils' language very well. Staff choose the words they use carefully to broaden pupils' vocabulary.

Pupils enjoy listening to and taking part in a range of stories, rhymes, and songs. An increasing number of pupils learn phonics. Well-trained staff teach pupils to blend sounds and to read words.

This helps pupils to gain fluency and confidence in their reading.

Pupils benefit from clear and consistent expectations of and routines for behaviour. Pupils are reminded of what positive behaviour looks like.

They are praised when they meet these expectations. If pupils are dysregulated, staff use strategies such as sensory breaks to calm and settle them. Carefully thought-out individual behaviour plans include activities that staff use to help pupils with more challenging behaviours to take part in lessons.

Pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties and others use the school's specialist facilities, including its sensory room. The school is a safe and happy place, pupils enjoy coming to school. The school has worked effectively with parents and carers to improve pupils' attendance.

They now attend very well.

Pupils are taught how to keep themselves safe. They learn how to communicate when they are worried or unhappy.

The school's personal, social and health education curriculum is delivered very well. Pupils learn about topics such as how to keep themselves healthy and the importance of personal space. They learn how to make their beds and wash their clothes.

In 'enterprise sessions' they learn about money when they serve customers in the café. An active school council raises money for charity. Pupils therefore gain the confidence, knowledge, and skills they need for life after school.

The school is relentless in its desire to improve the life chances of pupils. As part of this work, leaders seek to further develop the school's offer. The school provides highly effective training for staff and supports them with their well-being.

As a result, few staff leave their jobs to work at other schools. Parents praise the quality of the communication and support that they receive from the school.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

Background

Until September 2024, on a graded (section 5) inspection we gave schools an overall effectiveness grade, in addition to the key and provision judgements. Overall effectiveness grades given before September 2024 will continue to be visible on school inspection reports and on Ofsted's website. From September 2024 graded inspections will not include an overall effectiveness grade.

This school was, before September 2024, judged to be outstanding for its overall effectiveness.

We have now inspected the school to determine whether it has taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at that previous inspection. This is called an ungraded inspection, and it is carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005.

We do not give graded judgements on an ungraded inspection. However, if we find evidence that a school's work has improved significantly or that it may not be as strong as it was at the last inspection, then the next inspection will be a graded inspection. A graded inspection is carried out under section 5 of the Act.

Usually this is within one to two years of the date of the ungraded inspection. If we have serious concerns about safeguarding, behaviour or the quality of education, we will deem the ungraded inspection a graded inspection immediately.

This is the first ungraded inspection since we judged the school to be outstanding for overall effectiveness in May 2019.

Also at this postcode