Setting

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T 0300 123 4234 www.gov.uk/ofsted

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Mr Rob Hullett Raine’s Foundation School Approach Road Bethnal Green London E2 9LY

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No formal designation inspection of Raine’s Foundation School

Following my visit to your school with Bruce Goddard, Ofsted Inspector, on 5 July 2018, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to confirm the inspection findings. Thank you for the help you gave me and the time you took to discuss behaviour in your school.

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No formal designation inspection of Raine’s Foundation School

The inspection was a monitoring inspection carried out in accordance with the no formal designation procedures and conducted under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. The inspection was carried out because Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills was concerned about pupils’ behaviour at the school.

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Evidence

Inspectors considered evidence that included:

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Evidence

 observations of pupils’ behaviour and their attitudes to learning in lessons  observations of pupils’ behaviour throughout the day, including discussion with pupils  documentary evidence  discussions with school leaders and staff.

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Evidence

Having evaluated the evidence, I am of the opinion that at this time:

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Evidence

Leaders and managers have not taken effective action to maintain the high standards of behaviour and attitudes identified at the school’s previous inspection.

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Context

The school is smaller than the average secondary school. Almost two thirds of pupils are from minority ethnic backgrounds. The proportion of pupils who speak English as an additional language is almost twice the national average. Well over two thirds of pupils are entitled to free school meals. The proportion of pupils with a statement of special educational needs (SEN) or an education, health and care plan is average. More pupils than average receive SEN support. Since the last inspection, two members of the senior leadership team have left the school. A number of temporary teaching staff are currently in post.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

Pupils’ behaviour has declined since the school’s last inspection, and is not good enough. While pupils told inspectors that they feel safe at school, they reported that learning is regularly disrupted by poor behaviour. In many of the lessons observed during the inspection, pupils’ poor behaviour had a clear and negative impact on learning.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

Pupils’ conduct out of lessons has improved recently, however, and is generally satisfactory. Increased levels of staff supervision, including by the behaviour management team, ensure that most pupils move between lessons in an orderly manner. Inspectors saw a few incidents of boisterous behaviour with the potential to boil over, but staff were on hand to quickly nip them in the bud. Pupils reported unanimously that they feel safe when travelling to and from school, between lessons and at break and lunchtimes. They said that the frequency of fights is much reduced, but that some fights do still occur periodically. The school’s records show that bullying has reduced. Lots of work has been done to raise pupils’ awareness of the impact of bullying and how to get support if they are worried. Pupils’ views on the amount of bullying in the school and their confidence in their teachers’ ability to deal with it vary considerably, however.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

Pupils were seen to behave well at break and lunchtime. Many sat in small groups with their friends chatting while others played football. There is a risk, however, that a stray football could hit a pupil or member of staff because the football area is not separated from the rest of the playground. The atmosphere in the canteen was generally calm and harmonious as pupils chatted to their friends while they ate their lunch. Many of the pupils who arrive early to school make good use of the learning resource centre to catch up on work or to chat quietly to their friends. The pupils were mostly polite to inspectors and spoke maturely about their school. Inspectors did hear some bad language, however, from a few pupils.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

Not all pupils arrive punctually to school or to lessons. One inspector counted 23 pupils who arrived late to school at the start of the day. At the end of the lunch break, 20 pupils were seen to arrive late to their lessons. Staff have to spend too much time and energy chivvying pupils along to get to lessons in time. Too much of this is done by negotiation rather than through firm instruction. While most pupils are compliant, many demonstrate a lack of resolve to move quickly to get to their next lesson on time. Attendance has dipped slightly since the last inspection.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

Pupils generally wear their uniform in accordance with leaders’ expectations. The inspection took place on a very hot day and many pupils understandably took advantage of the permission they were given to remove their school ties in lessons. Not all teachers ensure that pupils fully comply with all aspects of the school’s uniform policy, however. In some lessons, a small minority of pupils were wearing hoodies or jackets and this went unchallenged, despite the school’s clear expectations regarding uniform. Some girls were seen to be wearing make-up, in contravention of the school’s rules.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

Too many pupils misbehave once they get to lessons. Inspectors observed many instances of pupils talking over their teachers, ignoring their teachers’ instructions or completing very little work. A few incidents of open defiance were also observed. In one lesson, for example, three pupils who had misbehaved were asked to leave their classroom by a faculty leader who had come to support the teacher. While the member of staff demonstrated real skill in coaxing the pupils out of the lesson, it took too long for the pupils to comply. When the pupils were then isolated, they did not take their removal from the lesson seriously enough and continued to snigger and be silly. In a Year 7 mathematics lesson, although the behaviour at the start of the lesson was good, by the end, pupils were observed walking around the classroom, shouting out and completely ignoring their teacher. In a Spanish cover lesson observed, all but a few pupils achieved little as they sat at their computers in

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

the learning resource centre. One pupil, when asked by an inspector to share his work, mistakenly opened a PowerPoint presentation from his school documents folder whose front page included an expletive in bold text. In contrast to the findings from these observations, pupils were seen to be working well in a few lessons, including a Year 8 information and communications technology lesson and in most of their English lessons.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

Inspectors’ findings match closely the views expressed by many of the pupils they spoke with. One, typifying the views of many others, commented: ‘You can go to one lesson where you learn then the next lesson where you don’t learn anything.’ Another said: ‘Some teachers don’t know how to deal with poor behaviour.’ Pupils have grown used to accepting that some lessons will be blighted by poor behaviour as a normal part of school life.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

Where behaviour is poor, this is often the result of ineffective teaching. In these instances, the work provided is not planned carefully enough to engage pupils or meet their different needs sufficiently. Hence, in a few lessons where pupils achieved little, it was because they did not know what they were supposed to do. The variability in the quality of teaching that pupils experience helps explain why not all pupils arrive to lessons on time. It was notable during the inspection that a large group of Year 10 pupils were seen to behave exceptionally well during a workshop provided by an external provider on urban space development. This highlighted that the pupils are perfectly capable of behaving well when they are challenged, interested and engaged.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

The school uses an ‘on-call’ system through which staff can request that pupils be removed from their lesson. However, the pupils told inspectors that this system does not really make much difference. They said that a pupil will be removed so they can then learn in the lesson, but that the same thing will happen again in subsequent lessons. Pupils judge that some teachers are too quick to use the on- call system for what they perceive to be trivial issues. While inspectors did not find evidence to support or refute these claims, the pupils’ comments reflected a general lack of confidence in some teachers’ fair application of the school’s behaviour policy. Inspectors did see some evidence of teachers using the on-call system where they should have been able to deal with the incidents themselves, in accordance with the expectations set out in the Teachers’ Standards.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

Pupils who are removed from lessons are either sent to another teacher or to a seclusion room. Regular offenders and those judged to have behaved particularly badly are required to spend time in the learning support unit (LSU). These provisions are not effective enough, however. Records kept in the LSU, for example, show that some staff regularly fail to set work for pupils as is expected. The logs in the LSU are incomplete, with the reasons a pupil has been assigned to the unit not always recorded. Staff in the unit do their best to keep pupils on track and to provide work. The quality of this provision is simply not good enough in helping pupils to improve their behaviour, however. This is reflected by the fact that some students are repeatedly sent to the LSU.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

In contrast, some pupils who find it difficult to manage their behaviour receive high- quality support through a programme which combines basketball with mentoring. Their high levels of respect for their coach and their keenness to win and maintain his approval have had a marked impact in improving their attendance, punctuality and behaviour. Not enough initiatives of this kind – or quality – are in place, however.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

Leaders and governors fully acknowledge that behaviour has declined since the last inspection. They have identified accurately where behaviour is of concern and where it is good. They know that the proportion of pupils excluded from the school has also increased this year. Governors say that the reduction in the size of the senior leadership team as a result of financial pressures has not helped. They also apportion some of the poor behaviour to the weaker quality of teaching delivered by some of the temporary staff. Inspectors agree that the pupils behaved less well in some of these lessons than in the lessons taught by more established teachers. However, leaders’ monitoring had not identified the extent of the poor learning experience that some pupils experience daily. For example, two weeks before this inspection, the headteacher’s report to governors included the statement, ‘behaviour for learning is good’.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

Leaders have not been helped by the largely positive findings of an external review of behaviour which took place at the end of the spring term. They were reassured by the findings, which noted that behaviour in the school was similar to that observed by inspectors in the autumn term. However, they have not given enough weight in their analysis of the review to the more worrying findings. The report noted, for example, that: ‘The students’ behaviour can be managed but requires high levels of supervision.’

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

Leaders monitor the number of behaviour and rewards points issued to pupils on a weekly basis. They also drill down into this information to see where problems are arising and which groups are affected. This approach does not appear to have made much difference in ensuring that pupils behave consistently well, however.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

Leaders are confident that behaviour will improve in the autumn term because they judge that they have appointed some high-quality teachers. Staff restructuring is planned to help improve pupils’ behaviour in key stage 3. The behaviour working party of staff, established earlier this year, reflects a collective will among many staff for behaviour to improve. They have already had success, for example, in reducing the negative impact of mobile phones on pupils’ learning. Staff reported that the collective response to pupils’ use of mobile phones brought staff together. They said it showed them that, when they all work together, they can bring about the positive changes to pupils’ behaviour needed.

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Priorities for further improvement

Leaders and governors should ensure that they:

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Priorities for further improvement

 strengthen the effectiveness of monitoring arrangements so that they have a more accurate understanding of pupils’ day-to-day experience of behaviour in lessons  strengthen systems for gauging pupils’ views on their day-to-day experiences of behaviour, including bullying behaviour, so that action can be taken where concerns are identified  strengthen teachers’ skills in devising lessons which are stimulating and matched closely to pupils’ needs so that pupils are motivated to arrive to school and lessons on time, work hard and follow instructions  equip all teachers with the confidence and skills to tackle poor behaviour in lessons and hold them fully to account for doing so systematically and regularly  devise cohesive and coherent approaches to improving the behaviour of pupils who are known to persistently disrupt lessons, by: making more effective use of the LSU and seclusion arrangements, and

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Priorities for further improvement

building on the work done through the basketball and mentoring programme. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the director of education for the Diocese of London, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Tower Hamlets. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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