The team at our Arc School Napton in Warwickshire is celebrating after being found to provide effective services that meet all the requirements for “Good” following a recent inspection.
The specialist primary school offers children “exceptional opportunities to flourish”, inspectors have found.
Arc School Napton offers places to children whose educational needs are not met in mainstream settings including those with social, emotional and mental health needs and those who are autistic.
The inspectors could see that “the staff work successfully to re-engage pupils back into education.” They went on to report that “staff understand pupils’ needs well. Staff skilfully develop pupils’ confidence and self-esteem…and that pupils become motivated to learn because of this.”
The school offers the opportunity for all of the children to attend Forest School sessions where they can develop the skills to play, turn take, share, collaborate and plan, largely independent of the focused adult support they may previously have needed.
The Ofsted report confirmed that “Pupils enjoy learning both within school and outdoors. They have exceptional opportunities to flourish in forest school. This helps pupils to develop courage, resilience, teamwork and collaborative learning. They enjoy many opportunities to talk to a wide variety of people and join in with village life.”
The curriculum is designed to meet the individual needs of each child, whilst still providing a broad and balanced experience, so they have the opportunity to meet their full potential, in an environment which is both therapeutic and supportive.
Ofsted commented “Pupils learn a broad range of subjects in depth. Leaders plan these subjects logically so that they build pupils’ knowledge step by step. Leaders have introduced a new phonics scheme as well as a new mathematics scheme, and these are fully embedded into practice.”
The school is small, nurturing and enabling and Ofsted could see that “there is usually a calm atmosphere in the school…and pupils say that they are happy in the school.”
Staff from Napton told inspectors they “loved working at the school” while parents said they appreciated the progress their children were making there.
Headteacher at Arc School Napton Jenny Arnold said: “We are delighted that the hard work of the children and staff here at Napton has been recognised by Ofsted in this way. We’re very proud of all that the young people achieve during their time with us.”
Read the full report.