Hemel Hempstead special education school handed ‘requires improvement’ rating by Ofsted

A special education school in Grovehill has been rated as ‘requiring improvement’ after being visited by Ofsted inspectors.

Redbourn Park School was assessed in four areas, all of which it was found needed to improve. The inspection found the school did not meet the independent school standards, despite a pre-registration assessment stating it was likely to when it opened.

The independent school, on Stevenage Rise, currently looks after 12 pupils.

Founder and CEO of the school, Richard McCabe said: “We are very proud of our team and the amazing progress they have achieved with a very unique group of children with complex needs. We are a very new school and there were always going to be areas we needed to polish before we could claim we were consistently good.”

He added: “We know how to get to that point and have every confidence we are going to reach it. For now, we are focusing on working closely with our parents and each child individually, building on the huge progress we have already seen within our provision.”

The report, which was published on Monday following the inspection in November, found that some staff did not have consistent and secure subject knowledge for them to teach effectively across the curriculum. It said: “They do not understand how to build pupils’ progress consistently through the curriculum. This means pupils do not build their knowledge securely over time.”

Despite this, there were positives highlighted which showed that pupils enjoy coming to the school, enjoy its small size and found that bullying was rare. The report stated: “Pupils are generally happy with the friendships that they make at school.”

The school teaches children with autism and complex needs from ages seven to 11.

While the pupils trust the staff to care and look after them, inspectors reported that staff did not manage pupils’ behaviour consistently. Teachers also did not make sure that pupils, who were in the early stages of reading, read books which matched the phonics they knew. The report explained: “This means that pupils are not developing their early reading skills quickly enough.”