New Woodlands School

Overview

New Woodlands School has taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at the previous inspection. The school places paramount importance on pupils’ social and emotional health, fostering highly positive relationships that significantly enhance well-being. Pupils benefit from a logically structured curriculum and skilled teaching that prepares them well for adulthood, with all leavers moving to further education, training, or employment.

Strengths

• Staff are well trained in supporting pupils to manage their behaviour, creating "calm and positive spaces where learning is rarely interrupted."
• The curriculum is "logically structured to build and develop pupils’ learning over time," with teachers modifying instruction to meet specific needs.
• Support staff, therapists, and external professionals provide "swift and well-targeted interventions" that greatly enhance pupil support.
• The school successfully broadens pupils’ horizons through visits to places of interest and a strong focus on careers education.
• Leaders and governors give appropriate focus to staff workload and well-being, holding the school to account effectively.

Areas to improve

• The school should evaluate the impact of its attendance strategies to identify and replicate the most effective approaches, as overall absences remain high.
• Strategies must be refined to ensure the small number of persistently absent pupils benefit more fully from the school’s high-quality education.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.