Woodstock House School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 11 March 2025

Pupils are known and cared for at this school. Pupils have had difficult and sometimes traumatic school experiences prior to joining here. For most pupils, attending this school has improved the way they feel about and engage with education. A strength of the school is how well staff build warm relationships with pupils. Pupils trust that adults here will help them if they have a problem. Pupils know that staff have their best interests at heart and will keep them safe. Pupils recognise the high expectations the school has for how well they will behave, and they meet these well. Pupils describe the school as a kind and positive place to be. While they know that sometimes other pupils may become anxious or upset and subsequently exhibit challenging behaviours, they are confident that bullying, including the use of discriminatory language, does not take place. The new leadership team is ambitious for pupils to achieve well both academically and personally. Pupils are mostly well supported with their personal development. However, they are not learning as well as they should through the curriculum. This is because some parts of the curriculum do not match what pupils need to know. Gaps in pupils' knowledge are not clearly known or filled.

What the school should improve

• The school does not provide sufficient information for staff to act on when supporting pupils to learn. Currently, the support some pupils receive is not as precise as it should be, and pupils are not prepared well for their next stage. The school should ensure that staff have the expertise to identify and put in place the most precise support for pupils.
• The school has just started to develop their vision. Consequently, school systems and approaches are not consistent and do not have as positive an impact as they could on pupils' experience. The school should continue its work to define the vision and use monitoring to oversee the impact of changes made.
• The curriculum does not provide a coherent education experience for pupils throughout the school. Currently, pupils are not learning as well as they should. They do not build knowledge that will help them access future learning. The school should prioritise the design and sequencing of these subject areas and ensure that staff have the knowledge and training to implement the curriculum consistently well.

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