Walmer Road is a new independent day special school that was registered in September 2013 to provide full-time education for up to 20 boys and girls aged from 14 to 16 years who have a history of disrupted schooling and may have social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD). It is located in West London, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The school has no specific religious affiliation. This is the school’s first inspection. The school is owned by ‘P3’, which provides additional services for the young people including housing support, a youth club, after school homework club and specialist advice on drugs and crime. All aspects of the school’s work are overseen by a governing body that includes a head of education who line manages the headteacher. There are currently 17 students on roll, aged between 14 and 16 years. All students are dually registered at another, mainstream school, although all are educated full time at this school. Students are placed at this school either by their previous school or by the local authority. There is one student with a statement of special educational needs. One student is in the care of the placing authorities. Around one third of the students are from minority ethnic communities, and while some speak English as an additional language, none is at an early stage of learning English. The diversity of the student population is reflected in the staff. The school aims ‘to provide education and support for a group of young people who are not succeeding in mainstream for a variety of reasons, and to work with them to get them back on track so that they make progress and thrive, and so may become independent, contributing and positive members of society.’ What does the school need to do to improve further? Raise the quality of teaching so that all is good or outstanding and helps students to make outstanding progress by ensuring that during lessons: teachers make frequent and thorough checks on students’ learning and understanding, and adjust the level of support or challenge provided more precisely, when necessary, to better meet the differing needs of students teachers give students feedback on how to improve their work at a faster rate teachers give students specific criteria against which they can measure their progress students have time to respond to comments in teachers' marking and improve their work in the light of these comments. Improve students’ attendance by continuing to seek ways to encourage the few persistent absentees to attend regularly, and those students with a tendency to arrive late to get in on time every morning. Strengthen leadership and management to raise students’ achievement to outstanding by: making close links with outstanding schools with a view to further improving the quality of teaching and rates of attendance further developing the skills of the deputy headteacher to share the responsibilities of checking on teaching and learning even more effectively.