The Rise Free School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Following the school's most recent inspection, leaders have taken decisive and effective action to improve the quality of education as well as pupils' behaviour.

Consequently, pupils are more able to manage their emotions and typically subject curriculums are sequenced and support pupils to build their knowledge.

Bullying is taken very seriously by the school, governing body and trust. The school has put in place personalised and targeted mentoring for individuals who find it particularly hard to maintain and sustain relationships with their peers.

As a result, incidents of bullying have decreased over time. Bullying rarely happens and if it does, staff deal ...with it.

Pupils are provided with opportunities to experience a range of careers.

For example, they learn about caring for animals such as Cookie and Rosie the school's guinea pigs and visit a range of places of work such as hospitals and motor vehicle maintenance garages.

In the sixth form, all students have the opportunity to study a vocational course from an extensive offer delivered by a local college. This supports students in the sixth form to think carefully about and plan for their future in either employment or further study.

As a result, many students go on to university, internships, apprenticeships or paid employment.

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

The school has an ambitious academic and personal and social curriculum. Curriculums have been designed to give pupils, and students in the sixth form, the skills and knowledge they need to become independent adults.

There is a clear structure to lessons. There are opportunities for pupils to rehearse what they know and can do. Typically, teachers check pupils' understanding regularly.

Mostly, they address errors and misconceptions well because they have strong subject knowledge. Generally, teachers use activities that align with the intended learning. They typically make adaptions so that all pupils can access the learning.

However, on occasion, these practices are not applied as routinely in all lessons. This means that sometimes pupils' misconceptions or gaps are not addressed or pupils are not helped as effectively to access the same learning as their peers.

The school has in place a systematic approach to teaching phonics.

Pupils read books that closely match the sounds they know. For weaker readers, interventions are in place to strengthen their reading fluency and confidence. However, the core reading skills beyond phonics have not been as clearly mapped out.

Some staff have not had training to support weaker readers across all subjects. This means that sometimes pupils struggle to understand what they have read. This is because reading skills are not typically rehearsed or explicitly taught.

Also, some subject texts are not routinely adapted and, therefore, are too complicated.

The school's therapeutic team works closely with those responsible for behaviour. They get to know each pupil's communication, emotional, sensory and physical needs.

They use this information to create personalised support plans that all staff read and understand. The staff said they valued these plans and the training that goes alongside them. These plans enable staff to know the pupils very well.

Subsequently, staff are able to support pupils to manage any emotional dysregulation more readily.

The school prioritises preparing pupils for adulthood. They provide a broad range of activities that help to develop pupils' interests, resilience, confidence and independence, including sailing, travel training, school performances and overnight camping trips.

The personal, social and health education (PSHE) curriculum has been carefully planned and contextualised for pupils and students. Pupils are helped to develop an understanding of how to keep mentally and physically healthy through weekly well-being, mindfulness and yoga lessons. Pupils are taught about the dangers of sharing private information with strangers as well as people they know.

Students in the sixth form are taught about budgeting and managing their finances, as well as other important life skills.

Frequently, pupils who start at the school or students who join the sixth form have had a negative prior experience of schooling. This has had an impact on their attendance rates at their previous schools.

When pupils join this school, staff get to know the reasons why they did not attend school regularly. The school then works with pupils and their families to address those barriers. The school makes personalised plans.

This helps pupils to build their trust in the staff team. Consequently, many pupils attend school more regularly over time.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• On a few occasions, pupils' understanding and recall are not checked equally routinely in all subjects. As a result, sometimes pupils are not helped to build on what they already know or gaps or misconceptions are not identified. The school should ensure that all teachers check routinely what pupils know and remember to identify and address any gaps or misconceptions.

• Some knowledge and skills in the reading curriculum are not robustly mapped out, and not all staff have received training on how to support weaker readers across the curriculum. Consequentially, pupils sometimes do not develop their reading skills as swiftly as they should and therefore struggle to access some learning. The school should ensure that all staff, across all subjects, have the necessary skills and expertise to support all pupils to read fluently so that pupils can access their learning independently and mitigate the risk of cognitive overload.

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