Springwell Special Academy

Overview

Springwell Special Academy is rated as ‘Good’ across all inspection categories, maintaining high standards despite significant leadership changes. The report highlights a ‘calm and supportive environment’ where staff are ‘sensitive to their individual needs’, fostering positive relationships that help pupils manage their social, emotional and mental health challenges.

Strengths

• Staff and leaders have a ‘clear vision’ for pupils, ensuring they work towards meeting their education, health and care plan targets and GCSEs in English and mathematics.
• The curriculum is ‘responsive to any issues pupils are facing’, helping them feel safe and equipped to manage risks, with pupils confident to speak to staff about concerns such as bullying.
• Teachers ‘adapt their teaching’ to meet individual needs, checking that pupils have remembered important knowledge to build on prior learning.
• Special educational needs coordinators work closely with external agencies to ensure pupils’ needs are ‘accurately identified and supported’.
• Governors have established effective systems, including a recruitment strategy group, to address challenges such as staff retention.

Areas to improve

• Leaders must prioritise staff training in phonics to ensure the new programme is delivered with ‘rigour and consistency’, providing older struggling readers with necessary support.
• Leaders should continue to take action to reduce ‘high’ absence and persistent absence so pupils can benefit fully from their education.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are ‘effective’, with leaders proactively reviewing systems and providing frequent, context-responsive training to keep staff confident in identifying and acting on concerns.