Oak Lodge School

Overview: Oak Lodge School continues to be a good school, with pupils enjoying attending and staff being very caring and supportive. Pupils are safe and happy, and leaders have high expectations for them to achieve well and be prepared for adult life.

Strengths:

• Pupils enjoy attending the school and are safe and happy.
• Staff are very caring and supportive, and understand and support pupils' individual needs well.
• Relationships between staff and pupils are very positive, with pupils knowing staff will look after them and help them to learn.
• Pupils behave well, are respectful of each other's needs, and engage well with learning.
• Staff support pupils in managing their emotions, so that they learn over time how to become more independent.
• The school's personal development programme is comprehensive, with pupils having an age-appropriate understanding of healthy relationships and enjoying a wide range of enrichment opportunities.
• Leaders and staff are committed to helping pupils manage their own behaviour, with staff understanding that negative behaviour can be a form of communication.
• Adults provide effective support for pupils to prepare them for adulthood and the world of work, developing as pupils move through the school.
• The school measures itself against the Gatsby benchmarks to ensure pupils receive high-quality careers advice.

Areas to improve:

• In some subjects, the knowledge that pupils need to learn is not identified precisely enough, limiting some pupils' understanding of important concepts.
• In some subjects, for example in science and art, knowledge is not always broken down into logical steps as effectively, resulting in pupils not always achieving as well as they could.

Safeguarding: The arrangements for safeguarding are effective, with leaders having developed a strong safeguarding culture, prioritising safeguarding training for staff, and staff being quick to act to keep pupils safe.