Wexham School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 24 May 2023

Wexham School is a friendly and highly inclusive school. It welcomes pupils from a range of nationalities and backgrounds. Many pupils join the school for a fresh start after struggling in other secondary schools. The majority of pupils meet the high expectations that leaders set. There is a supportive and caring culture at the school. Pupils appreciate the relationships that they develop with staff. Pupils learn to respect one another. Pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), benefit from a broad and ambitious curriculum. They particularly enjoy studying Spanish, following leaders' development of the modern foreign languages curriculum. Pupils' literacy skills are developing as a result of the determined focus on reading and writing across the whole curriculum. The school is generally calm and purposeful. There is little disruption to lessons, and teachers address any poor behaviour consistently. Pupils are confident that if bullying happens, staff will deal with it right away. This helps pupils to feel happy and safe. Pupils enjoy taking part in a wide range of clubs and school trips. Many of these are specifically organised to raise pupils' aspirations. For example, during the inspection, a group of disadvantaged pupils were excited to be visiting Oxford University.

What the school should improve

• In some subjects, particularly science, the intended curriculum is not always implemented effectively in the classroom. In these subjects, staff do not always have high enough expectations about what pupils are expected to know and be able to do. Leaders should ensure that they keep a careful oversight over how well the curriculum is being implemented and provide support so that it is of a consistently high standard in all subjects.
• Leaders are developing new approaches to assessment, which are not yet effectively embedded. Sometimes, teachers do not use assessment precisely enough to check that pupils are secure in their knowledge of the most important curriculum content. This means that when pupils learn new information in these curriculum subjects, they find it more difficult to build on their prior knowledge. Leaders should ensure that assessment is used consistently by teachers across all subjects to pinpoint what pupils know and can do, then ensure that new learning builds securely on this.

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