Hidelow Grange School

Overview

Hidelow Grange School is judged as ‘Good’ overall, with ‘Outstanding’ ratings for behaviour and attitudes and personal development. The report highlights how staff’s ‘care, expertise and belief in the pupils’ transform fragmented educational experiences, enabling boys with social, emotional and mental health difficulties to become ‘motivated and engaged learners’.

Strengths

• Pupils ‘enjoy school, attend exceptionally well’ and demonstrate strong self-belief within a ‘nurturing environment’ that balances rules and respect.
• The curriculum is carefully structured with a ‘five-year plan’ and ‘individual learning journey’ for each pupil, accounting for varying knowledge gaps and time constraints.
• Reading is a ‘recent and successful focus’, with pupils showing pride in their book choices and phonics interventions making a ‘positive difference’.
• Staff create ‘exciting and relevant’ lessons by linking resources to pupils’ individual interests, ensuring learning is meaningful.
• There is ‘effective integrated partnership work with the care and clinical teams’, ensuring pupils’ needs are ‘known, understood and met’.

Areas to improve

• The school must address ‘less secure’ application of writing skills, specifically regarding ‘correct letter formation’ and structuring extended pieces.
• Leaders should ‘further refine the key compositional knowledge pupils learn’ and develop staff expertise to deliver handwriting practice effectively.

Safeguarding

The report states that ‘the arrangements for safeguarding are effective’.