Hampden House PRU Ofsted Report

Full report

In accordance with section 44(2) of the Education Act 2005, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector is of the opinion that this school requires significant improvement, because it is performing significantly less well than it might in all the circumstances reasonably be expected to perform.

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve the quality of leadership and management by:
  • strengthening the school’s safeguarding arrangements, particularly the quality of record keeping of the actions taken to protect the school’s most vulnerable pupils
  • demonstrating that every action is taken to keep pupils safe, including those who do not attend school regularly
  • reviewing and improving the school’s systems and procedures to safeguard pupils
  • effectively promoting pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.
• Improve pupils’ personal development, behaviour and welfare by:
  • prioritising immediate improvements to pupils’ daily behaviour
  • clarifying with pupils the expectations of them, particularly their conduct, and attitudes towards each other and staff
  • eliminating the swearing and abuse directed towards staff
  • seeking further training for staff on managing the most challenging behaviour, so that they can prevent it from regularly re-occurring
  • reducing the small proportion of pupils who are persistently absent from school.
• Gaining greater consistency in the quality of teaching, learning and assessment by:
  • reaffirming the school’s agreed procedures for managing behaviour in lessons, and ensuring that all staff apply them consistently
  • checking regularly that all teachers use the school’s agreed procedure for planning teaching and learning
  • clarifying what teachers expect all pupils to learn in lessons
  • providing pupils with tasks that encourage them to write at length.

The school must meet the following national minimum standards for residential special schools

• Standard 12 – Promoting positive behaviour and relationships
  • All children and staff are given the opportunity to discuss with a relevant adult (who was not directly involved), within 24 hours, incidents of restraint, including reasonable force, they have been involved in, witnessed or been affected by (NMS 12.5)
  • A written record is kept of major sanctions and the use of any reasonable force. Records include the information in Appendix 2 (use of reasonable force). The record is made within 24 hours and is legible. Children are encouraged to have their views recorded in these records. The school regularly reviews any instances of the use of reasonable force and examines trends or issues to enable staff to reflect and learn in a way that will inform future practice (NMS 12.6).

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management The effectiveness of leaders and managers in the boarding/residential provision How well children and young people are helped and protected in the boarding/residential provision Inadequate Good Good

• School leaders have not built substantially on the outcomes of the previous inspection. Behaviour is not managed effectively. Persistent absence rates remain too high. This undermines the school’s efforts to promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Pupils show little understanding of the consequences of their behaviour or actions.
• Not enough attention is paid to safeguarding pupils. Senior leaders are suitably trained and understand their roles and responsibilities. However, their current approach to child protection is not sufficiently robust.
• Leaders evaluate the school’s effectiveness as good. This is too generous. Leaders can point to improvements made to teaching, learning and assessment that have enhanced pupils’ social and academic progress. However, at times, the school is unsafe. A minority of pupils regularly disrupt the school day. They show little respect for staff, including senior leaders.
• All pupils have special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Their needs are clearly identified and supported by a senior leader responsible for SEND. Most pupils are also eligible for the pupil premium. Leaders make effective use of this funding to provide disadvantaged pupils with an enriched curriculum and to promote their confidence and self-esteem.
• A broad range of academic subjects, including music, design technology and computing, is complemented by a range of off-site activities, outdoor learning and additional therapy from a trained counsellor.
• Pupils have weekly opportunities to learn about careers and the workplace. These procedures are new and not firmly established. Pupils’ understanding of British values, particularly tolerance and respect, is not always evident in their behaviour and attitudes towards others.
• The headteacher is knowledgeable and experienced and shows a thorough understanding of this type of short-stay provision. He has the full support of his staff, who work together as a team. Suitable plans are in place to improve provision.
• Leaders currently identify a small minority of pupils with very challenging behaviour whom the headteacher feels cannot be, and are not, supported well at the school. Observations of pupils noted by inspectors, including their regular violence, bad language and lack of control, support the view that these pupils are not supported well.
• Leaders stay in regular contact with pupils’ families to keep them informed of their child’s progress and to communicate with them if their child’s behaviour deteriorates.
• Leaders and managers responsible for children in the boarding/residential provision ensure that they are kept safe and attend school regularly. Their whereabouts is always carefully monitored by care staff. Children are helped to build and maintain good relationships. Staff work effectively as a team. They get to know the individual behaviours and triggers of each child or young person and often step in to prevent poor behaviour escalating.
• Residential care leaders provide pupils with a safe, stimulating environment to live in. Staff strive to make it homely. Staff and children have painted murals of cartoon characters and superheroes on corridor walls. Children’s bedrooms are personalised with photographs, and the main lounge is comfortable. Leaders acknowledge that the toilets and bathrooms need updating.

Governance

• The management committee has not been sufficiently rigorous in checking that the school’s safeguarding arrangements are robust. Shortfalls in leaders’ record keeping of child protection issues have not been identified prior to the inspection. This has jeopardised the safety of some of the school’s most vulnerable pupils.
• The management committee oversees the school’s finances effectively. Committee members monitor leaders’ use of the pupil premium well. They can point to clear evidence of its impact on improving the progress and welfare of disadvantaged pupils.
• Committee members are knowledgeable and experienced. They show a good understanding of the school’s overall purpose and aims. They feel that a small minority of pupils recently placed in the school by the local authority are not suited to this type of provision. The school’s aim of re-integrating pupils back into mainstream education following their short stay is undermined by pupils’ extremely challenging behaviour in school.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are not effective.
• Leaders do not maintain detailed records about the actions taken to keep pupils safe from harm. Information received when staff raise a concern is stored appropriately, but it is unclear whether effective action has been taken in a timely way because records are not suitably maintained. The impact of the leaders’ actions to fully safeguard pupils is not recorded satisfactorily or reviewed systematically.
• Partnership working with a range of support agencies is well established. However, records of key meetings, joint reviews and the combined actions taken to safeguard those at risk are not effectively maintained. School leaders follow up matters diligently by speaking with other agencies responsible for safeguarding. They keep their own written records, but do not transfer this information into pupils’ personal files or maintain a running log of the actions they have taken.
• The safety and welfare of very vulnerable pupils who are persistently absent from school are a serious concern. Leaders were unable to account for the whereabouts of pupils known by social services and the police who have not attended school recently.
• The school’s safeguarding policy has been updated this year. The single central record is well maintained. All the necessary checks are made when employing new staff to work with children.
• Staff training in safeguarding, including the ‘Prevent’ duty, is up to date.
• The school grounds are safe and public access to the buildings is carefully controlled.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• Teaching varies widely. Currently, half of the teaching staff are either recently trained or are new to this type of setting. The school’s agreed procedures for teaching and managing behaviour are not always applied consistently.
• Teachers use a common approach to planning lessons, but teachers’ use of the agreed planning template varies too much across classes. It is not always clear what pupils are expected to learn. Some tasks do not provide sufficient challenge for older pupils. When learning fails to capture and retain their interest, some pupils easily lose concentration and disrupt the learning of others.
• Although staff have received additional training in developing pupils’ writing and use of grammar, books show that pupils have few opportunities for extended writing, to help them develop their skills.
• Reading is taught effectively. Staff work hard to build pupils’ confidence in reading. The few pupils who agreed to read aloud to inspectors did so with fluency and understanding.
• Leaders have ensured that weaker teaching has been tackled systematically. Currently, the most effective practitioners provide regular training and one-to-one support to staff who need to develop their teaching further.
• Regular monitoring and staff training have led to improved teaching and assessment. Procedures to monitor the progress of individuals are much more systematic and provide leaders with a detailed overview of how well pupils are doing. However, pupils do not benefit fully from this because their learning is frequently interrupted by poor behaviour.
• Most teachers use ‘time-outs’ effectively in lessons. Pupils who ask for time-out or are sent out of lessons to calm down promptly return to learning. These procedures are less effective with those pupils who refuse to leave lessons when asked. They ignore teachers’ requests to leave, which leads to further disruption of the learning of others.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Inadequate

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is inadequate.
• Most pupils join the school with a history of poor attendance. Leaders can show that, over time, as attitudes towards school improve, the attendance of most pupils improves significantly during their short stay. Despite this improvement, overall attendance remains low. A small proportion of pupils are persistently absent from school. This shows no signs of improving and raises further concerns about pupils’ safety and welfare.
• Staff provide good care and support for pupils on a daily basis. They forge positive relations and get to know them well. Staff regularly praise and reward pupils to boost pupils’ confidence and self-esteem.
• Pupils wear their uniforms with pride. They usually mix together well during breaks and lunchtimes. Eating together is a sociable and enjoyable event. Arrivals into and departures from school are orderly and calm. However, all of this can change in an instant because behaviour is so volatile. During the inspection, violent and aggressive behaviour, often requiring restraint from staff, ruined these social occasions. This volatility can undermine pupils’ welfare.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is inadequate.
• During the inspection, there were moments when the safety of staff and pupils was compromised by very disruptive behaviour. The fire alarm was deliberately activated by pupils on four different occasions. Pupils did this without considering the implications of their actions, or the risks to the safety of others.
• Leaders feel that there are clear procedures based on rewards and consequences to manage pupils’ behaviour in lessons, and that these procedures generally work. Pupils are aware of these procedures, including being placed in isolation, but inspectors noted that they often choose to ignore them. Staff end up negotiating with pupils, rather than applying the school’s agreed procedures consistently to improve their behaviour and attitudes.
• A minority of pupils regularly leave lessons. They roam the site and damage school property. Pupils use abusive language towards staff. Too much of teaching assistants’ time is wasted trying to get pupils back into classrooms. They do this at considerable danger to themselves as physical handling and restraint are often needed to manage extreme behaviours. Some pupils show no compunction in lashing out at staff.
• Despite this regular, unacceptable behaviour, other pupils attempt to maintain their focus on learning, and avoid becoming involved in the disruption. The challenging behaviour displayed throughout the inspection prevented pupils from sharing their views about the school with inspectors.
• Leaders’ analysis of their records shows that incidents of poor behaviour occur regularly, particularly by a small minority of pupils with very challenging behaviour. Short-term exclusions from school vary widely during each year and remain high. Pupils feel that bullying happens, mostly name-calling and physical bullying. They are confident that staff will help them to resolve it.

Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

• Pupils join the school at different stages and times of the school year. Most have missed long periods of schooling due to their low attendance or poor behaviour. They are helped to settle quickly. They establish positive relations with staff and most of them re-engage in learning.
• Currently, the biggest barrier to pupils’ better progress is their poor behaviour. Their books show that too often, a small minority of pupils leave lessons and disengage from learning. When this happens, they make no progress. Furthermore, the learning and progress of others are regularly disrupted.
• At this early stage of the year, books show that pupils’ progress varies depending on the quality of teaching they regularly receive, and their behaviour. Inspectors noted that well-planned and organised teaching in practical subjects such as food preparation engaged pupils well and led to their good progress. Elsewhere, where tasks do not stimulate pupils, they easily disengage and make very little progress.
• Detailed assessment procedures illustrate pupils’ academic progress and social development from their starting points. All pupils have an individual education plan to inform teachers of their needs and interests. Pupils also have personal targets for them to aspire to.
• Leaders’ analysis of this information shows that since the last inspection, their actions to improve teaching have led to better progress for most pupils. Last year, most pupils met or exceeded the challenging targets set for them in English and mathematics. These procedures have recently been extended into science and geography.
• Almost all pupils are known to be disadvantaged. Additional funding is used effectively to promote their self-esteem and aid pupils’ progress. Leaders purchase school uniforms and equipment for them and enable them to attend off-site enrichment activities. All pupils spend time with a counsellor and benefit from therapies such as ‘talk and draw’.
• Over the past two years, the school has enabled most pupils to re-integrate back into mainstream school or into other alternative settings. Leaders can point to many examples of positive, life-changing support provided that has enabled pupils to return to their mainstream schools.

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people in the boarding/residential provision

• Children and young people are shown how to cooperate with each other and share

Good

toys and equipment together. They say that they like staying in residential provision because, ‘It is fun, and the staff do lots of activities with us’. They feel that they can talk to staff if they want about ‘stuff’ and share their concerns with them.

• Children develop positive relationships with staff and other pupils. Staff get to know them well and they are treated with dignity and respect. Staff encourage them to do the same to other children and adults.
• In the more relaxed, informal setting of the boarding/residential provision, most children behave well. They thrive in this less structured environment and cooperate much more effectively with their peers. They share positive relations with their carers. Staff promote this well by engaging them in a wide range of evening activities and off-site visits.
• Caring staff challenge unwanted behaviours appropriately. For example, swearing and the use of offensive hand gestures are challenged consistently. Following minor incidents, staff engage children in conversations to reflect on their behaviour.
• Records show that incidents requiring physical handling and restraint are not always managed systematically. In these cases, not all staff listen to and record the views of children. They do not scrutinise rigorously their records to spot patterns and trends in behaviour and inform actions to improve it.

School details

Unique reference number 124530 Social care unique reference number SC024594 Local authority Inspection number Suffolk 10046530 This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. The inspection of residential provision was carried out under the Children Act 1989, as amended by the Care Standards Act 2000, having regard to the national minimum standards for residential special schools. Type of school Pupil referral unit School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Number of pupils on the school roll Number of boarders on roll Pupil referral unit 8 to 14 Boys 19 7 Appropriate authority Management committee Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Jane Sharp Graham Alcock 01787 373583 https://hampdenhouse.net admin@hampdenhouse.net Date of previous inspection 24–25 May 2016

Information about this school

• The school is a pupil referral unit (PRU) that provides short-stay, full-time education and residential care for up to 30 boys aged eight to 14 years old. All pupils have been permanently excluded from mainstream schools or have moved from another PRU.
• Most pupils are White British. All of them have SEND. A higher than average proportion of pupils have an education, health and care plan. The large majority of them are eligible for pupil premium funding.
• The acting headteacher at the time of the last inspection was appointed as the substantive headteacher in 2016.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors met with the headteacher, and other leaders of the school and the residential provision. They met with three members of the management committee and a representative of the local authority.
• Inspectors scrutinised documents, including self-evaluation and improvement planning, assessment records, monitoring records of pupils’ behaviour and attendance, safeguarding documentation and minutes of leaders’ meetings.
• They observed pupils at work in lessons and looked at the work in their books. They spoke informally with pupils at breaks and lunchtimes, joined them for lunch and listened to a small sample of pupils read.
• They considered the five responses to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View, together with their comments using the free-text service, four responses from pupils and 13 responses from staff to Ofsted’s questionnaires.

Inspection team

John Mitcheson, lead inspector Liz Cornish Trish Palmer Her Majesty’s Inspector Ofsted Inspector Regulatory Care Inspector