Outwood Alternative Provision Eston

Overview

The report describes a school where pupils enjoy a range of enriching opportunities, including outdoor pursuits that help re-engage them with education. Staff establish positive relationships quickly, enabling pupils to feel confident and secure, while leaders maintain high expectations for conduct and achievement. The school is judged to be ‘Good’ across all inspection categories, including the quality of education, behaviour, and leadership.

Strengths

• Pupils benefit from an ‘ambitious curriculum’ that is appropriately adapted to their needs, with most securing nationally recognised qualifications.
• Staff have ‘secure knowledge’ of subjects and use effective teaching approaches, such as questioning, to extend pupils’ understanding.
• Positive relationships between staff and pupils contribute to generally positive behaviour and improved self-esteem.
• The school provides a ‘high-quality’ personal development curriculum, including PSHE and relationships and sex education.
• Reading is given high importance, with an effective phonics programme helping early readers to sound out unfamiliar words.

Areas to improve

• The approach to developing reading fluency is ‘underdeveloped’, as the school does not consistently identify specific barriers to reading for all pupils.
• Attendance rates are not high enough, as the school fails to accurately identify ongoing barriers for a minority of pupils, preventing sustained improvements.
• Checks on what pupils know are not always used effectively, meaning subsequent teaching is not always precisely matched to prior knowledge.

Safeguarding

The report states that ‘the arrangements for safeguarding are effective’.