'High expectations' at Horbury Academy as Ofsted award school a 'good' rating

The Wakefield Road school was visited in the autumn and the results were recently published, with all areas awarded a 'good' rating.

This includes the quality of education, behaviour, development and leadership.

Schools can be given four overall scores, including outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.

The four-strong team of inspectors reported: "Leaders have high expectations of pupils at Horbury Academy.

"The curriculum is ambitious for all and builds pupils’ confidence. There is a culture that every pupil will succeed."

The inspectors found that pupils concentrate well, that behaviour has improved, that bullying is rare and pupils benefit from a "variety of extra-curricular opportunities" such as sports clubs, drama and music.

The inspectors added: "Leaders are firmly focused on ensuring that all pupils move on to ambitious next steps when they finish school. There is a strong careers programme, which starts in year seven."

However, they said there are still too many pupils persistently absent, while they said that staff need to address inappropriate language by some of the youngsters.

The school, which had more than 1,000 pupils enrolled, was last full inspected by Ofsted in 2010, when it was also granted a 'good' score.

It converted to an academy in 2012, and a short inspection was carried out in 2016 in which it was also found to be 'good'.