Ofsted
“When asked by inspectors to describe the best thing about coming to this school, one pupil responded by saying that ‘you can be who you want to be and you do not get judged by others’.”
Latest Ofsted Report
You can read a copy of our latest Ofsted Report here: Whickham School Ofsted 2018
School Actions and Impact
The 2018 Ofsted report highlighted many areas of strong practice within the school, however it also noted some areas where further improvement was required. The school has taken robust action to secure improvements in these areas and this has had a positive impact upon our children.
- The school has invested in new communication systems that allow both pupils and parents to share in real time feedback from classroom teachers. This ensures parents, carers and pupils have real time information on progress and supports effective home school communication, In a 2022 survey both pupils and parents and carers highlight this as a strength.
- Pupil targets are now clear and progress against these targets is shared formally with parents, carers and pupils three times a year. This is in addition to our parent/carer and pupil meetings with teachers.
- Teacher feedback is strong and bespoke policies and practices for different subject areas ensure pupils receive regular feedback that accelerates learning and progress. This is evident through quality assurance feedback and both internal progress and external progress data.
- Pupil voice shows increasing understanding of what they are doing, how their current work links to previous years, and what they need to do to improve.
- A 2020 review of SEND was commissioned and undertaken by school leaders. This was supported by Marian Thomas (ex HMI and a SEND specialist). This resulted in a restructure of our provision, change of leadership and whole school improvement focus upon how all staff support children with additional educational needs. Quality assurance feedback and an external review of impact has reflected significant improvement in provision for SEND pupils.
- The use of TAs is now underpinned by high quality research evidence from the EEF and Teacher/TA agreements are in place for each class with a TA that ensures clarity and impact.
- A whole school reading strategy is accelerating the progress of all children. Early identification of children who need support ensures that they get highly targeted and personal support with reading and phonics. This ensures all students access our broad and ambitious curriculum.
- Pupil and parent voice demonstrates increased satisfaction with the provision for SEND students.
- Pupil and parental feedback (including 2022 survey) reflects that bullying is rare and that when it does occur it is dealt with appropriately. Restorative practices and the school Behaviour Policy is applied to ensure issues are addressed.
- There is still work needed to ensure all parents, carers and pupils fully understand all school programmes used to address bullying as there are still some incidents where misunderstanding occurs.
- Fixed term suspensions continue to be significantly below local and national averages.
- Permanent exclusions are above the national average but below local averages. The
number of permanent exclusions has fallen since the last inspection (from 9 in 17/18 to 3 in 20/21)
Download a copy of our Impact on areas identified for improvement report here
Parent View gives you the chance to tell Ofsted what you think about your child’s school. The survey can be completed at any time and you don’t have to wait until the school is being inspected
School Performance Tables
You can review our performance and compare with other schools here
