Nexus Foundation Special School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 20 June 2023

All pupils at Nexus are exceptionally well cared for and supported by staff and leaders. Staff are expert in understanding each child's special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), including their communication needs. Listening to every pupil's voice is a key focus for leaders. Some pupils can express their views through pupil council. For others, leaders make careful use of pupils' individual communication systems, to understand their views about how they want to learn. Leaders build every pupil a very personalised curriculum. Pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties, for example, follow a holistic, sensory curriculum that fosters their enjoyment of learning. This enables them to interact and to develop personal relationships in a caring and nurturing environment. Other pupils might follow a much more academic pathway. Leaders and staff plan each pupil's day extremely carefully to enable them to access learning, and the wider life of the school, in a way that works for them. As a result, pupils across the school are motivated and engaged with learning. They persist when they find things hard. They learn to take pride in their successes and achievements. Enrichment opportunities are very carefully planned. Pupils enjoy weekly forest school, and opportunities to garden in the school's allotment. As pupils get older, they have more frequent opportunities to go off site and to apply the life skills that they have been learning, for example by helping to run the school's off-site café.

What the school should improve

• In some subjects, for pupils on a pathway with an increased focus on academic subjects, leaders have not considered carefully enough the important knowledge that they want pupils to learn. They have not broken learning down into small steps that will enable teachers to teach precisely and ensure success for all. In addition, there is not always a consistency of approach across phases and pathways. As a result, some pupils do not progress through the curriculum as well as they might. Leaders need to continue their work to develop the curriculum, and ensure teachers have the subject-specific expertise to deliver the curriculum consistently and as leaders intend.

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