The Pinetree School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils arrive at The Pinetree School having had numerous failed educational experiences.

All are pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Here, they are supported to get back into school and succeed. Over time, pupils become more motivated and gain the qualifications they need to move on to appropriate college placements at age 16.

Pupils have positive relationships with the staff. Pupils feel well supported and understood as individuals. Most are happy and engaged.

They talk about how they are succeeding in this school and how the adults are good at helping them with learning. They feel safe.

Pupils' work is adapted to meet ...their own individual needs but is appropriately challenging.

Pupils study a curriculum that contains a high focus on academic knowledge, together with work on life skills, developing resilience and tolerance.

Behaviour has improved substantially. The need for suspensions has dropped.

Pupils describe how their and others' behaviour has improved as they spend more time in the school. However, a minority of pupils are still demonstrating very challenging behaviour and using poor language more than they should.

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

The school has worked hard to improve the quality of education it provides.

The school has ensured that there is a full curriculum in place. Pupils learn appropriate knowledge and skills for their age. Teachers make careful adaptations to ensure pupils with large gaps in previous learning can access the curriculum.

Expectations are high and most pupils leave with GCSEs.

Most pupils are competent, but reluctant readers. The school has purchased additional books to meet pupils' specific interests, such as recipe books.

The few who need additional help with reading receive extra teaching and online practise. Reading and writing are part of the curriculum across all subjects.

The unit overviews used in each subject make it clear how learning progresses within each topic.

Pupils' written work matches the planned schemes. The school is organised into mixed key stage classes to meet pupils' emotional needs. However, the long-term planning of how topics build up year on year is not yet fully in place since changing from year group classes.

The school is clear about its three priorities for getting pupils to succeed and that these can only work in the right order. These are attendance, behaviour, and engagement. Several pupils have been non-attenders in the past.

Leaders work very closely with them and their families to get them into school. This has succeeded for many, with most pupils in school regularly.

Teachers assess pupils' participation and engagement in every lesson.

Pupils are motivated by this as it brings both daily and termly rewards. If pupils have not cooperated, they catch up on learning instead of taking part in enrichment sessions each day. A small number of pupils have not yet learned to focus as well as others.

They do not meet expectations, for example they are disruptive and swear. There have been recent incidents of pupils vaping on the field and they regularly have mobile phones out.

Once pupils become engaged, most are motivated by future college and career possibilities.

Many pupils take part in regular work experience or placements to learn skills, such as mechanics. Pupils learn about life in modern Britain through the well planned personal, social and health education (PSHE) programme, tutor time and assemblies. They are further engaged by regular themed days to learn about different ways of life.

Governance is from a school improvement board, which looks at every aspect of the school's performance in detail. The challenge from this board has supported leaders' work in continuing improvements. Staff feel well supported by both leaders in school and those from the multi-academy trust.

Subject leaders benefit from network meetings with peers in similar schools.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• It is not clear enough in all subjects' planning how topics will build year on year for the mixed-age classes.

This means that how pupils will build new knowledge on what has come before has not been considered as well as it should have been. The school needs to ensure that it is clearer what pupils will be taught, and when, over an entire key stage. ? Some pupils' behaviour is not yet good enough.

They do not meet the school's high expectations or follow rules and routines. As a result, they miss out on some of their learning. The school needs to ensure that the improvements in behaviour for most pupils are also in place for this minority.

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