Witton Park Academy

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 24 February 2026

Pupils enjoy positive relationships with staff and benefit from some enriching experiences. However, they do not receive a consistently well-taught curriculum. Teaching varies too much across subjects, which means that pupils do not build their knowledge securely over time. As a result, their achievement is uneven and some pupils are not well prepared for their next steps. Although some pupils enjoy their learning, this is not the case across all classes. Staff training has increased recently, but some staff still do not adapt their teaching well enough for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). This limits how successfully these pupils access the curriculum. Pupils are beginning to value the new 'Witton Way' curriculum, which includes enrichment activities such as careers fairs, theatre trips and museum visits. These opportunities aim to widen pupils' experiences, particularly for disadvantaged pupils. Even so, many of these activities are new and are not yet fully embedded. Most pupils behave well, and bullying is usually dealt with appropriately. However, some pupils and their parents and carers lack confidence in how leaders handle certain incidents, partly because communication from school to home is not always clear. While overall attendance is close to national averages, leaders do not remove barriers to attendance for some pupils with SEND effectively enough. These pupils miss too much learning, which affects how well they achieve. Relationships between pupils and staff are generally positive. Pupils are beginning to benefit from wider opportunities such as taking on ambassador roles, charity work and helping to improve the school and local environment. These experiences help pupils develop communication skills and work respectfully with others. As such, pupils are increasingly well prepared for life in modern Britain.

What the school should improve

• Leaders should ensure that teachers are equipped to teach the curriculum well and match learning activities to pupils’ needs and starting points, including any special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), so that all pupils build a deep body of knowledge and achieve highly.
• Leaders should ensure that teachers check pupils' understanding effectively so that learning is adapted in response to gaps in pupils' knowledge and that these gaps are addressed promptly and securely.
• Leaders should improve how they support pupils who have difficulties in writing and mathematics so that these pupils can access the curriculum with confidence.
• Leaders should analyse attendance patterns with greater precision and work more effectively with families and other agencies so that barriers to attendance, particularly for pupils with SEND, are identified and reduced more quickly.
• Leaders should ensure that behaviour expectations are applied consistently well by staff so that behaviour at social times is respectful, and suspensions, especially for pupils with SEND, reduce over time.
• Leaders should ensure that responses to bullying incidents are handled consistently well by all staff and that actions taken are communicated clearly so that pupils and parents have greater confidence in how concerns are managed and how safe pupils feel.
• Leaders should track pupils’ participation in personal development opportunities more carefully so they can identify gaps, adapt provision and ensure that all groups of pupils, including those with SEND, access the full offer.
• Leaders should ensure that staff professional learning translates consistently into classroom practice by securing full staff engagement so that agreed approaches are implemented reliably.

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