Haybrook College Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Embed best practice in teaching, learning and assessment across the school so that all teachers and SCMs:

increase the level of challenge for pupils while maintaining positive relationships, behaviour and attitudes to learning use assessment information incisively in lessons to deepen pupils’ knowledge quickly plan carefully how best to use adult support to improve pupils’ academic learning.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Outstanding

• Across Haybrook, leaders’ moral purpose and ambition for the pupils in their care underpins all leadership decisions. This approach ensures that, wherever possible, pupils return successfully to mainstream or make secure and successful post-16 transitions to further education, training or apprenticeship.
• This shared ambition means that all adults at the school work exceptionally well together and embrace changes and developments that are in the best interests of pupils. The newly-appointed executive headteacher has well-considered plans for further improvement. All leaders have an accurate understanding of the quality of provision across the school.
• Leaders work extremely well with other providers and external agencies. Leaders from local mainstream schools and agencies such as the virtual school, the police and social care, are vociferous in their praise. They describe leadership that ‘goes the extra mile’ and provides invaluable support for the wider community, including local mainstream schools.
• Leaders have designed a curriculum for each provision that carefully meets the needs of pupils while providing appropriate breadth, depth and balance. Pupils make excellent use of the range of learning activities offered at Haybrook. Leaders personalise pupils’ timetables and ensure that support is highly effective. This enables pupils to make outstanding progress from their individual starting points.
• Pupils’ social, emotional, behavioural and mental health needs are met exceptionally well. Nevertheless, leaders ensure that pupils’ academic learning remains a priority and that pupils achieve valuable qualifications that will open doors for their futures. Fundamental British values are threaded throughout the curriculum, in and out of the classroom, and pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is promoted extremely well.
• Leaders make well-considered use of additional funding, including the pupil premium funding. They are determined to address inequality and disadvantage wherever they can, and they are relentless in their efforts to access support beyond the school.
• Specialist staff, including the special educational needs coordinator (SENCo), provide effective training for staff across the school. Leaders’ daily staff briefings ensure that all understand pupils’ needs and how best to meet them. The vast majority of pupils have SEN and/or disabilities and they are catered for exceptionally well.
• Careers education, information, advice and guidance is very strong. Leaders successfully support pupils to develop their aspirations and ambitions. Enterprise and work-related learning is carefully integrated into pupils’ timetables. Leaders secure a wide range of work experience that meets pupils’ needs very well.
• The overwhelming majority of staff are proud to be part of Haybrook. They value the high-quality professional development that leaders provide. Many spoke enthusiastically about the research projects that they undertake, which help to further develop and refine their practice.
• Leaders monitor the quality of teaching and learning continuously so that they can provide support quickly. They act swiftly when staff require development and provide honest and highly effective support.
• Leaders are acutely aware of the fine balance that staff must strike between challenging pupils while maintaining the positive relationships that they have established. Leaders have created a supportive staff community where teachers and SCMs are confident to share ideas that have worked and to ask for help from peers.
• Leaders are currently reviewing the school’s approach to assessment as they recognise variation in its effectiveness across the provisions.

Governance of the school

• Governors and trustees are determined that Haybrook should provide the best possible education for all involved with the school. They recognise its ability to transform lives for pupils, parents and the whole community. They hold leaders at all levels stringently to account for their work and ensure that all at the school share their ambition.
• Governors are skilled and make expert use of their wide range of experience to scrutinise leaders’ work at a strategic level. They have an excellent understanding of their role and fulfil all statutory requirements, including holding leaders to account for their use of additional funding.
• Governors have successfully ensured the long-term success of the school through careful succession planning and thoughtful appointments. There has been no discontinuity to the quality of leadership and provision despite the new leadership structure and recent promotion of the executive headteacher.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Leaders have created an exceptionally strong culture of safeguarding throughout the school community. There is a real sense of purpose when speaking with adults, from those who drive and escort pupils on school transport to the school governors. All understand and take seriously the part they must play in being vigilant and sharing any worries swiftly.
• Leaders are proactive in their work with external agencies and have built up very strong working relationships with a wide range of groups, including the police, medical staff and the borough council. They contribute well to work that helps to keep pupils, their families and members of the wider community safe. A group of specialists from a range of external agencies asked to speak with inspectors and described the rigor and tenacity with which all at Haybrook contribute to safeguarding beyond the school.
• Leaders have also used their strong community links to help pupils and families learn how to keep themselves safe from different risks. This work is effective, and local issues are addressed openly, helping to create a climate where pupils and families trust and work well with leaders.
• All required training is completed to a high standard. Processes and policies meet requirements, including the processes for assuring that staff are fully checked for their suitability for working with children and young people.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

• Teachers and SCMs share leaders’ ambitions and belief in the power of education to transform lives. They work hard to build strong relationships with pupils and their families. They use these relationships well to build pupils’ self-esteem and self-confidence and from there to develop their academic learning. Consequently, pupils’ attitudes to learning across the school are very positive.
• Pupils learn very well when teachers and SCMs work together and use their knowledge to plan learning activities that closely match pupils’ prior learning. In these situations, teachers set tasks that pupils can see will be an achievable challenge, and SCMs gently coach pupils to maintain their efforts and achieve them. However, this is not secure throughout the provision and some tasks set are not challenging enough, particularly in the key stage 4 pupil referral units. Additionally, in these units, sometimes pupils resist tackling more difficult work unless they are encouraged to do so by an adult.
• Pupils are confident to ask questions and teachers mostly answer these well, demonstrating secure expert subject knowledge, especially in the vocational provisions. Inspectors saw examples of skilful management of pupils’ questions to balance respect and interest while keeping pupils focused on the learning topic.
• Overall, pupils’ learning is typically well structured. Teachers and SCMs are quick to adapt activities to pupils’ needs, especially in Millside, Apollo and the key stage 3 provisions. Teachers at the hospital school work closely with pupils’ mainstream schools in order to help pupils to keep up with the work their peers are doing or to address gaps in pupils’ knowledge due to the time they have spent out of school.
• Leaders are developing a new assessment policy. This is not yet securely embedded through the school. Inspectors observed some teachers and SCMs give pupils useful verbal feedback that helped to deepen pupils’ knowledge and learning. Pupils told us that they find this useful. Through their ongoing evaluations of teaching, learning and assessment, leaders have identified the need to ensure that this happens more routinely throughout the provisions so that pupils’ knowledge is deepened more quickly.
• Teachers and SCMs support learning effectively outside the classroom. For example, when sitting down together for lunch and breakfast, staff develop pupils’ social and personal skills well. They are not afraid to challenge pupils’ externally received wisdom about life choices and they promote equalities and fundamental British values extremely effectively.
• Teachers and SCMs new to the profession or to Haybrook are supported very well. They receive thorough mentoring and guidance so that they can quickly adapt to the needs of the pupils and keep high expectations. Teachers across the school make effective use of the extensive training and resources provided, especially from specialists, including the SENCo.
• Parents and carers are overwhelmingly positive about the support that all at the school give them and their children. Inspectors spoke to a sample of them by telephone as well as considering emails and responses to Parent View. All parents and carers commended the excellent communication and support that they experience. Comments such as ‘invaluable support’ and staff who have ‘gone above and beyond’ were typical.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Outstanding

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is outstanding.
• Pupils at the various parts of the school have very different needs, but staff are exceptionally well trained to meet these needs successfully. Staff systematically build pupils’ self-esteem and instil a sense of pride in the work that pupils undertake at school. This work is extremely successful in developing pupils’ positive attitudes to school, achievement and their post-16 aspirations.
• Key to the success of each part of the school is the way that staff build very strong relationships with pupils and their families. The unrelenting positivity that staff display about the pupils helps to build trust. Pupils feel that they are safe and cared for. Many commented on the way that staff ‘believe’ in them and their capacity to succeed. This underpins pupils’ confidence in their learning and progress.
• The positive culture that runs throughout the school is open and honest. Pupils know that they can ask for help when they need it. They like the way that prejudice is not part of Haybrook, and the way that staff deal successfully with any issues that might arise.
• Pupils also appreciate the honesty with which external risks are discussed and dealt with. They understand the importance of healthy relationships and the role of the various external agencies that are welcomed into the school.
• The careers education, advice and guidance that pupils receive supports them well and prepares them for the next stage of their education or training very effectively. Staff work with pupils and their families individually to ensure that pupils make appropriate and informed decisions. Staff provide support and help pupils to maintain destinations successfully when they have moved on from Haybrook, either to mainstream or post-16 choices.
• Pupils in Apollo, the unit for chronically withdrawn pupils, develop exceptionally well. They increase in confidence, resilience and self-esteem, with one recent pupil even being elected to Slough Student Council following a successful democratic campaign.

Behaviour

• Many pupils arrive with a history of difficulty moderating their own behaviour choices. They make rapid and sustained improvements due to the expert support from staff and the clear and high expectations maintained throughout the school. Consequently, the behaviour of pupils is outstanding.
• Pupils display outstanding respect and consideration for each other, especially in lessons. Even if they are having a bad day they recognise that others are there to learn. They use the school’s strong systems to support them very well. Inspectors observed very high standards of behaviour in classrooms and around the different school sites.
• Many pupils arrive having missed long periods of education, and rapidly improve their attendance. Staff work tirelessly to get pupils into school, including making well-considered use of external agencies. Representatives of these agencies think, and inspectors agree, there is not anything else that leaders could do.

Outcomes for pupils Outstanding

• Over time, pupils make strong and substantial progress from their starting points. Many join Haybrook having had years of disrupted education and with a sense of disengagement from the school system. Most at the pupil referral units have been permanently excluded from a mainstream school or are at risk of permanent exclusion. Their attitudes to learning, behaviour, attendance and academic achievement all improve rapidly due to the work of Haybrook staff.
• Those pupils on short-term placements to prevent permanent exclusion from mainstream schools make rapid progress with managing their behaviour and developing positive attitudes to learning. The vast majority reintegrate successfully into mainstream provision. School records and discussions with leaders at the mainstream schools confirm that most reintegration is successfully sustained.
• Pupils throughout the provision make rapid and sustained progress with their behaviour and attitudes to learning. They join Haybrook following difficulties with behaviour, and many display challenging behaviours initially. However, this swiftly changes as they develop strong self-esteem and learn to self-moderate their behaviour choices. School information shows that pupils’ behaviour rapidly improves, and that this improvement is maintained.
• Pupils also make outstanding progress with their attendance. Many join the school with exceptionally low prior attendance and this improves well.
• Pupils from all groups, including disadvantaged pupils, make outstanding progress from their starting points. Many arrive at Haybrook with limited literacy and numeracy skills following disrupted or missed education. Provisional 2018 examination results indicate that 90% of Year 11 pupils attained an English and mathematics qualification, and 79% attained GCSEs in English and mathematics. Attainment across the curriculum is similarly high.
• Current pupils, including disadvantaged pupils, also make outstanding progress across the curriculum. As pupils settle into life at Haybrook and develop their self-esteem and aspirations, they develop a more positive attitude to learning and attain highly.
• Pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities make exceptional progress and attain highly due to the personalised support and provision that they enjoy. Leaders make good use of additional funding to personalise pupils’ timetables and support.
• Pupils’ destinations are also extremely positive. An average of 90% of the last two cohorts of Year 11 leavers have successfully sustained their post-16 destinations. Leaders work closely with pupils to ensure that they move on to a college course, training or apprenticeship that is right for them. They track and support them from the moment examinations finish in the summer, so that they can help them sustain successful futures.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 142607 Slough 10053526 This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Type of school Alternative provision School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Academy alternative provision converter 11 to 16 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 135 Appropriate authority Chair Executive headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Board of trustees David Tottingham Jamie Rockman 01628 696 075 www.haybrookcollege.co.uk haybrook@haybrookcollege.co.uk Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

Information about this school

• Haybrook College is an alternative provision and special school in Slough. It comprises: two pupil referral units for key stage 4 pupils; one for key stage 3 pupils, including ‘revolving door’ short-term placements for pupils at risk of permanent exclusion; a special school for key stages 3 and 4 pupils who have education, health and care plans related to their social, emotional and mental health needs; a provision for chronically withdrawn key stage 4 pupils; vocational provision for catering, hospitality, vehicle maintenance and mechanics; and provision for sick children during or following hospitalisation.
• All pupils have significant and complex social, emotional, mental health and behavioural difficulties. Many have been permanently excluded from mainstream provision or are at risk of this happening. Others have missed significant amounts of schooling due to medical or mental health needs. The school aims to provide them with education and support that will either enable their successful return to mainstream schooling or to an appropriate post-16 course of education, training or apprenticeship.
• The provision operates on several sites across Slough. An extensive refurbishment programme is currently underway in conjunction with Slough Borough Council.
• Haybrook College converted to become an academy trust called Haybrook College Trust on 14 January 2016. Trust members form a local governing body with three committees. When its predecessor school, led by the recently retired executive headteacher, was last inspected by Ofsted, it was judged to be good in all areas.
• Haybrook College Trust also runs a separately registered 16 to 19 provision that was inspected in February 2018. It was not considered as part of this inspection.
• Pupils are referred to the school by Slough local authority, other nearby local authorities and, in the case of the hospital school, medical staff.
• Over a half of pupils are from disadvantaged backgrounds and eligible for pupil premium funding. A small number of pupils are looked after by the local authority.
• Almost a half of pupils have education, health and care plans.
• The majority of pupils are boys. Most pupils are of White British heritage.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed learning jointly with school leaders in 26 part-lessons across the school. There were no pupils at the hospital schoolroom, so an inspector spoke to staff and scrutinised processes for safeguarding. She also discussed the curriculum, pupils’ progress and leaders’ work to evaluate this aspect of the school.
• Inspectors spoke to pupils during lesson visits and looked at their work with them. They also spoke to groups of pupils formally and informally around the school and at breaktimes and lunchtimes. They considered the school’s own survey of pupils’ opinions and ideas about the provision.
• Inspectors held meetings with senior leaders, other staff, a group of governors and representatives from external agencies who work closely with the school. They also held telephone calls with the school improvement partner from the local authority and leaders of mainstream schools who use this provision. They took account of the view of the 68 members of staff who responded to Ofsted’s online staff survey.
• Inspectors considered the views of parents and carers. They took account of the three responses to the online Ofsted questionnaire, Parent View, and a range of emails sent to the school. They also held telephone calls with a sample of parents and carers.
• Inspectors considered a wide range of documentation, including information available on the school’s website and records relating to pupils’ attainment, progress, attendance and behaviour. Information on governance, including minutes of governors’ meetings, was scrutinised. The school’s self-evaluations and improvement plans were examined, along with records of the school’s work to keep pupils safe.

Inspection team

Lucy English, lead inspector Lee Selby Jeremy Loukes

Her Majesty’s Inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector Ofsted Inspector