Aldine House Secure Centre

Inspection report for secure children's home: SC046524 1 Aldine House Secure Centre Registered provider name: Sheffield City Council Registered provider address: Sheffield City Council, Aldine House, 75 Limb Lane, Dore, Sheffield S17 3ES

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Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this secure children's home

This home is operated by a local authority and is approved by the Department for Education to restrict children's liberty. The home provides care for up to 10 children between the ages of 10 and 17 years.

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Information about this secure children's home

At the time of this inspection, 4 children were living at the home.

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Information about this secure children's home

The home provides care for up to 10 children placed under section 25 of the Children Act 1989.

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Information about this secure children's home

The admission of any child under section 25 of the Children Act 1989 who is under 13 years of age requires the approval of the Secretary of State.

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Information about this secure children's home

The commissioning of health services in this home is the statutory responsibility of NHS England under the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Education is provided on site in dedicated facilities.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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good

Children's education and learning good Children's health good How well children and young people are helped and protected good

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good

The effectiveness of leaders and managers requires improvement to be good Inspection report for secure children's home: SC046524 2 The secure children's home provides effective services that meet the requirements for good.

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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: good

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for secure children's home: SC046524 3

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

15/04/2025 Full Good 09/07/2024 Full Requires improvement to be good 16/01/2024 Full Requires improvement to be good 31/10/2023 Full Inadequate Inspection report for secure children's home: SC046524 4

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Summary of findings

Children are making positive progress. They benefit from consistent care that promotes their safety, wellbeing and development. Collaborative working between the managers across care, education and health ensures that children receive support that responds to their individual needs. Although the home has been without a registered manager since December 2025 and there have been some shortfalls in management oversight, these have not compromised children's day-to-day experiences or progress.

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Summary of findings

Inspectors were aware during this inspection of a joint police and social care investigation into a serious incident. While Ofsted does not have the power to investigate incidents of this kind, actions taken by the setting in response to the incident were considered alongside the other evidence available at the time of the inspection to inform inspectors' judgements.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children have warm, trusting relationships with staff. Relationships between staff and children are relaxed, with lots of laughter and humour. Children identify favourite members of staff and actively choose to spend time with them. These positive relationships mean that children have trusted adults who they feel confident to share their worries, concerns and feelings with. This helps children to feel listened to and emotionally supported.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children speak positively about living in the home. They express enjoyment of the different activities on offer, including basketball, going to the gym and participating in educational activities in the community. They enjoy attending school and speak with pride about their achievements. Staff celebrate children's successes, helping to build their confidence and self-esteem.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children's culture and identity are understood, valued and meaningfully reflected in their care. Staff actively support children to explore their heritage and ensure that they have access to the resources they need to meet their individual cultural needs. This helps children to develop a positive sense of identity.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children understand how to raise concerns and make complaints. They have regular opportunities to meet with an independent advocate, who spends meaningful time building positive relationships with them. As a result, the advocate knows the children well and provides an effective source of independent support, ensuring that children's views, wishes and feelings are listened to, understood and acted on where appropriate.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Some parents and professionals say that communication from staff at the home is not always good. While parents and professionals report having regular contact with the children, they do not consistently receive timely communications. As a result, they Inspection report for secure children's home: SC046524 5 sometimes repeatedly request important documents relating to children. One social worker said that there was one occasion when a decision was made about a child without their knowledge. This reduces opportunities for effective partnership working and shared decision-making.

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Children's education and learning: good

Children make good progress in their education. They enjoy studying individualised curriculums in welcoming and vibrant classrooms. They develop their knowledge, gain relevant qualifications and discover new interests. Teachers identify children's interests and successfully blend these themes through tasks and projects in core subjects. In English lessons, children with an interest in gardening enjoy writing instructions about how to pot and maintain plants in the garden area.

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Children's education and learning: good

The headteacher places a significant focus on developing children's reading. Staff assess children's reading ages when they arrive at the home and purchase books matched to children's abilities and interests. Children enjoy reading texts that are accessible and that interest them in a calming library space, and that is helping them to develop their reading skills and reading interests.

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Children's education and learning: good

Education staff plan and teach lessons that engage and motivate children. They chunk tasks so that content is accessible. They provide sufficient opportunities to check children's understanding. They monitor children's engagement and progress carefully and skilfully adapt their teaching so that children can learn well. For example, they incorporate tasks to help children regulate their behaviours during lessons, such as short interactive games or brief periods of exercise in the gym and sports hall.

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Children's education and learning: good

Staff successfully promote equality, tolerance and diversity through the curriculum and the support that they provide to children. There are ample opportunities in the curriculum, including enrichment activities that develop children's understanding of different countries and cultures. Where children share misconceptions or express inappropriate language, education staff are patient in developing children's awareness and understanding.

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Children's education and learning: good

The headteacher has successfully implemented plans to offer a broader vocational offer to meet children's varied interests and aspirations, including sport and nutrition, construction, hairdressing and barbering. They have secured the necessary resources and staff expertise to deliver these additional subjects accurately.

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Children's education and learning: good

The headteacher undertakes appropriate quality assurance activities to understand children's experiences, progress and the quality of teaching. Where these activities indicate staff development needs, they plan professional learning. Leaders rightly recognise that their work on careers education, information advice and guidance is not yet fully realised. The headteacher has ambitious plans to improve careers, education, advice and guidance, including work experience and visits from large local employers. Inspection report for secure children's home: SC046524 6

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Children's health: good

Children's health improves during their time at the home. They receive comprehensive support following admission. Health professionals work alongside education and care staff to understand children's histories, developmental needs, communication abilities and emotional wellbeing. This creates a shared understanding of each child and enables staff to provide personalised support from the outset.

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Children's health: good

Children experience a therapeutic and trauma-informed approach to care. Health staff help colleagues understand how trauma, exploitation, disrupted development and neurodevelopmental needs influence children's behaviour and presentations. As a result, children receive more consistent responses from staff and are supported to develop safer ways of expressing their emotions.

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Children's health: good

Children access a broad range of specialist interventions that reflects their needs. For example, children have been supported through sensory work, play-based approaches, art therapy and substance misuse interventions. Healthcare staff see children following all incidents to check on their health and wellbeing. This work strengthens relationships, helps children manage their emotions and increases children's engagement.

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Children's health: good

Children are supported to communicate in ways that work best for them. Speech and language therapists have introduced communication profiles, visual resources, communication boards and talking mats approaches, helping children to participate in meetings, express their views and influence decisions about their lives.

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Children's health: good

Children preparing to move on are supported through careful planning. Healthcare staff share plans, effective communication approaches and information about successful interventions with future providers. This helps children experience greater continuity and stability as they move to their next home.

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Children's health: good

Daily handovers, regular multi-disciplinary meetings and close partnership working ensure that emerging needs are identified quickly and children receive coordinated care.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: good

Children benefit from consistent, individualised support because staff know how to best support children. Each child has a 'How to Help Me' plan, which is reviewed and updated following incidents or when their needs change. These plans clearly describe how children may present at different stages of emotional distress and how staff should respond. As a result, children experience care that is tailored to their needs.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: good

Physical restraint is used appropriately. Records provide clear evidence of the rationale of the decisions made and the necessity for intervention. Following incidents, children and staff have time for reflection, and then consideration is given by managers as to whether what children tell staff and staff responses could help to improve things further for children. Inspection report for secure children's home: SC046524 7 Safeguarding matters are dealt with appropriately. The local authority designated officer (LADO) now attends the home periodically and provides independent scrutiny of practice through reviewing incidents, including by using CCTV. This is undertaken as part of a multi-disciplinary approach. The LADO told inspectors about the openness of discussions and the focus on learning and reflection to strengthen practice. This process is still in its early stages and requires further time to become embedded.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: good

Restrictive measures, such as single separation (where a child is locked into an area alone due to significant risk) and managed away (where a child is separated from other children but is with staff), are mainly used appropriately, proportionately and only when necessary for the safety of the children and others. Throughout the use of any restrictive measure, staff provide reassurance and support to the children. However, on 2 occasions, the legal criteria for the use of single separation was not met, though the period of separation was very short. This had limited impact on the children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

The absence of a registered manager since December 2025 has had an impact on the effectiveness of leadership and management. Changes in management over this time have reduced the consistency of oversight and monitoring. Information is not always collated, analysed and quality assured effectively, reducing managers' ability to identify emerging themes and promote continuous improvement.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Despite the absence of a registered manager, leaders across care, education and health work collaboratively to ensure that children's safety and progress remain a priority.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Records and documents relating to staff and children are not consistently organised, and managers are not able to promptly locate important information. While this has not had a direct impact on children's care or experiences, the records are important for children to be able to reflect back on their care when they become adults. It also reduces the effectiveness of management oversight and makes planning, monitoring and decision- making more difficult.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

The responsible individual is aware of the strengths of the home. As a result of the inspection, they are more clearly sighted of the areas for development. Planning for the recruitment of a new registered manager has commenced.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Leaders and managers have implemented effective recruitment processes, resulting in increased staffing levels. Staff receive a comprehensive induction to be able to meet the needs of the children. New staff continue to develop alongside experienced colleagues, who provide ongoing support and guidance. Inspection report for secure children's home: SC046524 8

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Statutory requirements

This section sets out the actions that the registered person must take to meet the Care Standards Act 2000, The Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015 and the 'Guide to the Children's Homes Regulations, including the quality standards'. The registered person must comply within the given timescales.

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Requirement Due date

The leadership and management standard is that the registered person enables, inspires and leads a culture in relation to the children's home that—

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Requirement Due date

helps children aspire to fulfil their potential; and

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to—

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Requirement Due date

use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home. (Regulation 13 (1)(a)(b) (2)(h))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the registered person must ensure that effective management monitoring tools are in place to identify shortfalls, such as ensuring that parents and professionals are kept up to date where appropriate, and that all relevant managers and staff have access to children's records when required. 28 August 2026

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Requirement Due date

The registered provider must appoint a person to manage the children's home if—

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Requirement Due date

there is no registered manager in respect of the home; and

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Requirement Due date

is not, or does not intend to be, in day-to-day charge of the home. 28 August 2026 Inspection report for secure children's home: SC046524 9 If the registered provider appoints a person to manage the home, the registered provider must, without delay, give HMCI notice of—

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Requirement Due date

the name of the person so appointed; and

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Requirement Due date

the date on which the appointment takes effect. (Regulation 27 (1)(a)(b)(i)(ii)(iii) (2)(a)(b))

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Recommendation

 The registered person should ensure that children are only placed in single separation when necessary to prevent injury to any person or to prevent serious damage to the property of any person. ('Guide to The Children's Homes Regulations, including the quality standards,' page 50, paragraph 9.65)

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Information about this inspection

Inspectors have looked closely at the experiences and progress of children and young people, using the social care common inspection framework. This inspection was carried out under the Care Standards Act 2000 to assess the effectiveness of the service, how it meets the core functions of the service as set out in legislation, and to consider how well it complies with The Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015 and the 'Guide to the Children's Homes Regulations, including the quality standards'. Inspection report for secure children's home: SC046524 10

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Secure children's home details

Registered provider: Sheffield City Council

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Secure children's home details

Registered provider address: Town Hall, Pinstone St, Sheffield S1 2HH

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Inspectors

Jo Birtwhistle, Social Care Inspector (Lead inspector) Thirza Smith, Social Care Inspector Dave Carrigan, Social Care Inspector Alison Dennis, His Majesty's Inspector, Further Education and Skills Thomas Davis, Children's Services Inspector, Care Quality Commission Shaun Common, His Majesty's Inspector, Quality Assurance Manager Inspection report for secure children's home: SC046524 11 inspects to 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 and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, further education and skills, 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.

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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