St. David's Education Unit

ESTYN No.: 669/6014

St David's Education Unit opened on its present site, near the village of Solva on the Pembrokeshire coast in 2000. It operates as an Independent Special Day School for a maximum of 4 Primary and 12 Secondary School Students with emotional and behavioural difficulties, mild learning difficulties and mild autistic spectrum disorders.

The school provides education primarily for children and young people living in homes run by Marlowe Child & Family Services, West Wales Operation – Marlowe (St David’s).

St David's Education Unit is managed by Head Teacher Mr. Robert James.

It was fully approved as a Special Education Needs school following an ESTYN Inspection in November 2006, and has undergone a further annual re-inspections, all with favourable outcomes. (Reports are available on the Estyn website or from the school on request). Specifically identified teaching and resources are made available for primary (KS2) and secondary (KS3, KS4 and KS5) students.

The school provides a structured environment with high expectations for both personal and social development and academic success. According to the Annual Monitoring Visit by ESTYN in 2010 the school provides:

... good care, support and guidance for students. Teachers, care staff and therapists work closely together to provide targeted support for individuals.

Also:

... students achieve well related to their abilities. Most develop the key skills of literacy, numeracy and ICT well, and apply these skills effectively across a range of subjects.

The National Curriculum is broadly followed to ensure key core skills in literacy, numeracy, science etc. are incorporated, but the curriculum also includes a wide range of practical, vocational and life skills. It is regularly adapted to meet the needs of the young people on roll, using ICT, Physical Education, cookery, Outdoor Education, a School Council, Art, PSE, work training and experience.

With students who are educationally disadvantaged and often alienated from educational experience, targets and goals that allow them to experience genuine success and a sense of achievement are essential, especially in the core subjects and in learning skills. A wide range of resources, small classes and a high teacher student ratio are all provided to achieve this objective. Individual Educational Programmes (IEP's), careful planning and differentiation are seen as a key to positive learning outcomes.

There is regular input from our Assistant Psychologist (Christine May) as well as the active input of experienced teaching staff to ensure IEP's are ‘live teaching aids’. Further, a close and co-operative working relationship with care staff is also an important part of the ethos and functioning of St David's Education Unit.

Regular and detailed monitoring of outcomes and progress is also seen as essential. To meet requirements in Estyn processes, a self-evaluation report graded against the Common Inspection Framework is compiled, and a detailed School Development Plan is produced to identify areas for improvement. In this way the school strives to match current accepted good practice in this specialist field.

The challenged to achieve students’ academic and personal development potential is supported with appropriate targets and boundaries. The routines of attending a school daily and following a curriculum is maintained or reintroduced for students, and policy is in place to admit students in a measured, sympathetic way.

There is a weekly timetable, which is flexible enough to incorporate such areas as Education Outside the Classroom; School uniform is provided and expected to be worn as a way of achieving ‘normalisation’, reducing distraction and potential issues of conflict; Students have Key teachers as a first point of reference for arising issues, as well as a weekly School council to discuss and action items with students, teachers and care staff.

The school is a registered examination centre for a range of national accreditation schemes including the Asdan awards, Entry Level and standard GCSEs, which can be used to meet the needs of individual students according to their abilities and dates they attend school. Work training and experience are offered to students at KS4 and KS5 to balance vocational and academic input.

Post 16 students at KS5 are offered opportunities to improve educational attainment, especially in terms of examination opportunities as well as support to make a successful transition to further education and/or the world of work.

There are also good links with local colleges for students continuing or enhancing their post-16 education. The school also has an Adventure Activity Licence to include outdoor education with qualified staff.

All teachers are appropriately qualified in Primary and Secondary Education with backgrounds in working with young people from a wide range of mainstream, residential, and special education settings. All staff feed into self- appraisal systems with support and supervision.

Referrals at KS2, KS3 and KS4 can be made by contacting Robert James (Head teacher) or Richard Bland (Care Services Manager).

In some circumstances transport to and from school can be facilitated. Support and activities or students during the holidays periods can also be provided in some circumstances.

Further details about the school are available from: