Akeley Wood School celebrates ‘outstanding’ rating

The School Inspection Service (SIS) said the independent school near Buckingham showed an ‘ongoing continuation of the high quality of education identified in its previous inspection report’ six years ago.

It found that Akeley Wood School’s ‘outstanding curriculum provides pupils with an excellent range of subjects that are relevant to each stage of their development, their learning needs and aspirations’.

The quality of teaching was noted in the report as being excellent throughout the school.

The specialist knowledge of teachers, together with their proficient teaching skills, and their thorough lesson planning, was recognised as giving pupils an outstanding opportunity to acquire new knowledge and make good progress.

The breadth and balance of the curriculum subjects and extra-curricular activities available were commended and pupils’ interests, aptitudes and abilities were acknowledged as being well catered for, with the new ‘creative curriculum’ introduced this year being praised as an innovative feature.

Pupils were judged to have ‘well developed social skills’ with outstanding behaviour and were reported as developing increasing self-confidence and self-esteem because they felt valued in a supportive learning environment.

One pupil commented to the inspectors: “Teachers here really care about you and about their subjects – it’s a good place to be.”

Pupils were seen to collaborate effectively in lessons, contributing to each other’s learning.

The school was acknowledged as making ‘outstanding provision’ for pupils’ welfare, health and safety, and all staff are made fully aware of their responsibility and are trained to safeguard pupils.

Akeley Wood School’s leadership and management was commended as excellent and the head, Jenny Clough was described as having a clear vision for the development of the school with defined priorities for moving forward.

Mrs Clough said: “I am thrilled that the inspection report endorsed our belief that we offer the highest quality of all-round education for all our students at Akeley Wood. This is a very exciting time for us all, and I look forward to working with our parents, students, staff and wider community to deliver continued excellence.”