Greenfields Specialist School for Communication

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 11 June 2024

Pupils flourish at this school. All pupils who attend have special educational needs and/or disabilities and have an education, health and care plan (EHC plan). Staff show great kindness and care for all pupils. They provide a nurturing environment, where pupils are safe and feel happy. Staff greet pupils warmly as they arrive each morning. Pupils enter school smiling and meet their friends eagerly. They enjoy school and form strong friendships. Pupils are proud of their talents and unique qualities, for example playing piano, performing with the rock choir or taking part in the television show, 'Blue Peter'. The school has high expectations of its pupils. Staff know pupils exceptionally well. They help pupils to notice and understand their own feelings and the feelings of others. Pupils learn to regulate their emotions. As a result, the school is a calm place. When needed, staff support pupils in a very professional, kind and caring way. This means pupils can quickly return to their learning. Behaviour is seen by all as a form of communication. Parents are overwhelmingly positive about this school. There are many opportunities for parents to come into school. For example, pottery coffee mornings, family learning and family sessions in the school's hydro-pool.

What the school should improve

• In some academic subjects, the essential knowledge and vocabulary that pupils should learn over time is not coherently sequenced. As a result, pupils do not develop new knowledge and skills equally well across the academic curriculum. The school should ensure that pupils' learning is planned coherently in all subjects and key vocabulary is identified.
• Occasionally, the learning activity choices that staff make within the academic curriculum do not fully meet pupils' needs and do not deepen their knowledge and skills over time, particularly where the curriculum is new and embedding. This is because some staff do not have sufficient subject and pedagogical knowledge to deliver aspects of the curriculum consistently well. This hinders how well these pupils learn and achieve. The school should provide suitable training for staff to ensure that they deliver the curriculum as intended.
• Precise monitoring of the academic curriculum is not yet fully established. The school does not have as secure an understanding of how well pupils are learning over time in some areas of the academic curriculum. This means they do not have as full a picture of where to make improvements. The school should ensure they check how well pupils are learning across academic subjects over time so they better understand where they might need to make necessary improvements to the curriculum or provide interventions to pupils and students in the sixth form.

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