V.A.S.E Academy

Overview: V.A.S.E Academy is a school that provides a supportive and inclusive environment for pupils with autism and other needs. The school has a strong focus on personal development, wellbeing, and academic achievement, with a curriculum that is well-designed and taught by trained staff.

Strengths:

• The school's provision for the inclusion of all pupils is a significant strength, with careful assessment and support for pupils' needs.
• The school's curriculum for pupils' personal, social, health and economic education is well-embedded, enabling pupils to develop a strong understanding of key learning for healthy and fulfilling lives.
• The school provides extensive and tailored provision for pupils to develop their knowledge of future careers, education and training, with opportunities to experience places of work and secure appropriately ambitious destinations.

Areas to improve:

• Leaders should continue to develop the consistency of approaches to check pupils' understanding and adapt the learning tasks appropriately to address gaps in pupils' knowledge.
• Leaders should further embed their attendance strategies, including their engagement with parents and carers so that their actions lead to continued sustained increases in attendance.
• Teachers do not always take due account of pupils' prior gaps in knowledge that need to be addressed before they can start new work.

Safeguarding: The safeguarding standards are met, with leaders and/or those responsible for governance and oversight fulfilling their specific responsibilities and having established an open culture in which safeguarding is everyone's responsibility and concerns are actively identified, acted upon and managed.