Stepping Stones School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 11 February 2025

Warm and caring relationships with staff underpin pupils' experiences at this school. Pupils understand that staff have their best interests at heart. This helps them to feel safe. The school's values of respect, kindness, trust and tolerance are threaded through everything that it does. Pupils understand these values and their importance. Over their time at the school, pupils begin to embody them. For instance, pupils demonstrate kindness to their peers if someone is upset. The school equips each pupil with a toolkit that helps them to manage their emotions. Staff are adept at giving pupils choices and, typically, pupils make the right ones. Over time, pupils' behaviour improves. They enjoy being rewarded for their successes. For instance, pupils are keen to win bonus points each day. Pupils start to enjoy learning and begin to take pride in their work. Their negative perceptions of education fade. Pupils gradually rise to meet the school's high expectations of their achievement. They learn well from their starting points. Pupils enjoy contributing to the wider life of the school. For example, the house captains were recently consulted about the design of the school's safe spaces. At breaktimes, pupils are keen to help staff to set out equipment.

What the school should improve

• Some staff lack expertise in the school's chosen phonics scheme. This leads to inconsistencies in how well the phonics programme is delivered. The school should ensure that staff are equipped with the knowledge and skills to deliver the phonics programme as intended so that pupils can secure their phonics knowledge as quickly as possible.
• At times, misconceptions in pupils' knowledge are not effectively identified and addressed. This means that gaps in some pupils' knowledge persist. The school should ensure that routines for checking understanding and addressing misconceptions and gaps in learning are applied effectively across the curriculum.

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