Armthorpe Shaw Wood Academy

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 11 March 2025

Pupils are safe and enjoy coming to this school. The school has clear academic ambitions for its pupils. These are realised. Pupils demonstrate positive behaviour, both in lessons and around the school. The school's behaviour approach is closely aligned with its core values. Through this values-driven approach, pupils are well supported in making choices that contribute to a respectful and inclusive school environment. Pupils get the opportunity to take on various responsibilities in school through the school council and eco-team roles. These help pupils develop their leadership skills. Pupils are proud of the difference they make, both to school and the environment. Pupils access a range of different extra-curricular clubs. They value the opportunity to develop sporting interests discovered during physical education lessons. These include football, basketball and rounders. Pupils greatly appreciate learning different musical instruments, such as woodwind and brass instruments, stating they feel alive when playing music. The school actively promotes pupils' character development through a range of rich, experiential visits. This includes residential trips to outdoor activity centres. These opportunities help pupils build resilience and teamwork skills. Pupils also deepen their cultural understanding by attending theatre performances.

What the school should improve

• Processes for checking what pupils have learned and remembered are not yet fully developed across all foundation subjects. This means that in a few subjects, teachers do not precisely identify and address gaps in pupils' knowledge. The school should ensure that systems to check pupils' knowledge are used across subjects consistently so that pupils build on prior learning successfully.
• At times, the behaviour strategies that adults use in some lessons are not supporting some pupils to engage effectively in their learning. As a result, these pupils are not learning as much as they could. The school should ensure that the approaches used to address lower engagement are effective, so that pupils are able to learn as much as they can.
• At times, the strategies used to deliver the curriculum in a few lessons are not supporting some pupils to learn and understand new concepts. This means that these pupils are not learning as much as they could. The school should revisit the strategies used in lessons to ensure that they successfully support pupils to learn more.

Read the full Ofsted report (opens in a new tab)