Our School

Careers Lead

Cath Fordham - 07716 081216

On Track Barnstaple - Learning Through Trust and Respect

This is a good school – OFSTED 2022

Leaders ensure that the school caters for pupils’ special educational needs well. They ensure that staff meet pupils’ needs, as identified in their education, health and care (EHC) plan.

Staff know pupils and their backgrounds well. They care about each pupil as an individual. Most parents and carers appreciate this. As one parent said, ‘Since my child started at On Track, it has transformed their life. They feel safe and want to go to school.’

Academic Learning

We have been open since September 2015 and we now occupy three sites in Barnstaple. We provide a bespoke curriculum and a personalised education experience for each of our students, designed in collaboration with the young people, their families and other agencies. We believe in treating our students with trust and respect to support them to understand the cause and effect of inappropriate behaviour and safety choices so that they can learn to focus on academic learning. Our students have the same right and entitlement to opportunities for academic success as all other young people. We believe that academic qualifications are a crucial part of moving on to the next phase of their lives.

Our Approach to Teaching

We know that students will not achieve to their potential if they do not feel safe and understood in a school environment. We aim to support every student to believe they can succeed in learning, whatever their previous experiences in education. It is important that all of us, staff and students, accept that getting things wrong presents an opportunity to improve what we do. The 1:1 teaching our students receive, along with the planning that is bespoke for each individual, allows us to address the exact learning needs of each student and to deliver lessons in a style that suits them.

Emotional Development

Every one of our students has a bespoke, individually-planned programme designed to support their emotional development which is delivered in timetabled time and Thrive Days with their Key Worker. We use the latest research to help our young people to understand why they may react in a certain way and to support them in finding the most socially appropriate possible way of expressing their emotions and anxieties. In order to move on to further successes in the next phase of life we believe that emotional development is central for the young people we are lucky enough to work with.

Key Features

• 1:1 and very small group teaching
• Personalised behaviour and relational support plans for each individual student
• Outreach intervention and tuition services provided for other schools
• Partnership working with FE provider to ensure equality of access to appropriate courses in a mainstream environment
• Key staff teams with a holistic view of each student
• Work Experience provision in KS4 and KS5 provision where appropriate
• Personalised intervention opportunities to include wellbeing sessions with our Educational
• Psychologist, some animal therapy intervention, Farm work placements, targeted PSHE and Thrive sessions.
• Focus on pathways into work
• We are a Trauma Informed and Trauma Sensitive school
• We are proud to be part of Operation Encompass

Term Dates