Oakwood School and Assessment Centre

Overview

This follow-up inspection confirms that Oakwood School and Assessment Centre is “living out its vision of providing a caring and stable environment for the children to develop.” The report highlights that “effective planning and assessment processes and consistent teaching approaches have resulted in improvements in the provision for the children.” Consequently, the Education and Training Inspectorate states that “no further follow-up inspection is required.”

Strengths

• Staff demonstrate an “ethos of collegial working” and provide “exceptional care,” with parents reporting their children are “happy and making good progress.”
• Teachers use a “flexible approach” to adapt the curriculum to “varied and complex learning needs,” ensuring “personalised target-setting” for each child.
• A new digital system enables “real-time recording of the assessment of children's learning,” leading to “responsive intervention strategies” when progress stalls.
• “Almost all of the children are achieving in line with their abilities,” with successes “celebrated throughout the school.”
• The establishment of senior and middle leadership teams has created “clear roles and responsibilities” across both campuses.

Areas to improve

• The school must “continue to develop the roles of middle leadership in supporting and monitoring the learning across the school.”
• Inspectors noted a health and safety concern regarding “parts of the soft surface in the outdoor play area” that are “degrading.”

Safeguarding

The report states that “arrangements for child protection align to the current statutory guidance” and that children “feel safe and happy in school.”