From its dedicated teaching staff to the drivers who ferry students to and from school every day, Goldwyn School is an exceptional place.
Based on four sites in Kent, Goldwyn is a secondary special school that provides a high-achieving, creative education for 11 to 18-year-olds with complex social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs. By the time they leave at the end of year 11, 12 or 13, the vast majority successfully progress to mainstream colleges, further training or employment.
The students’ complex SEMH needs are often coupled with diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ADHD, ODD, anxiety and PTSD. Many may have difficulties in accessing classroom-based learning and they all have EHCPs in place.
Goldwyn aims to provide an inclusive education that develops the whole child academically, socially and emotionally, with teachers focused on ensuring that students aim for excellence in their work and are able to achieve the very best they can.
“We recognise the complex SEMH needs and significant challenges that our students face and we have adapted our provision to meet these needs through our pathway model,” explained Goldwyn principal Kerry Greene.
“The continuum of SEMH is very broad, so the offer at each site is specifically defined to the needs of the children on that particular pathway.”
The biggest school site is Goldwyn Ashford, which has 80 students on-roll. On average, they have between 15 and 20 vulnerabilities and there are high levels of ASD among the cohort. The students are all of average or above average cognitive ability, with possible learning delays of up to two years below their chronological age (primarily due to unmet or undiagnosed needs and gaps in their education). Students are taught in groups of seven or eight, each with a teacher and a teaching assistant.
Goldwyn Folkestone has 65 students. In addition to their SEMH needs, many have attachment difficulties and may have struggled to access classroom-based learning.
To help them settle into school, year 7 and 8 pupils are taught in “nurture bases”, classrooms that look, and feel, similar to a primary school environment. Staff also track student vulnerabilities; these may include parental mental health issues, family breakdown, emotional neglect, anxiety and poverty, all of which have been exacerbated following the pandemic.
The third Goldwyn pathway is Goldwyn Plus, which recently expanded its provision and caters for 45 exceptionally complex key stage 4 students whose needs could not be, or have not been, met within other mainstream or specialist provision. Their profile of needs may include a combination of diagnoses, alongside prior school avoidance, multiple fixed-term or permanent exclusions, and unmet SEN needs.
“Their attendance has quite often been zero, and when we pick them up, they may have been out of school for up to two years, which leads to large gaps in learning and further disaffection and anxiety,” said Ms Greene.
Goldwyn Plus takes a very graduated approach, starting with home visits, wraparound support for family and carers, and virtual learning.
“It might be that we are tutoring and making that relationship through a closed bedroom door with the camera off,” said Ms Greene. “Then it might be at the kitchen table with their parent alongside them, then at a library and then into the Goldwyn Plus site. It doesn’t look like a school though; it’s more like a series of offices. The ratio is one adult to three children, but it often starts one-to-one.”
The Goldwyn Plus week is very much tailored to individual student needs. Students attend 10 sessions a week, which may include studying for GCSEs, Level 1 and 2 qualifications or vocational qualifications. This sometimes provides a challenge due to students’ complex mental health needs but with support from dedicated and committed staff they learn to regulate their behaviour and emotions and work on improving social skills.
“I often call SEMH the most disadvantaged group,” said Ms Greene. “We find that what works one term might not work the next and that planning is key. Where students may have multi-layered vulnerabilities, the most careful planning is needed to ensure that we can meet individual needs and that is why we created the four tailored Goldwyn pathways.”
Some students and their families require additional support from agencies like Early Help, CAMHS and youth offending teams. Goldwyn staff support this multi-agency approach by attending meetings and accompanying families to appointments. The school also works with a range of organisations, such as the UK Trauma Council and the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families.
The fourth Goldwyn pathway is the small, bespoke Goldwyn Sixth Form, which is based over two sites in Ashford and Folkestone. The sixth form opened in 2020 and currently provides key stage 5 provision to 24 students. It offers a range of options – from City & Guilds vocational courses to functional skills, careers education and a combined studies course that focuses on personal development and improving independent living skills. Some students attend a mainstream college (with sixth form staff support) but come to Goldwyn’s sixth form for two days a week to access additional programmes.
The curriculum offer at all four Goldwyn sites is based around the Goldwyn Learning Ladder. Goldwyn’s Learning Ladder is inspired by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (which explains that our most basic needs must be fulfilled in order for us to move forwards to – and advance – our higher needs). The school day always starts with Goldwyn Time, a structured half-hour intervention that focuses on students’ social and emotional needs. “It’s like a soft landing,” says Ms Greene. “The students might be playing cards, having a debate in class or doing some mindfulness, but it’s all built around their emotional development and social connection. It provides a smooth transition route from the journey into school to the more formal school day.”
Ms Greene was previously Goldwyn’s vice-principal and has also worked in a senior position within Kent County Council’s SEND team. She took up her new role at the school in September. With a base at Goldwyn Ashford, she visits the three other sites at least once every two weeks. In addition to the principal, Goldwyn also has two vice-principals and each site has its own day-to-day leader.
Ms Greene has made it one of her priorities to articulate Goldwyn’s culture and core values to students, staff and the wider community. This is encapsulated in the acronym REACH, which stands for resilience, empathy, aiming (to achieve our potential), commitment, and heart.
“The school has always had a strong moral purpose but it is really important to keep coming back to our core values,” she said. “We did a lot of work with the students and staff and came up with a visionary statement that we feel illustrates the kind of the journey we are on. This is “aspire, empower, achieve”.
Therefore, we aspire for our students to be the best they can be and provide them with the best opportunities. We empower each other as a community, and then we achieve together.”
Ms Greene points out that teachers at Goldwyn are much more than simply teachers of the curriculum. As well as delivering learning and monitoring students’ engagement and motivation, they will also be layering specific interventions into their lessons, such as emotion coaching, social prescribing and peer-marking time to enhance students’ social skills.
Goldwyn places a high priority on developing and fostering positive relationships with parents and carers. During the pandemic staff visited families at home, often delivering food packages alongside emotional support. To build and cement this close partnership model, key pastoral staff make daily contact with every family, either by phone, text or email.
“We have a really strong connection with families,” said Ms Greene. “In the aftermath of Covid, we are building back face-to-face opportunities like concerts, open evenings and celebration days – which allow families to see how the students are doing and feel a closer part of our school community.”
The school has its own team of drivers, who collect students in the mornings and take them home in the afternoons. The driving team builds up close relationships with the students on their journeys to and from school and relay any concerns they pick up on to the school’s transport manager, who then alerts Ms Greene and the managers on each site.
Though student destination data is impressive (95% to 98% achieve their planned destinations), Ms Greene points out that Goldwyn offers more than that. “Our attendance, engagement and achievement of EHCP and wellbeing outcomes within the programmes are really strong,” she said. “We are really clear and passionate about the difference we make for the whole child. We’re in the business of changing lives.”
Kerry Greene’s tips on building an SEMH culture
- Be brave as a school leader. It is not just a matter of talking the talk and dictating how your school should be, it is shaping it, knowing your students, going into classes and making a connection with them.
- Multi-agency support is crucial. Get out there and make connections with agencies to ensure you have a holistic offer for students.
- Don’t put limits on people. If a child throws a chair in your school they may be excluded. If a staff member throws a chair in the staff room, the reaction of colleagues would be: “Are you OK? Do you need to go home?” In both cases the behaviour is a presentation of something that is going on underneath, so it is important to unpick what is going on.
- Focus on building strong relationships with parents. Pastoral staff at Goldwyn make daily contact with every single family. Plans are also in place to set up a parental voice group that will meet regularly with senior leaders.
Further information & resources
- Goldwyn School: www.goldwyn.kent.sch.uk