Excellence Girls Academy

Overview: Excellence Girls Academy is a good independent school that has established an ambitious and aspirational culture, with high expectations for every pupil to achieve well. The school's ethos of 'learners today, leaders tomorrow' is shared by all school community members, and it has constructed a broad, rich curriculum that is largely well implemented.

Strengths:

• The school has created a culture where hard work and commitment to learning are expected.
• The curriculum is broad, balanced and ambitious, with pupils achieving well in most subjects.
• Teachers are skilled specialists who know what to teach and the order to teach it, making sure that new learning builds on what pupils already know.
• Pupils are confident readers, and reading is prioritised with a range of texts that support moral themes and cultural diversity.
• The school has carefully considered what pupils need to know and how it is taught, with well-planned curriculum content for personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education and relationships and sex education (RSE).
• Pupils learn how to keep themselves safe, and the school has created an open and positive culture around safeguarding that puts pupils' interests first.

Areas to improve:

• In a few subjects, learning is not sequenced well enough to help pupils learn and remember more.
• Attendance is low for some pupils, impacting on their learning because they miss too much time at school.
• Pupils access a range of career-related opportunities, but some pupils are unclear on their next steps, and the school should further develop the curriculum to ensure that pupils access a broad range of advice and experiences and are supported to identify their next steps when they leave school.

Safeguarding: The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.