Hogarth Primary – From failing school to inspiring community
A passionate leadership team has transformed Brentwood’s once failing Hogarth Primary into a vibrant and inspiring community…
- by Lydia Grove
- Teach Reading & Writing editor and former Teach Primary editor
“We were at rock bottom,” says Hogarth Primary HLTA Penny Geggus. In 2022, the school was a chaotic place. Classroom behaviour was poor and staff turnover high; results were on a downward spiral.
With no central curriculum, new teachers had to plan everything from scratch, and it was years since any of the children had been on a school trip.
Enter Ryan Duff, CEO of Discovery Educational Trust (DET). An experienced head, who had previously led the transformation of another Brentwood school, Larchwood Primary, Duff stepped in as temporary headteacher at Hogarth Primary in late 2022.
About Hogarth Primary
- Name: Hogarth Primary
- Headteacher: Rob Watson
- Location: Brentwood, Essex
- Size: approx 260 pupils pupils
As work went on behind the scenes to add Hogarth Primary to DET’s roster, Duff became a very visible sign that things were about to change at the school.
“People had been brought in before to improve the school, but each time it just got worse,” continues Penny. “Teachers would leave again, and children’s behaviour was out of control due to the inconsistency.
“So when Ryan came in, we assumed it would be the same again. But this time things felt different. Ryan was interested in us, and believable.”
Although he is no longer head, Ryan still plays a key role at Hogarth Primary and is well-known to the children. “Mr Duff helps schools improve a lot,” head girl Suela informs me, when I catch up with her and head boy Sam for a chat during my visit to Hogarth.
“Children’s behaviour was out of control due to the inconsistency”
Both pupils have witnessed the change from an unruly school, which parents were embarrassed to send their children to, towards a calm and positive place of learning.
Speaking to me at length about all the opportunities available to them at Hogarth Primary now, they’re clearly proud of the school and their own contributions to its success.
1 | Being present
Duff believes strongly that all members of an SLT should be accessible to parents and teachers. He put this into action by doing gate duty at both ends of the day throughout his tenure as temporary head.
This practice has been carried on by the new SLT, which was assembled when Hogarth Primary officially joined DET in September 2023.
“We really do know our children well,” deputy head Lauren King says. There’s plenty of evidence of this during my visit, too, with SLT members greeting children warmly by name and catching up on their particular problems and successes.
In addition to the obvious organisational challenges of his new role, first-time head Rob Watson faced a steep learning curve.
However, along with Lauren and assistant head Clare Connor, and supported by the Trust, he has embedded real and positive change across all aspects of school life at Hogarth Primary.
“We really do know our children well”
“Rob’s amazing,” Penny explains. “If there’s an issue, his door is always open. Staff feel valued again – and the children know that if Mr Watson says something, it carries weight.”
Getting the right new staff in place was a key focus of Ryan Duff’s time as temporary head, and a huge undertaking.
“You need the right people in the right place,” he explains. “We weren’t afraid to re-advertise roles during the recruitment period.”
Ultimately, an entirely new office team were recruited, and nine of the school’s 11 classes had a new teacher in place for the autumn term.
2 | Changing the classroom
During their first half term in role together, the SLT prioritised choosing a new curriculum. “We continue to make sure our curriculum is broad, balanced and progressive, and built on prior knowledge,” says Clare.
“We want subject leaders to embed knowledge, and we need to provide them with the skills to do that.”
Taking evidence-based strategies and deciding which ones would work for them, the SLT focused on embedding good practice.
“If you walked into a KS1 class, you’d see the same things happening as in KS2,” continues Clare. “We have the same lesson structure across school.”
Clear boundaries
The children have responded well to being given clear boundaries, which are explained to them clearly and reinforced regularly. “You never hear a raised voice in our school,” observes Lauren.
A partnership with the West Ham Foundation enabled the school to introduce cooking and nutrition to the curriculum, and pupils get weekly singing lessons too.
Classrooms have had a bit of a glow-up as well. Suela described to me how the walls were much more colourful these days: “If I don’t understand something, I can look at the wall display to work it out.”
Whole-class reading
Regular whole-class reading has been introduced, with KS2 classes reading a chapter each day, and there are well-stocked book corners in every classroom.
Pupils are encouraged to read freely at the end of each lesson, and children can bring in books from home as well.
Alongside the creation of a richer curriculum, children are now offered a greater variety of extra-curricular activities.
Each teacher runs one free club – from crochet to maths – and pupils can take part in a wide variety of sports. Every child has the chance to represent the school at county level, if they wish.
Changes have been made to playtimes too, with prefects from the upper years spending time in the KS1 playground helping everyone learn to play together. “The younger kids really love the prefects,” Suela informs me.
“Each teacher runs one free club – from crochet to maths”
Have all these efforts made a measurable difference to performance, though? Well benchmark data showed that Year 1 phonics improved by 19 per cent year on year from 2023 to 2024.
During the same period, Year 6 SATs results showed improvements of 25 per cent and 23 per cent for maths and reading at expected standard, as well as a 12 per cent increase in reading at higher standard. Things really do seem to be taking a turn for the better.
3 | Changing the staffroom
Centralising the curriculum and tackling challenging behaviour school-wide have both fed into the leadership’s drive to keep workload low and morale high among their colleagues.
Other measures introduced include, where possible, laying out key deadlines for the year, so that no-one is asked to get something done ‘by tomorrow’.
Ryan also pushed for two-week half-term holidays, to allow as many staff and pupils as possible to get a real rest.
One of the objections raised to this initially was the issue of childcare. To address this, a holiday camp is held at one of the Trust’s secondaries, St Martin’s School, led by Hogarth Primary.
In addition, all three DET primaries go on Year 6 trips together, allowing each head to just do part of the week.
Centralised resources
Making use of the Trust’s centralised resources and expertise as much as possible has been key to running Hogarth more smoothly. “I don’t want Rob to be bogged down in policy,” says Ryan. “It takes away from the children.”
A lot of policies are centralised across the trust, and Hogarth staff can draw on the financial expertise of both ‘head office’ and other Trust schools. This has included getting some invaluable help from the securing two large funding bids.
Peer-to-peer support has also been important for Hogarth’s SLT. As well as taking part in joint-trust CPD with fellow heads and deputies, they’ve reached out to other Brentwood schools to share advice and best practice, and look at establishing mutually beneficial partnerships.
And at a school level, the most transformative thing of all has perhaps been two simple words. “Rob excels in thanking people for their efforts,” Lauren tells me. “We say thank you all the time. You want to know you’re appreciated.”
“We say thank you all the time. You want to know you’re appreciated”
These efforts are clearly paying off, as not a single staff member left school during the 23/24 academic year, and the current pupils had their first ever year without a change of teacher.
4 | Looking outward
One thing I definitely didn’t expect to talk about during my visit was the local carvery, but it loomed large over the conversation!
The eatery was chosen as the venue for a school council meeting to give pupils a taste of a ‘working lunch’, and seems to have gone down in school legend.
This grown-up event made a real mark on the children who attended, and is a good example of the way the Hogarth team approach to reinstating school trips and events.
Coming from a catchment area that includes the Newham and East Ham estates, money is an issue for many of the parents.
“This grown-up event made a real mark on the children who attended”
So the school look to the local area where possible, making particular use of the nearby woodland and country park.
When they do venture further afield, for instance on a visit to the Houses of Parliament, they eschew coach hire in favour of public transport to keep costs as low as possible.
5 | Taking a different perspective
Towards the end of my visit, I discovered that EAL pupils make up a third of the school population. No-one I spoke to mentioned this as a negative, or even a challenge.
Suela told me proudly about the world map in the dining room, where children can pin photos of themselves to their home countries.
Making new arrivals feel welcome was really important, she and Sam agreed, particularly because they may have been having a hard time.
Lauren and Clare also referred to “celebrating a wealth of diversity that is unique among Brentwood schools.”
With that in mind, the school has looked at different ways to explore different cultures, particularly through the wildly popular dance classes with the new but influential Dancing Dom.
Consistently viewing linguistic and cultural diversity as something that enriched Hogarth, rather than a hurdle they had to overcome, really demonstrated the effect that the narratives we tell about our schools can have on their development.
6 | Building community
While the children could see and embrace immediate changes in school life even from late 2022, their families took a little longer to get on board with the new way of doing things.
Hogarth had a poor reputation in Brentwood, and parents felt excluded from school business. Getting word out that better times were on their way was an important step in persuading everyone to commit to the SLT and DET’s vision.
Part of Ryan and the SLT’s focus on transparency and accountability involved getting parents into school more. This means taking part in school events, joining the resurgent PTA, or simply being free to pop in to the classroom to see how their child was getting on.
“Families took a little longer to get on board with the new way of doing things”
Efforts from all staff towards including parents and communicating with them on every aspect of school life seem to have really paid off.
The PTA held a successful summer fete in 2024 – the first for many years. Turnout at parents’ evenings is now up to 96 per cent.
Improved attendance
Pupil attendance also increased by four per cent from 2022 to 2024. Persistent absence went down by 12 per cent.
Arriving rather early for my visit to Hogarth, and waiting in reception, I spent some time reading through comments from parents that have been left in the visitors’ book.
It was packed with uplifting messages commenting on the improvements the school has made over the past two years. I shall leave the last words of this feature to one of those parents.
“My son started Hogarth this year and has settled in remarkably well into his first English school. It is absolutely wonderful to see my son happily talk about the fun that he has in the various activities for the day (football, swimming, trips and lessons). I am grateful to the kind teachers and staff of the school.”
It takes a village
Throughout my visit to Hogarth, the teaching staff stressed the importance of their non-teaching colleagues in the transformation of the school.
Every staff member is deemed important in supporting pupils and creating an environment in which the children can thrive.
The office staff – all newly appointed in 2023 – play a particularly important role at the centre of the school community.
Like the SLT, they quickly formed a close and efficient team. Their role as first point of contact for parents has been key in bringing the wider community on board with the SLT’s vision for Hogarth.
“Everyone is proud to work here,” Rob tells me. “Even our caretaker dressed up for World Book Day this year – that had never happened before.”
Meet the staff
Lauren King, deputy head and SENDCo
I was excited at the prospect of turning a school around: there’s no better reward than seeing pupils’ performance improve.
It’s a unique experience to have staff that are mostly new. But the whole team has bought in to a shared vision. We just want to continue to make the children happy.
Clare Connor, assistant head and mental health lead
We want pupils to leave Hogarth ready for their next steps. It made me quite sad to see what the school had become. However, now you can see the change in the children.
The main challenge was behaviour, but high-quality teachers and a solid curriculum have helped tackle that.
Penny Geggus, HLTA
I always hoped the school could get back to what it was. As staff we want to come into work now. It feels a bit like a foster child finding a forever home. The kids are so much more ready for learning when they know they’re valued, too.
Ryan Duff, CEO of Discovery Trust
You need to get collective buy-in. For pupils, barriers need to be overcome and consequences need to be enforced – we shouldn’t be unintentionally rewarding challenging behaviour.
The team ethos is to listen and understand, and every child in this school has a voice.
Pupils’ voice
Sam
The school has improved so much for pupils and teachers already. I want to help it reach for the stars. We had big gaps in our learning, but they’ve found a fun way to explain things.
If we’re struggling, we can go to see Miss King in SEND. If someone gets stressed, teachers take them to a spare classroom.
Suela
We have lots of special days now, and Dom teaches us to dance. We do dances for different events, like the Euros, and perform at assembly.
There was an assembly about gender stereotypes too. Three people volunteered – they were confident to do it. It was really good, and the teachers were impressed.
