St Gerard’s School and Support Services

Overview

The inspection was conducted during industrial action, meaning the majority of teachers did not cooperate with inspectors. Consequently, the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI) states it is “unable to assure the quality of education” and could not fully evaluate key aspects of the school’s provision.

Strengths

• Pupils are “articulate in expressing their views” and are “enthusiastic about school trips, sports and learning opportunities.”
• School leavers “achieve well in a wide range of appropriate academic and vocational accredited courses” and successfully maintain placements in education, training, or employment.
• There is “valuable established collaboration” with speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, and external agencies.
• Pupils report “very positive working relationships with all staff” and feel safe in school.
• The leadership team is “focussed strategically on taking the school forward” and is developing new structures to support improvement.

Areas to improve

• The school must use its curriculum audit to “address the changing learning requirements of the pupils.”
• Individual education plan targets need to be developed further to include “social skills and behaviour, where appropriate.”
• The school needs to “enhance the monitoring and evaluation processes for learning, teaching and progression.”

Safeguarding

The report states that “satisfactory arrangements are in place for safeguarding learners” and pupils feel safe, though the ETI was “unable to evaluate fully the outworking of the arrangements” due to the industrial action.