Forest Moor School is entering an exciting new phase of its development with over 40 pupils from across the county on roll in September and a track record in improving children and young people’s behaviour and supporting their mental health.
Forest Moor School now plays a pivotal role in supporting a number of younger children with social, emotional and mental health difficulties and by complementing other specialist provision in mainstream schools and pupil referral units.
The school will begin the new academic year in September with an increasing roll and a reputation for nurturing, therapeutic provision and strong leadership in improving pupil behaviour. During this summer term the school embarked on a wide-ranging outdoor education programme.
Ofsted, which inspected the school during the summer months, rated leadership, personal development, behaviour and welfare as good and praised the school’s leaders for clear vision for the fast rate of progress and for giving pupils a sense of self-worth.
The school has improved rapidly in the last few years under its new leadership, since moving out of special measures in June, 2015. Although the school has previously faced challenging times, North Yorkshire County Council believes it has an important role to play in a new and more coherent local authority behaviour strategy. The school has more than tripled its roll in the last two years.
Marc Peart, Forest Moor’s headteacher, said: “We have focused on supporting children’s mental health and have given them access to learning in the broadest sense, which has improved their resilience and taught them how to regulate their own behaviour.
“This summer we took every child in the school camping in the Lake District, and outdoor education is at the heart of what we do; we are developing specialist provision in the county for Thrive, which combines therapeutic support with personal and social development. We are very optimistic about the future and what we can achieve for children who face great challenges.
“In the year ahead we will continue to build on this nurturing provision but we will also continue to develop our teaching and learning to improve academic development, preparing children so they can access every opportunity in their lives ahead.”
Forest Moor has created three new primary classrooms to create a colourful and stimulating environment for younger children with a range of new play equipment in the school grounds. In the coming year, the school will focus also on teaching and learning in core skills, literacy and numeracy.
“Forest Moor goes from strength to strength,” said County Councillor Patrick Mulligan, North Yorkshire’s Executive Member for Schools. “We are delighted with its achievements over the past year and we can look forward to an exciting future for the school in the years ahead and the specialist provision it can offer to some of the most vulnerable children we care for in the county.”