The William Henry Smith School and Sixth Form

William Henry Smith School, Boothroyd Lane, BRIGHOUSE, West Yorkshire, HD6 3JW

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Inspection dates 18/11/2013 to 19/11/2013

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Overall effectiveness Outstanding 1

Outcomes for residential pupils Outstanding 1 Quality of residential provision and care Outstanding 1 Residential pupils’ safety Outstanding 1 Leadership and management of the residential provision Outstanding 1

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The residential provision is outstanding because

● Residential pupils are excellent ambassadors for the school. They are proud to show visitors around and to share their stories of success as a consequence of what the school has done to turn around their lives for the better. ● The never-ending support of care staff means residential pupils are being afforded maximum support, to enable them to modify their behaviour and remain law-abiding citizens within their community. ● The quality of direction from leadership and management is exceptional and means every residential pupil is able to receive quality care from dedicated and enthusiastic staff, who always put residential pupils well-being and safety as their top priority. ● The seamless 24-hour curriculum enables residential pupils to thrive across all aspects of life from learning, building life skills, to staying safe and healthy. This is made possible through opportunities to maximise learning through creative approaches to teaching, to

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The residential provision is outstanding because

the wide-ranging activities that strengthen skills, interests, knowledge and enhance physical well-being. ● The safety of residential pupils is paramount. This extends to bullying and other instances of poor behaviour, all being well managed to levels whereby residential pupils feel safe and in some cases, residential pupils reporting this being their first time in a school. Additional remarks from pupils include, ‘The school has given me my life back.'

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Compliance with the national minimum standards for residential special schools

The school meets the national minimum standards for residential special schools Inspection Report William Henry Smith School, 18/11/2013 Page 2 of 10

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Information about this inspection

The school was informed about the inspection at 09.15 on the first day. During the visit, observations of practice were undertaken including speaking with staff and residential pupils. A tour of the school was completed. Visits were made to all residential units at key times, morning, lunches and evening. A selection of policies, records and written guidance were sampled including parents surveys. Individual and group discussions took place with managers, senior staff, residential workers and residential pupils. A range of evening activities were directly observed.

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Inspection team

Michelle Moss Lead social care inspector Inspection Report William Henry Smith School, 18/11/2013 Page 3 of 10

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Information about this school

The school is a non-maintained special school for pupils with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties, who may also have additional needs that relate to specific learning difficulties including ADHD and ASD. The school offers education and accommodation to boys aged between 8 years and 16 years. Accommodation is provided in five dedicated residential houses based on the school's grounds.

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Information about this school

The school is set in several acres of grounds and has facilities for indoor and outdoor sporting activities, such as an adventure playground, all weather sports enclosure and indoor sports hall and gym. It is situated in Brighouse which is a semi-rural location in West Yorkshire with good transport links to local towns and cities. Inspection Report William Henry Smith School, 18/11/2013 Page 4 of 10

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Outcomes for residential pupils Outstanding

Residential pupils are achieving outstanding outcomes in all areas of their development. Residential pupils are thriving emotionally, physically and educationally as a result of the highly inclusive boarding community, which sits at the heart of the school. Residential pupils quickly form excellent relationships with care staff, that enables them to feel part of a family.

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Outcomes for residential pupils Outstanding

Regardless of residential pupils starting points associated with their often complex history and associated learning difficulties, without exception their residential experience is helping them to overcome significant barriers, which in the past have hindered their learning and abilities to form meaningful and sustainable friendships.

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Outcomes for residential pupils Outstanding

Residential pupils hugely benefit from the imaginative and inspiring approaches that focus on emotional and physical well-being, learning, building social relationships and modifying behaviour. The core success to this unique approach is how support is wrapped around the individual child. This includes every residential pupil having access to comprehensive therapeutic input, which seamlessly works alongside learning mentoring and key worker teams. Together, residential pupils' progress is closely monitored and interventions implemented based on emerging need. As a result of this cohesive approach, residential pupils are achieving across all aspects of their lives including socially, emotionally, physically, mentally, educationally and lastly gaining the necessary coping skills to help form emotional resilience to overcome past difficulties.

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Outcomes for residential pupils Outstanding

Residential pupils confidence and life skills are all growing through the diverse activities they can access day by day at the school. Recognition of age and challenges of transition are also well considered in both the design and approach to learning and care. This extends to gaining vocational qualifications, accredited achievement awards and accessing work experience opportunities. The outcome of these opportunities is helping to set a solid platform for building up self-worth, self-confidence, self-esteem and to make a successful transition from childhood to adulthood.

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Quality of residential provision and care Outstanding

The quality of residential provision and care is outstanding in all aspects. Pastoral support is first class, with a child centred approach underpinning every aspect of care. The school continually adapts to ever increasing diverse needs of children. This includes adjustments being made to environments to best match the presenting needs of every residential pupil. The difference the residential provision makes for individual pupils is validated in their own comments; ‘The school has given me a second chance in my life; before I came to the school, I was always in trouble with the police. The school has saved my childhood.'

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Quality of residential provision and care Outstanding

Residential pupils are afforded a wide range of good quality and nutritious meals, in which the school have received rewards in recognition of their approach to healthy eating.

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Quality of residential provision and care Outstanding

The health of residential pupils sits central to everyday practice. This includes pupils having access to a qualified nurse at the school and being supported to access specialised services in areas such as mental and sexual health. Medication important to residential pupils health is concisely administered in accordance with prescribing doctors' instructions. This includes maintaining records for validation purposes. This ensures that the well-being of residential pupils remains a top priority in the delivery of care.

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Quality of residential provision and care Outstanding

The diverse range of accommodation, starting from a dedicated admission unit, means the presenting needs of residential pupils are fully met from the moment they arrive at the school. All Inspection Report William Henry Smith School, 18/11/2013 Page 5 of 10 new admissions receive a comprehensive induction, so that their care and learning can become integrated as one. This enables consistence across the 24-hour curriculum.

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Quality of residential provision and care Outstanding

The level of enjoyment from the excellent high quality activities is visible when residential pupils are met. Despite their own differences, the supportive and caring environment breaks down barriers which make forming relationships challenging. Sportsmanship is respectful with staff leading by example. The atmosphere throughout the different houses is relaxing, well-maintained and yet still stimulating enough to enable activities to be both formally and informally arranged.

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Quality of residential provision and care Outstanding

Residential care plans are formed for all residential pupils and used by care staff to outline their care against need. A current period of transition is taking place to move these records to a more innovative online system.

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Residential pupils’ safety Outstanding

The school has outstanding arrangements for keeping residential pupils safe at all times. The safety of the residential pupils is at the very heart of the school’s everyday practice. All care staff receive safeguarding training, which they apply to underpin their everyday practice in their care of residential pupils.

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Residential pupils’ safety Outstanding

Residential pupils report feeling safe. They view the biggest reason for feeling safe is due to the trust they have in staff always keeping them safe, both from others, but equally from their own behaviours. One residential pupil spoke about their experience stating, ‘Sometimes it is frustrating, but staff make everything fun and as enjoyable as possible. Rewards get put in place to help me manage my behaviour, which has really helped me.'

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Residential pupils’ safety Outstanding

There is meticulous attention paid to ensuring the recruitment of care staff is robust. This helps to ensure any potential abusers are not given access to working with children.

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Residential pupils’ safety Outstanding

Residential pupils are aware through anti-bullying weeks regularly programmed into the curriculum that bullying is wrong. Residential pupils get involved in various activities during these periods that help them understand the effects of bullying. Residential pupils report that bullying can occasional happen, but are confident that the staff will always swiftly dealt with bullying, so the impact on them is reduced.

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Residential pupils’ safety Outstanding

Residential pupils talk openly about their experiences at the school and in particular about how the school has helped them to control their behaviour. A key to this success comes from their professional relationship with staff and the use of the schools reward scheme, which are strong motivators to helping modify their behaviour. The level of achievement, no matter how small, is continuously reinforced by care staff. This helps residential pupils to build a sense of self-belief in their own abilities to manage their own behaviour. The excellent use of integrated therapeutic input, coupled with care staffs skills to use early interventions such as redirection and de- escalation, means physical restraint in the residential provision is only used in exceptional circumstances and only ever for the minimum time necessary. A record of any restraint is always made, using an online recording system. This ensures all leadership and management are swiftly

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Residential pupils’ safety Outstanding

alerted that a restraint has taken place. Also, residential pupils are being afforded opportunities to discuss any restraint. This includes being able to record their own views and comments and being able to see the school nurse within 24-hours of any restraint, if they so wish. These opportunities give residential pupils the chance to practice their rights.

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Residential pupils’ safety Outstanding

A cohesive approach is taken to develop positive relationships, which minimises residential pupils choosing to leave school without authority and resulting in them becoming missing from care. On the rare occasion it does happen, the established links with local protocols and professionals means the vulnerabilities of residential pupils are understood by all agencies and immediate Inspection Report William Henry Smith School, 18/11/2013 Page 6 of 10 action taken to secure their safe return.

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Residential pupils’ safety Outstanding

A robust approach is taken to ensure health and safety remains a central element to keeping residential pupils safe and protected. This includes having excellent systems that ensure all servicing and maintenance of equipment is undertaken at the recommended timelines. For example, gas safety servicing to fire protection. Risk assessments are regularly reviewed and updated. Repairs are quickly addressed to ensure environments and equipment remains fit for purpose. Testing of the fire alarm system is done weekly and fire drills are completed with residential pupils on a regular basis. These measures ensure protection from fire is maintained and that safe evacuation is rehearsed.

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Leadership and management of the residential provision Outstanding

The leadership, organisation and management of the school and its residential provision are outstanding. The leadership team have a depth of expertise and experience. Their enthusiastic approach to managing the residential provision makes a real difference to residential pupils' lives. This includes how they view the provision as being a central feature to enhancing the welfare and well-being of residential pupils. This extends to setting the foundations where social and emotional development can start to grow. This extends to how the practices from care improve school attendance and how attainment and learning achievements within the classroom become strengthened.

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Leadership and management of the residential provision Outstanding

Care staff morale is excellent. All care staff are well trained and given opportunities to gain qualifications that match their duties and responsibilities. This includes attaining National Vocational Qualifications at levels three, four and five. The deployment of staff is child-centred and means each residential pupils needs are safely meet.

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Leadership and management of the residential provision Outstanding

Care staff receive regular supervision which helps them to reflect on their care practice and review their own developmental needs. Care staff equally demonstrate high job satisfaction. For example, care staff describe their work with residential pupils to being fulfilling every day. They feel it gives them a sense of achievement and is rewarding to see pupils happy.

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Leadership and management of the residential provision Outstanding

A critical friend overview is maintained by the governing body, including regular visits being maintained to all homes which make up the residential provision. Each visit ensures residential pupils are met and their views are taken into account. These views are then acted on. For example, during visits that took place during the spring term, grumbles about the diversity and quality of meals resulted in a total review and a change in menu.

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Leadership and management of the residential provision Outstanding

Staff ensure that parents remain equally involved in their child’s education and care. This includes the school providing an innovative outreach service delivered at weekends through to parental and family counselling opportunities. The parents' survey results demonstrated the high value they have given to the development of outreach, including the difference it has made to family life.

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Leadership and management of the residential provision Outstanding

The residential pupils have various avenues in which to voice their views and practice their rights. This includes contributing to their care plan, (called ‘all about me’) annual reviews and individual education plans. A particular strong pupil voice comes from the regularly held ‘pupil voice’ group. This pupil led group gives them influence to contribute to key decisions. For example, the pupils voice has influenced changes in the way rewards and points are set within the school to arranging charitable events as part of building successful community networks.

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Leadership and management of the residential provision Outstanding

Placing authorities which have recently visited the school have made positive comments about the work of the school to improve outcomes for residential pupils. Professionals, parents and potential pupils all receive informative information about the residential provision, which helps Inspection Report William Henry Smith School, 18/11/2013 Page 7 of 10 them to make informed decisions.

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Leadership and management of the residential provision Outstanding

All necessary policies and procedures are in place, including safeguarding and child protection. The school’s leadership overview of the residential provision demonstrates their commitment to ensuring residential pupils safety and well-being remains paramount throughout the school.

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Leadership and management of the residential provision Outstanding

All national minimum standards were met at the last inspection and this continues to be the case. Inspection Report William Henry Smith School, 18/11/2013 Page 8 of 10

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Grade Judgement Description

Grade 1 Outstanding A school which provides an exceptional quality of care and significantly exceeds minimum requirements. Grade 2 Good A school which provides a high quality of care that exceeds minimum requirements. Grade 3 Adequate A school which meets minimum requirements but needs to improve the quality of care it provides. Grade 4 Inadequate A school where minimum requirements are not met and the quality of care has serious weaknesses. Inspection Report William Henry Smith School, 18/11/2013 Page 9 of 10

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School details

Unique reference number 107589 Social care unique reference number SC001038 DfE registration number 381/7005

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School details

This inspection 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.

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Type of school

Number of boarders on roll 52 Gender of boarders Boys

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Age range of boarders

Headteacher Mr B J Heneghan Date of previous boarding inspection 20/03/2013 Telephone number 01484 710123 Email address principal@whsschool.org.uk Inspection Report William Henry Smith School, 18/11/2013 Page 10 of 10 guidance ‘raising concerns and making complaints about Ofsted', which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.ofsted.gov.uk . If you would like Ofsted to send you a copy of the guidance, please telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk .

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Age range of boarders

You can use Parent View to give Ofsted your opinion on your child’s school. Ofsted will use the information parents and carers provide when deciding which schools to inspect and when and as part of the inspection.

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Age range of boarders

You can also use Parent View to find out what other parents and carers think about schools in England. You can visit www.parentview.ofsted.gov.uk , or look for the link on the main Ofsted website: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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Age range of boarders

achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children's social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, work-based learning and skills training, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for looked after children, safeguarding and child protection. Further copies of this report are obtainable from the school. Under the Education Act 2005, the school must provide a copy of this report free of charge to certain categories of people. A charge not exceeding the full cost of reproduction may be made for any other copies supplied. If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille,

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Age range of boarders

please telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . You may copy all or parts of this document for non-commercial educational purposes, as long as you give details of the source and date of publication and do not alter the information in any way. To receive regular email alerts about new publications, including survey reports and school inspection reports, please visit our website and go to ‘Subscribe’.

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Age range of boarders

T: 0300 123 4234 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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