Pupil progress

Success of our children and young people

Achievement at our school is strong for all children and young people. We prioritise the fundamental building blocks for learning that support all children and young people to be aspirational. Our concept based curriculum is taught in an age and stage appropriate way. This makes the curriculum accessible for all and supports them to develop the skills needed for life beyond school. 

Our young people experience a true sense of belonging which means  that we meet a diverse range of needs primarily in the areas of Cognition & Learning and Communication & Interaction.  This is reflected in our curriculum offer for children and young people learning at pre subject specific, subject specific and accredited learning levels. Cleveland House supports children and young people with Communication & Interaction needs who access a hybrid model of education with our mainstream partners, accessing GCSEs, A Levels and college courses. 

Pupil progress

97% of children and young people have made progress. Our work in phonics has been exemplary and has supported readiness for access to the wider curriculum. Pupil Premium children and young people achieve in line with or better than their peers. Progress for Looked After Children is strong.   All of our children and young people are working outside of national expected standards due to their cognition and learning needs. 

The school offers a range of accredited (exam-based) learning. Across the wider school there were 270 accreditations awarded including Entry Levels, Duke of Edinburgh and Arts Award. Young people at Cleveland House gained GCSEs or Functional Skills at or above the expected levels.

Destinations

34 young people left the school this year. Half of the young people went to specialist colleges, a quarter went to their local colleges, 4 young people went to other specialist schools or alternative provisions and 2 young people had personalised packages put in place.

Success of our pupils

As an area special school for pupils with primary needs in the area of cognition and learning, we recognise that pupils will be working outside of the expected standards across the curriculum. Learning is measured linked to the stage that pupils are at, their starting points and the individual progress that they make.

For a small number of pupils who access Cleveland House (secondary phase provision) their primary area of need is communication and interaction. These pupils are working in line with age related expectations and will access 50% or more of their learning within secondary school provision.

This means that for some pupils at the school learning to communicate a choice using their preferred method of communication is great progress, whilst for others gaining GCSE or A Level results is an equivalent success. As a school community we value and celebrate all of these achievements.

For pupils with cognition and learning needs targets are set by benchmarking their achievements with pupils who have similar starting points.

Our broad curriculum offer at Dorothy Goodman School supports all pupils to make strong progress.

When assessing learning pupils are working within ‘Curriculum Exposure’ where they will be developing the building blocks for all future learning or ‘Curriculum Knowledge’ where they will be on the journey to learning key curriculum content and skills at an appropriate level.

When organising access to the curriculum and analysing their progress we group our pupils into four bands. The bands cover all our age groups:

  • Life choices are pupils currently working at pre subject specific standards
  • Like skills are pupils who are currently achieving equivalent standards to those expected at Pre Key Stage 1
  • Vocational pupils are currently achieving equivalent standards to those expected at Key Stage 1 and above
  • Academic pupils are working just below expected standards at Key Stage 2 and above.

The subject areas assessed within our school system are broken down as follows:

  • Life choices (only followed by our Choices band)
  • Communication (including literacy and English)
  • Logic (including numeracy and maths)
  • Inquiry (including science and humanities)
  • Creativity (including art, music, drama)
  • Physical
  • Personal and Social Development.

Assessing pupils (excluding Cleveland House)

We use the Trunks of Learning to identify the level of mastery that a pupil is developing. There are six trunks:

Pre subject specific learning:

  • Explore
  • Foundation
  • Core

Subject specific learning:

  • Application
  • Enrichment
  • Accomplished

All pupils within this framework are working below the expected standards for Key Stage 2.

Pupils are assessed using the Engagement Model for those working within Explore and Foundation moving to subject specific assessments for Core, Application, Enrichment and Accomplished which are about developing their skills within milestones in English, Maths, PSHE and Inquiry (Science).

Our ‘Routes’ map the learning sequence that pupils are completing over time and reflect subject specific learning as appropriate to the individual pupil.

95.3% of pupils made positive progress towards achieving and exceeding their targets in learning. This strong progress was reflected in the outcomes for those who were eligible for Pupil Premium where 95% of pupils achieved a positive outcome with a greater proportion of pupils exceeding levels of progress. The school has 18 looked after pupils who all made progress towards achieving or exceeding their targets.

Destinations

There were 23 pupils from Dorothy Goodman School (excluding Cleveland House) who moved on from the school this year. 19 pupils have gone on to study at five different colleges. The range of courses accessed include Engineering, Foundation Learning and Animal Care / Land Based Studies. 2 pupils have gone on to access provision through social care providers. 1 pupil is currently seeking employment and 1 pupil has not yet been allocated provision.

Dorothy Goodman School – Cleveland House Satellite had 3 leavers who progressed to university level study.

Link to DfE

Breakdown by Key Stage

Please click on the Key Stage below for the breakdown of pupil progress

Primary Phase

Progress for pupils within the primary phase of the school was strong with 92.5% of pupils making progress towards their identified outcomes. There were 14 pupils where learning was focused on transitioning between an engagement focused curriculum to a semi formal curriculum. As a result of this work pupils demonstrated increased breadth to their learning in readiness to apply their communication and PSED skills within different contexts. 50% of pupils made strong progress with 24% of pupils exceeding expectations where their communication and PSED skills supported them to make accelerated progress across the curriculum.

There were no pupils on roll who were able to engage with the end of key stage statutory assessments.

Secondary Phase

95% of pupils within the secondary phase made progress towards their expected outcomes with just under 60% of pupils making strong progress and 30% of pupils exceeding their expected outcomes. There were 3 pupils within the secondary phase where limited attendance at school impacted their outcomes, multiagency working is in place for all of these pupils. Another 3 pupils experienced regression linked to health / medical needs which impacted on progress towards their outcomes but for all of these pupils their breadth of experiences was increased across the academic year.

A number of pupils engaged in accredited learning at Entry Level as part of their programme of study and outcomes were exceptionally positive.

Accreditation

Dorothy Goodman School offers a range of accreditation; some of this is delivered with support from The Hinckley School who host both a cognition and learning and communication and interaction satellite on their site. We are aspirational for all pupils and provide opportunities for them to develop their resilience to the expectations of external accreditation. The results for last academic year are below:

Dorothy Goodman School – main school and Hinckley School Cognition & Learning provision

  • 31 pupils achieved Maths accreditation Entry Level 1 to Functional Skills Level 2 and GCSE
  • 24 pupils achieved English accreditation Entry Level 1 to Functional Skills Level 2 and GCSE
  • 2 pupils achieved Science GCSE
  • 1 pupil achieved History GCSE
  • 32 pupils achieved Art Award at Discover level
  • 21 pupils are awaiting their results for BTEC Award in Work Skills Entry Level 1 to Level 2
  • 11 pupils achieved the Sports Leadership Award Level 1 and Level 2
  • 19 pupils are awaiting Duke of Edinburgh Bronze and Silver Award
  • 34 pupils are awaiting OCR Life and Living Skills unit accreditation Entry Level 1 to Entry Level 3

Dorothy Goodman School – Hinckley School Communication and Interaction provision – Cleveland House

  • 3 pupils sat 8 A Level qualifications – all pupils achieved or exceeded their targets – these pupils have moved to higher level study
  • 3 pupils sat 17 GCSEs with all pupils sitting the core English, Maths and Science (double award) – 1 pupil has progressed to A Level study, 1 pupil is accessing level 1 college with school support and 1 pupil is currently deciding what they would like their next steps to be
  • 12 GCSEs were achieved at a standard pass or higher
  • 5 GCSES were achieved at below a standard pass (in line with the pupils trajectory)
  • 1 pupil achieved in line with target grades, 2 pupils achieved below their target grade (the resilience of these pupils was significantly impacted by Covid 19

Unfortunately due to Covid 19 our work based internships did not run over the last academic year.