The Shrubberies School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school. In a range of subjects and areas of study, pupils make good progress and achieve well. They are well prepared to move on to the next stages of their education, including their transfer to the sixth form or a local college.

Teaching is good across the school. Teachers ensure activities are interesting and, as a result, pupils participate well and enjoy their learning. Behaviour is well managed and relationships between staff and pupils are very positive.

Early years provision is good. Strong leadership has improved planning, the quality of assessment and opportunities for children to use different forms of communication. Progress is good ...because staff ensure high levels of interaction, and communicate with children well.

The sixth form is well led and students respond very well to the more adult environment and high expectations. Behaviour is good in lessons and around school, which helps ensure that pupils make good progress. Pupils feel safe and are well supported by regular routines.

Good leadership and management at all levels, including governance, provide a strong focus on teaching and learning. As a result, the school has sustained the good achievement, teaching, behaviour and safety and leadership and management found at the previous inspection. It has also extended provision in the sixth form.

The pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is effectively promoted through well planned programmes of study and by the school's very positive atmosphere for learning. Governors know the school well and they hold leaders and managers to account very effectively. It is not yet an outstanding school because : Pupils' mathematics skills and understanding are underdeveloped, partly because of limited opportunities to apply them in other subjects and activities.

Information gathered from monitoring pupils' achievement is not always used precisely enough to improve teaching. Sometimes pupils are not given enough opportunity to develop independence and make choices.

Information about this school

Most pupils have a statement of special educational needs.

A small proportion of pupils either have, or are being assessed for, the new Education, Health and Care Plans. The pupils' main special educational needs are severe or profound learning difficulties. Children start in the Nursery from the age of two, attending for three days a week.

Some pupils enter the school at a later age. One in five pupils are girls. Most pupils are White British.

Just over one in 10 pupils is from a minority ethnic group. The proportion of pupils supported by the pupil premium (additional government funding for pupils known to be eligible for free school meals and children who are looked after) is above average. About 5% of pupils are looked after by the local authority.

The school receives sport funding for primary aged pupils. Year 7 pupils receive literacy and numeracy catch-up funding. No pupils take GCSEs, and the school uses no alternative providers.

Since the previous inspection, the sixth form has moved into new accommodation, about 10 minutes' walk from the main school. About a third of sixth form students come from the Shrubberies School and about two thirds transfer from other special schools. A new head of sixth form was appointed in September 2014.