Westwood Boys School

Overview: Westwood Boys School is a small, independent Islamic faith school for boys, where pupils are proud to attend and flourish academically and personally. The school has a strong sense of shared moral purpose and unity among staff, who are proud to work in the school.

Strengths:

• Pupils are happy and demonstrate exemplary behaviour in lessons and around school.
• Pupils achieve well across the curriculum and enjoy extra-curricular clubs, including debating and digital literacy.
• The school's promotion of pupils' personal development is exemplary, with a well-planned, extensive programme offering a wealth of experiences.
• Leaders have high aspirations for the achievement of all pupils and frequently adapt and refine the curriculum to meet their needs.
• Teachers have strong subject knowledge and use assessment well to identify and address gaps or misconceptions in pupils' learning.

Areas to improve:

• In one or two subjects, leaders have not thought carefully enough about the knowledge that pupils should be taught, hampering teachers from designing learning activities that help pupils build their knowledge securely over time.
• Leaders do not identify the precise gaps in reading knowledge for some struggling readers, which means that some of these pupils do not catch up as quickly as they should with their peers.

Safeguarding: The arrangements for safeguarding are effective, with a strong culture of safeguarding led by leaders who provide staff with effective safeguarding training.