Newbury Independent School

Overview: Newbury Independent School is an independent day school providing education for pupils between the ages of 11 and 19. While the school has made improvements, further steps are needed to ensure every pupil fully benefits from their education.

Strengths:

• Pupils develop strong relationships with staff, who use thoughtful and caring approaches to help pupils feel safe, understood and supported.
• The school's supportive and aspirational environment helps pupils rebuild their resilience and engage more positively in learning.
• Staff are quick to act when pupils need additional support, and teaching staff use well-timed questions to understand whether pupils understand the intended learning for each lesson.

Areas to improve:

• The school has not yet established a structured approach for teaching phonics and reading, which affects some pupils' literacy skills and confidence.
• In some subjects, particularly humanities and foundation subjects, the curriculum is poorly implemented, making it challenging for pupils to build knowledge progressively and engage with more complex concepts.
• Variability in curriculum sequencing, assessment, and subject implementation leads to gaps in pupils' knowledge and fragmented learning.

Safeguarding: The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.