Hatch End High School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

Hatch End High School continues to be a good school.

The headteacher of this school is Marianne Jeanes. This school is a single academy trust.

The trust is overseen by a board of trustees, chaired by Kate Garnons-Williams.

What is it like to attend this school?

The school's core values of cooperation, ambition, respect and empathy underpin all aspects of school life. The school strives to provide the same high-quality education to all pupils.

Leaders work to overcome any challenges that pupils face. For example, the 'Dream Forward' programme to raise aspirations for pupils.

The school makes sure all pupils feel included in school.

For instance, p...upils in the additionally resourced provision learn alongside their peers successfully. Pupils with special educational needs and or disabilities (SEND) have a very well-planned personal development programme including outings in the local area.

Leaders have implemented new policies and routines to manage pupils' behaviour successfully.

Staff have both appreciated and made a valuable contribution to these positive developments. As a result, pupils' behaviour has improved over time. Pupils socialise well together at breaktimes and lunchtimes.

Any extreme behaviour is rare and dealt with very well by the school.

Pupils are taught how to keep themselves safe. Staff encourage pupils to respect people from other backgrounds and to treat everyone equally.

What does the school do well and what does it need to do better?

Over recent years the school has developed its curricular thinking so that it is sequenced well. This is particularly well designed and implemented in the sixth form.Leaders are ambitious for all pupils.

They ensure that pupils study a broad range of subjects. The school identifies clearly the key subject content that pupils need to learn and when. This helps teachers to build on pupils' prior learning progressively.

Leaders know the school very well. They have an accurate evaluation of the school's work and well-thought-out plans for further improvements.

Teachers have strong subject knowledge.

Overall, they check pupils' prior learning effectively. On occasions, the systematic checking and addressing of pupils' knowledge and understanding lacks precision. This means that sometimes pupils are not fully ready to learn new content.

Teachers present information to pupils clearly. They model and scaffold concepts to pupils effectively. This enables pupils to produce high-quality work.

In history, for example, pupils produced extended work and writing to a high standard. In art, photography and design, pupils' technical drawing is of high quality. In some subjects, the expectations of pupils' work, including for disadvantaged pupils is not as high.

This limits pupils' opportunities to deepen their subject-specific skills.

The school has introduced a plan to support those who are at the earliest stages of learning English. These pupils receive strong support across the school.

Leaders prioritise reading and accurately identify pupils' reading needs. Pupils who struggle with their reading receive timely and appropriate support.

The school takes great care to support pupils with SEND.

Leaders ensure that staff throughout school understand the individual needs of pupils. Pupils with SEND are well supported to access the curriculum. This enables pupils to gain in confidence and prepare for adult life.

The school works effectively to support pupils' attendance. Leaders have a clear oversight of any pupil absence. The school has systematic procedures to check and address occasions where pupils' attendance is not high.

Staff work closely with families of pupils who do not attend regularly. They are tenacious in accessing additional support from other agencies.

Pupils have access to a wide range of enrichment activities.

In the sixth form, students have regular opportunities to develop their understanding about different careers. For example, students who study the advanced general qualifications attend a weekly work placement. Staff support students to understand about financial management.

There are multiple events for pupils to attend. The school has many external speakers and regular visitors. Leaders have clear plans to further improve the regularity and breadth of visits and workshops on offer for pupils.

The school is a calm and orderly place. Typically, pupils move around the school site well. In lessons, pupils mostly behave positively and arrive to lessons increasingly punctually.

Staff deal with any incidents consistently and continue to tackle pupil use of inappropriate language. The school's work to further improve pupils' behaviour has been positive. This has resulted in higher expectations of pupils' conduct around the school.

Some older pupils do not like the changes to the school rules but understand that these changes have led to improvements.

Those responsible for governance are knowledgeable. They are well informed and have an accurate view of the school.

They support staff's well-being and workload.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• In some subjects, pupils' understanding is not systematically checked.

This limits pupils' grasp of key concepts or ideas and their readiness for new subject content. The school should ensure that checks of pupils' learning in all subjects identify and address any misunderstandings in pupils' knowledge and understanding securely. ? On occasions, expectations of pupils' work, including for disadvantaged pupils, is not consistently high.

This means that there are sometimes gaps in pupils' learning which are not addressed effectively. Leaders should ensure that expectations of pupils' work are consistently high, particularly for disadvantaged pupils.

Background

When we have judged a school to be good, we will then normally go into the school about once every four years to confirm that the school remains good.

This is called an ungraded inspection, and it is carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. We do not give graded judgements on an ungraded inspection. However, if we find evidence that a school would now receive a higher or lower grade, then the next inspection will be a graded inspection, which is carried out under section 5 of the Act.

Usually this is within one to two years of the date of the ungraded inspection. If we have serious concerns about safeguarding, behaviour or the quality of education, we will deem the ungraded inspection a graded inspection immediately.

This is the second ungraded inspection since we judged the school to be good in November 2013.