On Track Barnstaple - Learning Through Trust and Respect
This is a good school – OFSTED 2022
Leaders ensure that the school caters for pupils’ special educational needs well. They ensure that staff meet pupils’ needs, as identified in their education, health and care (EHC) plan.
Staff know pupils and their backgrounds well. They care about each pupil as an individual. Most parents and carers appreciate this. As one parent said, ‘Since my child started at On Track, it has transformed their life. They feel safe and want to go to school.’
Safeguarding
The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. Leaders prioritise the safeguarding of pupils. All staff have safeguarding training. Staff know how to recognise the signs of abuse. They know how to report any concerns about a pupil’s welfare. Leaders take appropriate actions to ensure that pupils are safe. They work closely with external agencies to provide support to families – OFSTED 2022
Keeping our students safe is the most important part of our job. We have a highly-trained staff team who understand the safeguarding risks that our young people face. We are aware that some young people make choices that put them at risk, and we work proactively with our students, their families and other agencies to help them avoid putting themselves into unsafe situations. Details of the safeguarding team can be found in the Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy below.
Academic Learning
We have been open since September 2015 and we now occupy three sites in Barnstaple. We provide a bespoke curriculum and a personalised education experience for each of our students, designed in collaboration with the young people, their families and other agencies. We believe in treating our students with trust and respect to support them to understand the cause and effect of inappropriate behaviour and safety choices so that they can learn to focus on academic learning. Our students have the same right and entitlement to opportunities for academic success as all other young people. We believe that academic qualifications are a crucial part of moving on to the next phase of their lives.
Our Approach to Teaching
We know that students will not achieve to their potential if they do not feel safe and understood in a school environment. We aim to support every student to believe they can succeed in learning, whatever their previous experiences in education. It is important that all of us, staff and students, accept that getting things wrong presents an opportunity to improve what we do. The 1:1 teaching our students receive, along with the planning that is bespoke for each individual, allows us to address the exact learning needs of each student and to deliver lessons in a style that suits them.
Emotional Development
Every one of our students has a bespoke, individually-planned programme designed to support their emotional development which is delivered in timetabled time and Thrive Days with their Key Worker. We use the latest research to help our young people to understand why they may react in a certain way and to support them in finding the most socially appropriate possible way of expressing their emotions and anxieties. In order to move on to further successes in the next phase of life we believe that emotional development is central for the young people we are lucky enough to work with.
Our Staff
We are proud of the high quality of the staff team. Without the hard work and dedication they show every day, we could not support our students to achieve. Our team is made up of people from a variety of backgrounds; our qualified Teachers have worked in a range of settings before joining us and the Support Team includes people with backgrounds in special education, residential care, outdoor pursuits, water-based activities, gym instruction, equine care and sports coaching to name but a few. We try to use the strengths and specialisms of every colleague to develop the provision we can put in place for the students.
Key Features
- Very small group teaching
- Personalised behaviour and relational support plans for each individual student
- Outreach intervention and tuition services provided for other schools
- Partnership working with FE provider to ensure equality of access to appropriate courses in a mainstream environment
- Key staff teams with a holistic view of each student
- Work Experience provision in KS4 and KS5 provision where appropriate
- Personalised intervention opportunities to include wellbeing sessions with our Educational
- Psychologist, some animal therapy intervention, Farm work placements, targeted PSHE and Thrive sessions.
- Focus on pathways into work
- We are a Trauma Informed and Trauma Sensitive school
- We are proud to be part of Operation Encompass
