Bere Clinic School

Overview

Bere Clinic School provides a highly individualised education for pupils with eating disorders, fostering resilience and self-esteem through exceptional care. Leaders are described as “highly ambitious,” ensuring pupils are “determined to make the most of their time” and return to their home schools feeling “self-assured.” The school meets independent school standards and is praised for its positive culture and effective partnership with the hospital.

Strengths

• Pupils display “excellent” behaviour, being “highly respectful, kind and polite” with no cases of bullying.
• Personal development is promoted “exceptionally well,” including a specialised ‘nourish to flourish’ programme and effective online safety sessions.
• Staff provide “highly individualised support” and “skilfully prioritise teaching the most important content” to help pupils catch up on missed learning.
• Leaders maintain a “comprehensive careers programme” offering “impartial and bespoke careers advice” tailored to pupils’ needs.
• Staff and parents are “highly complementary” about the provision, with staff feeling “empowered” by clear leadership guidance.

Areas to improve

• Assessment is at an “early stage of development”; leaders must ensure strategies to check pupils’ learning are “accurate and inform future teaching.”
• In a couple of subjects, curriculum planning does not sufficiently build on prior learning; leaders should ensure pupils incorporate “smaller component parts of knowledge into larger ideas.”

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are “effective,” with leaders maintaining it as the “key priority” and staff being “swift to report concerns.”