Northumberland Local Authority Annual Review 2020
This alternative provision has the following strengths:
- Spacious teaching areas, with fabric and decor of good quality
- Good one-to-one adult to pupil ratio
- Regular pupil progress reports (weekly and termly), which are sent to parents/carers, placing mainstream schools and the local authority
- Updated safeguarding/child protection policy
- Ambitious senior leaders, seeking registration with the DfE for independent school status for special needs
- Performance management of most staff
- Improving quality, content and presentation of pupils’ written work.
Further information from the report
Senior leaders are rightly focusing on improving all pupils’ key literacy and numeracy skills and are, therefore, giving appropriate teaching time and attention to these aspects. The PIP’s scrutiny of a small sample of pupils’ workbooks shows that there is good coverage of many of the core areas in literacy and numeracy, including phonics for pupils in key stage 1.
Scrutiny by the PIP of a limited range of written documentation, including the most recent centre development plan, gives support to the owner/lead officer’s comments that there are high expectations of all pupils in relation to their behaviour and attitudes to learning.
Scrutiny of a small sample of pupils’ progress reports indicates that staff know the pupils well, particularly in relation to their behaviour, and response and general attitudes to learning. The pupils’ workbooks show that they are developing a greater appreciation of academic learning in English and mathematics, together with a greater pride in presentation, quality and content of their written work.
The owner/lead officer shows ambition to continuously improve the provision for all pupils by extending the range of curricular experiences on offer, and further supporting the pupils’ personal attributes in the key areas of social, emotional, and health-related developments. The most recently published centre development plan for 2019-20 supports this ambition to improve provision in a number of key areas, giving an emphasis to the impending application for registration with the DfE to become an independent school for pupils with special educational needs.
The current size of Total Tuition, and the focused one-to-one teaching for all pupils, means that all staff, including senior leaders, have a good working knowledge and set of working relationships with the pupils.
Weekly pupil progress reports are written, using the LA template, and are provided for parents/carers, the local authority and placing mainstream schools. These reports provide a range of useful information, which includes behaviour, attitudes to learning and teachers’ comments under a ‘progress’ section.
The Total Tuition centre development plan provides a basis for identifying the improvements sought across all areas, including the impending application for registration as an independent school. There remains a very good understanding of safeguarding requirements.
Note: This quality assurance report was carried out during operation as Total Tuition in March 2020.