St John's School

Overview

St John’s School is a special academy where pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties receive a "broad and ambitious curriculum" tailored to their complex needs. The inspection found that "calm and clear routines" help pupils settle, fostering a "harmonious" environment where they feel "safe and secure" and form "strong and nurturing relationships with staff."

Strengths

• Pupils express enjoyment of school, describing it as ‘happy’ and ‘friendly’, while showing "care and respect for one another".
• Staff work closely with therapists to provide "excellent care", weaving "bespoke programmes of therapy support" into daily routines.
• The curriculum includes a "golden thread of ‘preparation for the future’", allowing pupils to place learning in "real-life contexts" and achieve targets from their education, health and care plans.
• Teachers make "skilful use of different communication approaches", and staff are well trained to deliver phonics, fostering a "pleasure of reading".
• Trustees have taken "decisive action to arrest the decline in the school’s performance", with new leaders driving improvement and staff welcoming changes to workload management.

Areas to improve

• Curriculum plans in a few areas lack sufficient detail to support the building of learning for pupils with complex needs, preventing them from making the progress of which they are capable.
• In a few subjects, teachers do not make appropriate pedagogical choices, meaning pupils’ needs are not well met and they do not learn the curriculum as intended.

Safeguarding

The report states that "the arrangements for safeguarding are effective."