Orion School

Overview: Orion School provides a supportive environment for pupils with social, emotional and mental health difficulties, helping them to re-engage with education and build confidence. While the school has many strengths, it requires improvement in several areas.

Strengths:

• Pupils feel safe and cared for, with staff building strong relationships and responding to their needs.
• The school provides a range of opportunities for pupils to develop interests and strengths, including visits, work experience and activities.
• Staff are proud to work at the school and value the support they receive from leaders and the proprietor.
• The proprietors provide effective support to school leaders, demonstrating the capacity to secure improvements.

Areas to improve:

• The school needs to strengthen its oversight of the curriculum to ensure that identified areas for development are acted on quickly and followed through systematically.
• Teaching does not consistently take account of pupils' starting points, and assessment information is not always used precisely to adapt learning.
• The school requires sufficient trained numbers of staff to administer first aid, including when pupils are off-site, to ensure that health and safety requirements are implemented effectively.

Safeguarding: The safeguarding standards are met, with leaders and/or those responsible for governance and oversight fulfilling their specific responsibilities and establishing an open culture in which safeguarding is everyone's responsibility.