Portfield school for autistic pupils in Christchurch praised by Ofsted Inspectors for helping students develop “strong language and communication skills.”

A SCHOOL for autistic pupils has been praised for helping students to develop “strong language and communication skills”.

Ofsted inspectors found that students at Portfield School in Christchurch are helped to learn through a “breadth of approaches”, including signing, symbols and talking.

Staff were said to evaluate their strengths and needs carefully to create “personalised curriculums that enable most to thrive”.

Pupils are “very positive” about the school, said the report, with relationships with staff “nurturing and supportive”. One sixth-form student said ‘the staff are like family”.

Across the school pupils learn to interact with each other with kindness and respect, and there is a “calm learning environment”.

Pupils participate in a variety of sports, such as paddleboarding and kayaking, with pupils in sixth form also learning to cook independently. Many help to prepare the daily school lunch.

Inspectors said the school has designed a curriculum that “meets the social, emotional, sensory and learning needs” of most pupils and sixth-form students. They learn about different emotions and are supported to “articulate how the feel”.

The school prioritises reading, with pupils enabled to read with fluency and understanding, and those struggling given “bespoke support“.

But inspectors did find that for a “small” number of students who have strong literacy and numeracy skills, the curriculum was not “sufficiently broad and challenging”.

They criticised the fact that these pupils “do not have opportunities to apply their literacy and numeracy skills in a range of subject areas”.

But the school was praised for having a “robust, evidence informed approach to managing pupils’ behaviour” – using detailed information about each pupil to help develop their emotional self-regulation.

Older pupils in sixth form are encouraged to follow a “well-structured” careers programme and engage with the local community.

Inspectors found that parents were “overwhelmingly effusive about the quality of provision at the school”, and that trustees and governors have “a range of expertise which strengthens the rigour with which they challenge and support the school“.