St Albans Independent College

Overview: St Albans Independent College is a good school that provides a nurturing environment for its pupils, many of whom have struggled in other educational settings. The college has made significant improvements since the previous inspection, and leaders have a clearer understanding of the independent school standards. Pupils are very happy to attend the school, enjoy excellent relationships with their teachers and peers, and benefit from the college's bespoke approach to education.

Strengths:

• Pupils are very happy to attend the school and appreciate the excellent relationships they have with their teachers and peers.
• The college provides a bespoke approach to education, allowing pupils to study different combinations of subjects over different time periods.
• The culture of the school is one of kindness and understanding, with pupils consistently behaving well and listening respectfully to each other's views.
• Teachers consistently demonstrate high levels of subject knowledge and use appropriate strategies to support pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).

Areas to improve:

• The school's systems for monitoring and improving pupils' attendance need to be further refined, with leaders raising their expectations of what all pupils' attendance should be, particularly vulnerable pupils.
• Leaders are not sufficiently knowledgeable in some areas to identify where improvements are needed, and some leaders have not been supported well enough to know how to monitor their areas and intervene if standards are not high enough.
• The school needs to establish a robust system for staff training to allow all leaders to fulfil their role well.

Safeguarding: The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.