Tunmarsh School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 14 March 2024

This is a nurturing school, where pupils feel safe. Positive working relationships between staff and pupils develop quickly when pupils join the school. Staff identify support for each pupil, tailored to their needs. Pupils said that the staff team 'have superpowers' because staff seem to know when pupils may need support or help, even before any issues arise. Behaviour inside and outside the classroom is mostly calm. Many pupils successfully return to continuing their academic education in their mainstream school or in a new school. The school encourages pupils to develop 'habits for life': kindness, resilience and confidence. Personalised sessions with trained staff, opportunities to take part in performances and sporting competitions, and volunteering at a local soup kitchen all support pupils' personal, social and emotional development strongly. The school provides pupils with wider experiences outside subject lessons, including raft building, visits to places of worship and outings to the theatre. The student council suggests ideas to raise money for charity and arranges the collection of donations to help the victims of global disasters. Parents and carers spoke positively about the school and the education their children receive. Typically, they expressed appreciation for the work of the school.

What the school should improve

• Some curriculum thinking does not detail precisely the subject content that pupils should learn or the order in which it should be taught. Gaps in pupils' knowledge are not checked and identified as effectively in those subjects as in others. The school should ensure that curriculum thinking across all curriculum subjects specifies what pupils should learn, know and be able to do so that pupils build up knowledge or skills cumulatively and progressively.

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