The Pinetree School (Unity Education Trust)

Context for joining Behaviour Hubs

The Pinetree school is an Alternative Provision Free School, catering for 40 KS3 /4 pupils who have been PEXed from mainstream education or have found mainstream provision too challenging. All our pupils have SEMH needs and most have EHCPs. We are in the market town of Thetford but many of our pupils are taxied in from around the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. The pupils that attend come from a wide range of economically diverse backgrounds and many live in deprivation. Many of our pupils come from low-income families, generational unemployment, social services, and Early Help involvement. 

Our challenge is to ensure we provide equality of opportunity for all pupils by ensuring pupils from low starting points are provided with the best possible support and interventions to enable them to succeed in order that they attend, behave, and learn better.  

Within our cohort: 

• 96% of pupils travel to school by taxi
• Most pupils are of White British heritage – 97% 
• Most pupils are male – 91% 
• All pupils have special educational needs and the proportion who have an EHCP is significantly above national average – 94%  
• The proportion of disadvantaged pupils eligible for the pupil premium is above national average – 75% 
• The proportion of Looked After pupils is currently 3%.

All the staff (many who opened the school) really care about the school and give high quality pastoral care to its pupils. Care and kindness are two traits that we believe are vital for our provision. 

We are currently graded requires improvement from Ofsted within the category of Behaviour and Attitudes and Quality of Education. We recognised the need for our staff to better manage behaviour and develop our curricular offer of teaching and learning as noted by Ofsted. 

Behaviour challenges and goals

• To create a Pinetree School identity and clear admissions procedure 
• To identify our key principles and a ‘common’ language 
• To develop a positive culture of high expectations and aspirations for all our pupils 
• To utilise stakeholder voice to adjust our vision to align with our values and beliefs 
• To create a new behaviour strategy that was fair and consistent – that gave teachers and pupils consistent rewards and consequences 
• To encourage parental and pupil support through consultation 
• To change the pupils’ views of the school 
• To improve the school environment to demonstrate that we care and that they are valued.

Pupils often enter the school because of their inability to regulate their own behaviour and comply with mainstream rules, routines, and expectations. They often have a negative opinion of school and education – the ‘rejected’ become the rejecting.  

Solutions to behaviour challenges

To achieve this, we completed the following actions:  

• Accessed high quality training via the Behaviour Hubs programme and disseminated this to staff. We particularly focussed on the research of Tom Bennett in which he emphasised the importance of ‘teaching behaviour’ and ‘creating a culture.’ This made the bed rock of our updated vision and behaviour strategy
• We conducted a staff survey to find out what they felt about behaviour in school. This gave mixed pictures and highlighted a lack of typicality
• As a senior Leadership team, we conducted a wide range of research, involving visits to other schools. The work of Keyham Lodge and Limes College Academy particularly resonated and the development of staff scripts and redefining principles were formed
• We used these findings to create our new behaviour strategy, which included an attached detailed list of consequences for pupils and how we would manage these across the school
• We redesigned the credit card and reward system, so it was fit for purpose
• We shared and consulted our school council for their insight
• The strategy was then shared with staff during a training day
• The strategy was then launched in school. The Head teacher led a whole school assembly in which the strategy was explained in language appropriate to the pupils’ levels of literacy. Simple and direct. Tutors then regularly taught the expectations 
• Small steps of success were celebrated with staff, pupils, and parents 
• Each week the school focussed on a different element of the Behaviour strategy during CPD to develop understanding, consolidate consistency and expectations 
• We regularly took staff views and surveys on how they felt about managing behaviour 
• Alongside this we regularly captured pupil voice.

Impact on behaviour

The new behaviour policy has had a wide range of positive outcomes: 

• All pupils in school can now name the 4 key principles: Kindness, Respect, Trust, and Honesty
• There is a now a systematic approach for the management of behaviour throughout school. Staff know how to consequence behaviour and not all consequences fall to SLT
• Staff survey indicates that staff claim management of behaviour has improved on a whole school level, because of the new strategy
• The new policy has removed the need for golden time and as a result given staff 1 more hour for curriculum delivery
• Pupils are passionate about the new rewards, particularly the introduction of the kindness award. Pupils will often go out of their way to receive a kindness nomination
• 60% of staff reported at midway point they feel more confident in managing pupil behaviour 
• There has been a 40% reduction in suspensions since the programme started
• 85% of pupil’s attendance has improved.

Next steps on your behaviour journey

Our next steps are to continue using the new strategy until it has become embedded in school practice. This will include a round of adjustments through observations and staff consultations. We intend to continue to get more parental engagement. We believe our behaviour strategy should never be static but should flex to the cohort of pupils within our care. 

We will continue to conduct learning walks and QA on the Behaviour strategy to ensure it is being implemented consistently. We intend to continue to promote the excellent work Pinetree pupils do, and work is ongoing to improve the decor and feel of the building. 

The Pinetree School Improvement Board continue to hold leadership to account by analysing the data and outcomes, specifically in behaviour.