Emily Wilding Davison School

Overview

Emily Wilding Davison School is described as a “rapidly improved school” that no longer requires special measures. The inspection highlights a “calm and pleasant” environment where pupils are “valued and nurtured” by skilled staff. Leaders, governors, and staff work with “absolute determination” to secure continued improvements, creating a strong team focused on pupil welfare.

Strengths

• The curriculum is “broad and aspirational,” with content that is “thoughtfully chosen and coherently sequenced” to meet individual needs.
• Staff possess the necessary expertise to understand and meet pupils’ special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) “well,” linking plans precisely to education, health and care plans.
• Relationships are “positive and good-natured,” with strong support for mental health helping pupils to “reduce their anxiety and develop their confidence.”
• Leaders have strengthened oversight of alternative providers, ensuring education aligns with pupils’ outcomes.
• Staff receive “very effective support” for workload and welfare, fostering a culture where they are “rightly proud to work at the school.”

Areas to improve

• Leaders must “redouble their efforts” to address persistent absence, ensuring parents understand that missing school “disadvantages their children educationally and socially.”

Safeguarding

The report states that “the arrangements for safeguarding are effective.”