Every independent school with an alternative provision or SEMH focus inspected under Ofsted's renewed arrangements — the grade in each evaluation area, compliance with the eight independent school standards, what inspectors praised and what they asked leaders to do next.
Independent schools joined the renewed arrangements later than state-funded schools, and their report cards carry a second layer the state-funded ones do not.
Inclusion; curriculum and teaching; achievement; attendance and behaviour; personal development and wellbeing; leadership and governance — plus post-16 where it applies. Safeguarding is judged separately as met or not met. There is no overall effectiveness grade.
Each report card also states, part by part, whether the school meets the independent school standards: quality of education; spiritual, moral, social and cultural development; welfare, health and safety; suitability of staff and proprietors; premises and accommodation; provision of information; handling of complaints; and quality of leadership and management.
This is a legal compliance test, not a quality judgement — but as the next section shows, in this sector the two turn out to be the same thing.
Nine of the 50 schools failed at least one independent school standard. All nine failed the same two parts — quality of education, and quality of leadership and management. And every one of those nine, and only those nine, was graded below the expected standard for curriculum and teaching and for leadership and governance.
The practical reading: in this sector the standards are not a separate paperwork exercise that a good school might trip over. Failing them is what a weak curriculum and weak oversight look like when written in statutory language. The other six parts follow only in the worst cases — welfare, health and safety failed at four schools, SMSC at three, and only the single lowest-graded school in the set failed all eight.
Across the 50 report cards, expected standard is the modal grade in every single area — a markedly flatter distribution than the state-funded AP and PRU sector.
Exceptional was awarded seven times in total, to just three schools, and only ever for inclusion, attendance and behaviour, or personal development and wellbeing. No independent AP or SEMH school has been graded exceptional for curriculum and teaching, achievement, or leadership and governance.
Percentage of settings graded strong standard or better in each area. Read this as a difference in distribution, not a league table — see the caution below.
Handle with care. These are different inspection toolkits, applied to different populations over different windows, and the independent cohort is dominated by very small and often very new schools. The gap is real and consistent across all six areas, but it is not evidence that one sector teaches better than the other — it may equally reflect how the two toolkits set their bars, and the fact that a school inspected within a year of opening has had less time to embed anything.
Phase is derived from each school's registered age range: primary where the upper age is 11 or below, secondary where the lower age is 11 or above, and all-through where the range spans the primary/secondary boundary. The split matters more than it first appears.
Just two of the 50 schools are primary-only — Meadow View Farm School and Arc School Napton, both 5–11. Twenty-seven are secondary-only and twenty-one are all-through, and those all-through ranges are wide: 5–18 at Oakwood and Barraclough Hall, 6–19 at Meadow Bridge, 7–19 at ALP Sittingbourne and Roehampton Gate.
Anyone running or commissioning primary-age independent AP is working with almost no published benchmark. Two report cards is not a sector picture, and nothing in the themes below should be read as evidence about primary practice.
Six of the nine schools with an unmet independent school standard are secondary-only, against three all-through and none primary. Secondary-only schools are also the weakest on leadership and governance and on attendance and behaviour.
All-through settings, by contrast, hold the better grades on attendance, personal development and leadership — but are no better on curriculum and teaching, where the whole sector struggles.
Percentages are of settings in that phase graded strong standard or better. With only two primary settings, that row is shown for completeness and should not be read as a rate.
All 50 independent schools with an AP or SEMH focus. Grades read in the order Ofsted publishes them; quoted phrases are the inspectors'.
| School | Grades by evaluation area | Independent school standards | Strengths | Next steps |
|---|
Recurring findings across the 50, and what they imply for independent providers yet to be inspected.
Eight priorities, in rough order of how often they appear in this set.