St Andrew's CofE High School

Overview

St Andrew’s CofE High School is described as a “nurturing and highly inclusive school where kindness flourishes.” Pupils are “proud to attend” and benefit from a positive environment where staff hold high expectations for behaviour and work. The report notes that leaders have worked tirelessly to improve the quality of education, resulting in significant progress since the previous inspection.

Strengths

• Pupils feel “cared for” and their voices are “heard and valued by staff who know them well.”
• Behaviour is “calm and orderly,” with learning “rarely disrupted by low-level behaviour issues.”
• The curriculum has seen “significant improvements,” with carefully identified knowledge sequences preparing pupils well for GCSEs.
• Staff “skilfully adapt learning” for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), enabling them to produce “high-quality work.”
• Governors “robustly challenge leaders to keep making improvements,” contributing to high staff morale.

Areas to improve

• Leaders must ensure more pupils study modern foreign languages at key stage 4 so the English Baccalaureate is “at the heart of the curriculum.”
• Support for pupils who find reading difficult needs strengthening to ensure they can “read confidently and fluently.”
• Strategies to improve attendance must be implemented consistently, particularly for pupils who are “persistently absent.”

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are “effective,” with staff identifying pupils needing help quickly and leaders being “tenacious in their interactions with other agencies.”