Lord's School

Overview: Lord's School is a small independent school with 22 pupils on roll, where most pupils join part way through their education. The school has a strong focus on inclusion, with leaders making sure that pupils' needs are identified early and accurately. Pupils feel safe and supported, and staff use positive relationships to build trust and help pupils to feel secure.

Strengths:

• Pupils feel safe and supported, with staff using positive relationships to build trust.
• Leaders make sure that pupils' needs are identified early and accurately.
• Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities access the same ambitious curriculum as their peers.
• Pupils benefit from regular contact with external educators and visitors, which strengthens their understanding of their next steps.
• Pupils develop secure knowledge about important issues such as pregnancy and sexual health, as well as drugs misuse and crime.

Areas to improve:

• Leaders have not ensured that attendance records are completed consistently, and there are gaps in attendance records for some pupils.
• Leaders have not made sure that behaviour records and attendance records are completed accurately.
• Leaders have not ensured that high-quality risk assessments are in place for the school premises and grounds.
• Leaders need to continue their work to make sure that checks on pupils' prior knowledge are precise so that these checks can be used to help gaps in writing and mathematics close more rapidly.
• Leaders need to make sure that all staff receive professional development so that, in each subject, new learning is explained clearly so that pupils acquire and remember the knowledge that they need.

Safeguarding: The safeguarding standards are met, with leaders and/or those responsible for governance and oversight fulfilling their specific responsibilities and having established an open culture in which safeguarding is everyone's responsibility and concerns are actively identified, acted upon and managed.