Dorin Park School & Specialist SEN College

Overview

Dorin Park School & Specialist SEN College continues to be a good school, providing a supportive environment where pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities feel safe and happy. The school’s motto, ‘Learning together, growing together’, underpins its efforts to help pupils develop confidence, resilience, and independence as they prepare for adulthood.

Strengths

• Staff are described as ‘approachable and caring’, fostering positive relationships and helping pupils behave well.
• The school has ‘high aspirations’ for pupils, using four flexible curriculum pathways and individual education, health and care plans to ensure personalised learning.
• Pupils benefit from a ‘personalised package of therapeutic and sensory support’ that helps them overcome individual barriers to learning.
• There is a strong focus on developing communication skills, with staff using effective strategies like visual aids to help pupils express their emotions and needs.
• Governors ‘support and challenge the school well’, while staff work collaboratively and take pride in their roles.

Areas to improve

• A small number of staff do not implement the phonics programme consistently well, which hinders how quickly some pupils learn to read; the school should ensure staff receive necessary training.
• The school is reviewing the implementation of some recently developed foundation subjects and is taking steps to strengthen monitoring of their delivery.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.