Horizons Independent School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 3 March 2026

For many pupils who attend this school, this is their first successful experience of education. However, most pupils do not learn an academic curriculum. Pupils typically join the school after periods out of education or with a turbulent previous engagement with providers. This school helps pupils to reintegrate into education because it values pupils as individuals. Staff know pupils’ needs well. They use this to plan an offer for each pupil that captures their interest and helps them to develop essential aspects of their personal development. The school has only been open for a short time. In this time, leaders have established strong relationships with pupils on roll and have started to develop routines that will set pupils up well for their next stage of learning, employment or training. Over time, pupils begin to enjoy attending the school. They do not worry about bullying. Pupils start to improve their attendance as they build trust in staff to listen to them and support them. That said, leaders' actions to improve attendance are at the early stages. Staff have recently started to use the information they have about pupils to reduce the barriers to learning that pupils join the school with. Leaders plan a range of opportunities for each pupil that go beyond what they would normally experience. These well-planned experiences support pupils’ character development and open their eyes to learning in a way that has often not been possible before. However, some parts of the personal development offer are underdeveloped. That said, trusting relationships between staff and pupils help pupils to regulate their emotions and to feel safe and secure. Over time, pupils learn to share any worries they have with staff as they know they are there to help them.

What the school should improve

• Leaders should ensure that the independent school standards are met consistently and securely.
• Leaders should make sure that the most important knowledge is clearly identified in subjects across the curriculum.
• Leaders should make sure that pupils have the opportunity to learn the academic curriculum once they are emotionally ready.
• Leaders should support more pupils to work towards gaining recognised qualifications.
• Leaders should make sure that attendance information enables them to suitably identify patterns and trends.
• Leaders should shape the personal development offer to support more pupils to build appropriate knowledge across the personal, social, health and economic education curriculum.

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