We celebrate every success, no matter how large or small. This helps our students develop their self-esteem and embrace their individual learning journey. We take the unique needs of every student into account when measuring progress and we love to celebrate student’s success stories, especially during school assemblies.
We believe in rewarding appropriate behaviour, social interaction, independent life skills and qualifications. This means we celebrate every element of school life, from the quality of work produced each week and any formal exam qualifications gained, to learning to cook simple meals or catch the local bus.
Goal Setting and Progress:
- Staff and family members or carers set goals together, during fortnightly home visits
- We require you to attend Individual Education Plan meetings, half-termly
- We chart behaviour, interaction and independent life skills
- Young people are motivated by real life rewards that matter
Learning is continuously assessed against the goals and targets set. This enables staff to identify strengths and weaknesses and to help your child progress in a positive and targeted direction.
Our pupils have the opportunity to undertake formal external examinations or qualifications such as GCSE English, Mathematics and Science, BTECs, ASDANs, Functional Skills in Numeracy and Literacy. Pupils will only be entered into examinations or qualifications as appropriate for the needs and future goals of the pupils. This would always be in discussion with the pupil and their family. Please see the below feedback from a former pupil to see the impact on their life goals.
Please see our most recent Inspection Report
“Each pupil’s curriculum is underpinned by a detailed, high quality individual educational plan. These are developed by the multi-disciplinary staff team together with the pupil, and parents/carers.
The plans provide numerous targets for curriculum subjects and areas of the pupils’ development and contribute significantly to their progress and well-being.”
One of our recent leavers has asked that this statement be posted on the school website, he says ‘..so that people can see the difference Park House School makes..’
“I started at Park House School in 2011 after being excluded from 2 secondary schools and after a period of home tuition. I was always put in the lower sets at both schools and was told that I wouldn’t achieve any GCSEs and qualifications.
When I arrived at Park House School I was quite shy I would only talk to Jan, the Pastoral Lead, because I knew her from her previous job with the NHS. My main difficulty was social and communication difficulties. It took me over a year to address people by their names and hold conversations with staff.
I was very self motivated to succeed and with the help of 1:1 tuition in the core subjects I managed to achieve GCSEs in English, Maths, Biology, Chemistry, History, and Leisure & Tourism. I also attended a local college to do a Horticulture course, and did a self taught ICT course for an OCR National. I also had a cooking teacher who helped me learn the basics cooking skills needed to progress onto the level 2 diploma in Catering that I completed at City College Peterborough in 2014.
When I left PHS I was offered a full time job as a trainer chef at a local hotel. I worked there for a year and a half. I left this job to volunteer in Borneo with Raleigh International. I spent 10 weeks working in rural communities and rainforest.
In May 2016 I returned to PHS to a months work experience. Within this time I took part in different activities, including teaching some of the students cooking, running geography lessons and assisting the non-verbal students. This experience helped me gain more understanding of all aspects of ASD and I enjoyed sharing my own experiences to staff and students. I am now getting ready for my 2nd Raleigh expedition in Tanzania.”
The student has now been in Tanzania for some weeks and is enjoying living with a family in a small village out in the bush! His family were slightly concerned when he left a phone message asking them to call him back as soon as possible. As he can be somewhat accident prone their anxiety rose and rose when they were unable to contact him for 3 days. Eventually they did contact him, fearing the worst, but true to form, he calmly said all he was phoning for was for them to contact the tax office to sort his tax out!!
We are all thrilled with the progress and success our students enjoy when they leave Park House School, and are really pleased that past students and families keep in touch.
Some more kind words
