School Improvement

Carwarden House Community School is responsive and sensitive to the needs and demands of our students, their parents and the five local authorities from which we accept students. We have done this by focusing on building quality relationships with all of those people and the result is:

• students who report that they are happy, feel safe and achieve well;
• parents who value our efforts, dedication and professionalism and who can approach us with their suggestions (which we value greatly) on how we can improve;
• staff who are highly skilled, well-trained, flexible, caring, creative and dedicated;

School leaders, staff and our Board of Trustees together determine our long-term vision and values and the strategic priorities needed to deliver them. From those we develop a detailed School Improvement Plan that helps us drive and monitor progress towards our goal.

Recent & significant developments in relation to whole school improvement  

• Continuous development programme delivered to build the capacity of leadership across the school, enabling middle leaders to more effectively support the senior team in raising standards.
• Ongoing Teaching Assistant development leading to greater effectiveness of TAs within all lessons. 
• Significant improvements in the communication and consultation with all stakeholders including parents, students and whole staff team.
• Improved reporting to parents implemented (including introduction of Academic Review Days and significant increase in parental attendance).    
• Continual improvement in the work experience curriculum in KS4 and Sixth Form with enhanced employer network and a corresponding increase in the number and frequency of placements. Some employment opportunities developing as a result.
• Regular (weekly) FE college opportunities established for all Key Stage 4 & 5 students. 
• Ongoing development of the successful partnership with Wellington College (weekly sessions with Sixth Form and CPD opportunities for staff team). New partnership with Bradfield College established. 
• Community awarded national School Wellbeing Award – positive mental heath & wellbeing a top priority.
• Additional income generation strategy proving successful. 
• School able to set balanced budgets for the next financial year despite significant funding challenges without any redundancies or reduction in the quality of provision. 
• Strength and effectiveness of governance improved securing enhanced levels of appropriate challenge & support. 
• Increased opportunities for more students to benefit from residential opportunities. 
• Significant refurbishment & improvements continually made to learning environment (internal & external).