Whitemoor Academy

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 14 January 2025

Pupils are proud to be part of their school. They support each other to meet the high standards that the school has for their conduct and attitudes to learning. Relationships between staff and pupils are respectful and nurturing. This starts in early years where children are encouraged to engage and interact with each other in a positive way, using increasingly ambitious language. This is strengthened as pupils move through the school. The positive relationships that pupils have, contribute to their happiness in school. There is a wide range of well-considered opportunities for pupils to deepen their awareness of the wider world and nurture their own talents and interests. Pupils enthuse about taking part in these activities. They make links with how they support their learning in lessons. Pupils are keen to learn. The school is aspirational for what it wants pupils to achieve. However, the quality of some aspects of the curriculum is not good enough. The school, and wider trust, know the changes that are needed to improve the effectiveness of what and how pupils learn in some areas. However, the changes are yet to make enough difference to how pupils deepen their knowledge and understanding, across the curriculum, over time.

What the school should improve

• The school does not accurately check on and address misconceptions in some pupils' learning. Additionally, there are times when checks on what pupils know and understand are not as effective as they should be. Consequently, pupils do not build new learning well enough because they do not have a secure grasp of prior knowledge to do so. The trust, working with the school, must ensure that teachers make more precise and accurate use of assessment to inform what pupils are learning and how to build on this with greater success.
• The school has not ensured, in some aspects, that staff have the required expertise to support pupils to learn all that they should. At times, the content of what pupils learn is not set out clearly enough. Activities are not designed to support learning as well as they could be. As a result, in some areas, pupils do not know and remember as much as they do elsewhere. The trust, working with the school, must support staff to use effective approaches to present curriculum content and support pupils to secure their learning.

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