Goldwyn School in Kent has achieved Flagship School status.
Targets
The targets agreed at the review meeting in 2018 were, “To develop and introduce new sustainable educational pathway models to meet the of diverse and complex needs of increasing numbers of SEMH children in Kent and in the district, particularly at key points of transition.”
In discussion and agreement with the Senior Leadership Team the school has identified a range of challenging activities for the coming 12 months:
• Work with the LA to devise a sustainable model that can carry out the highly effective practice currently being delivered by Goldwyn’s STLS “LINK”.
• Exploring methods that provide the support for successful transition between KS2-3 and KS4-5.
• Training and development of ISPs (intensive Support Workers), mentors, job coaches.
• As a teaching school, utilise KSENT and District links to offer training programmes to NQT and trainees within Specialist and our most inclusive mainstream schools.
• Explore the development of a KS4-5 transition pathway for more vulnerable students, moving from specialist provision to mainstream colleges.
• Meeting with LA education officers to identify suitable funding streams.
• Explore satellite options within mainstream colleges.
• Identify new accommodation for sixth form expansion.
• Extend tuition/mentoring services to ‘hard to reach’ students. Building on the successful Goldwyn Folkestone Pathways model.
As can be clearly seen from the submitted evidence the school has made considerable progress and has achieved success in all aspects of the set targets.
Local Authority
The Ashford District Plan for Inclusion gives clear evidence of the highly effective links the school has established between themselves, the Local Authority, Parents and other schools within the district.
Developing Understanding of the Inclusion Again
Since gaining Centre of Excellence status I have noticed and been particularly impressed by the school’s persistence to develop further understanding of the inclusion agenda across all stakeholders. The school has taken a lead in developing inclusion meetings (LIFT) and has been at the forefront in providing problem solving approaches and collaborative working opportunities to better meet individual student needs.
Reflecting Best Practice
This approach truly reflects the very best practice of a Centre of Excellence School, the ability to self-evaluate, develop outstanding practice and also share and encourage partner settings, and local authority policy, to make similar interventions and progress.
Sources of Evidence
My discussions in school enabled me to confirm the information presented in the self-evaluation document:
• The cooperative work with the LA is very much on a relationship basis, established by staff at Goldwyn.
• The school has, in response to recognised need within the district, established and is successfully running an ASD Champions’ course. This is run by 5 specialist teachers, multi-professional delivery of INSET and 3 Intensive Support Workers. The outstanding success of this approach has been to equip attending school staff with their own champions and also provide an advisory and helpline service.
• The Goldwyn Pathways approach, developed over the last two years, detailing the provision offered, assessment procedures and opportunities available at Goldwyn has proved extremely valuable to school leaders.
Using Data
Goldwyn focusses on its use of data i.e. not just student performance in the classroom, but in analysing objective information to identify need, educational and emotional together with parent involvement.
Ensuring an Appropriate Curriculum
All staff fully understand and contribute to ensuring the curriculum is appropriate with objectively assessed starting points and adaptations where necessary. Parents feel, and are, involved in all stages of their child’s education journey. They are supported, guided and well informed which in turn has an effective impact for choices and destinations.
The school has developed an effective and highly visual “Goldwyn Learning Ladder” based on the following needs:
• Physiological Needs (food, clothing, comfort, health, parenting support).
• Safety (trusted adults, safe space, routine, reward and risk assessment).
• Social Belonging (friendship, classroom participation, social times).
• Esteem (learning mastery, achievement, respect and positive recognition).
• Self Actualisation (creative fulfilment, achieving goals).
This is a particularly helpful resource and approach to teaching and learning which can be transferred and utilised in any school environment.
“Headteacher Screening”
Goldwyn has been instrumental in establishing an effective model of response for concerns within the district. The “Headteacher Screening” approach enables Secondary Heads to bring cases to a multi-professional forum for discussion, advice and direct input where necessary. The school has pointed out the similarities of this approach to an NHS Triage system which ensures the appropriate pathway/intervention/advice is agreed by the multi-professional team. The principal of Goldwyn has a place on the panel determining decisions about placements for students.
Working with Parents
The school has made considerable progress in sharing information with parents and involving them directly in all aspects of their child’s education. EHCP requests in the Kent Local Authority have increased by approximately 80% over the last 2 years. The school is now working closely with parents using the Cathy Creswell CBT programme to improve outcomes for children.
(*Professor Cathy Creswell completed her clinical psychology training and subsequently her PhD at University College London and has since worked at the University of Reading, where she is an NIHR Research Professor based in the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences. She is also an Honorary Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Joint Director of the University of Reading Anxiety and Depression in Young people (AnDY) clinical research unit. CBT self-help books for parents: ‘overcoming your child’s fears and worries’ and ‘overcoming your child’s shyness and social anxiety).
Approach to Inclusion
The STLS team based at Goldwyn is a central part of the Ashford District’s approach to Inclusion (Ashford inclusion.org) and they are actively pursuing the development of an App in addition to the website currently managed by the school STLS team.
Significant Staff Changes
Further in-school developments have seen significant staff changes over the last year and this has given the Senior Leadership Team the opportunity for recruitment, succession planning and changes in the provision within the school.
Nurture Groups
Two nurture groups are now running successfully, one vocationally based (mechanical, construction etc) and a new cohort of students displaying SEMH issues and more able to access an academic curriculum. The school currently uses a variety of resources to assess and monitor progress, such as Boxhall Profile, Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning/SEAL, Autism/educational trust, Communication Interactive Scale. The new curriculum now includes retail, business, history and humanities in Key Stage 3.
A Holistic Approach to Assessment
The progress made by the school over the last year is impressive, particularly in groundbreaking progress in developing a holistic approach to assessment and appropriate provision Pathways. The joint work between the Local Authority, local school, parents and outside professionals/services is a feature of the work from the Centre of Excellence targets.
Teaching and Learning
The school has been very generous in sharing all aspects of their day to day teaching and learning, together with the approaches and details of how they achieved such success in meeting the targets set as a Centre of Excellence. I am very impressed with the visual learning resources shared with me including pupil progress monitoring and implementation. Evidence shared (information from 2015-19) with me demonstrates the improvement in lesson quality, student attainment, attendance and the significant reduction in all forms of exclusion (zero permanent).
I am of the opinion that the school has demonstrated their success in all aspects of the targets agreed last year and I can also confirm the from my discussions with key senior leaders and scrutiny of the evidence provided, their evaluation information is accurate.
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