PUPILS, parents and staff are celebrating after an Andover school received top marks from the education watchdog.

Wolversdene Special School, in Love Lane, has continued its glowing reputation to get another ‘outstanding’ from Ofsted after an inspection in January.

It was previously visited by inspectors and graded as ‘outstanding’ in February 2018.

During the latest review, the watchdog looked at the school’s residential provision.

For overall experiences and progress, the report published this month said: “Children look forward to staying in the residential provision and are very keen to have the opportunity.”

It praised “the ability of staff to build nurturing relationships,” adding: “This approach has a transforming effect on many of the pupils. The experience of being ‘held’ emotionally and helped to contain volatile emotions means children know that previously overwhelming feelings can be managed.”

Inspectors said that the school measures improvements by tracking the number of incidents children are involved in, and progress is “often more than parents would have predicted”.

“The school’s impact on children’s quality of life and that of their families can be considerable,” the report added.

“The residential provision has made a significant contribution to preventing some children being looked after away from their families.”

For how well children and young people are protected, the school was rated as ‘good’, with inspectors saying “managers consider individual risks on the acceptance of a referral, and behaviour plans show how these are addressed.

“Residential staff collaborate well with education and therapy colleagues and with families. This has helped many children to transfer skills learned and progress made in the residential provision to home and school environments.”

Children knew they could complain and were confident staff would deal with their concern, and would also speak outside the school if they were unhappy.

The effectiveness of leaders and managers was judged to be ‘good’ and the report said that there is a “long-term approach to addressing weaknesses rather than make ‘quick fixes’, but inspectors said that in some cases children’s views are missing from the records.

“Plans and assessments capture the needs of children well, but some do not state who the author is and the contribution of children is largely absent,” the report said.

“Senior managers continue to look to improve the effectiveness of the service in terms of outcomes for pupils. “