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Cedar House School is a 38 week co-educational residential and day special school, which caters for young people between 7 and 16 with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties (BSED), communication difficulties and various other special educational needs. The school is situated in the market town of Bentham in the North West of England.

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"As a result of the good teaching and high standards of care, the pupils make good progress in their learning and outstanding progress in their personal and social development."
Ofsted 2008

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Running for World Autism Awareness Day 2012

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Cedar House perform Shakespeare

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Lakeside Run for Cancer Research

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Download our past newsletters:

- Autumn 2010 newsletter
- Spring 2010 newsletter
- Autumn 2009 newsletter
- Spring 2009 newsletter
- Autumn 2008 newsletter

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Outstanding Results from Ofsted

CEDAR HOUSE SCHOOL
After a joint Ofsted inspection, Cedar House School in Cumbria has been recognised as providing an outstanding quality of education and outstanding quality of care for its pupils.
Cedar House School in Kirkby Lonsdale has been praised by Ofsted for the overall quality of its education and the effectiveness of teaching and assessment in meeting the full range of pupils’ needs. The report also rated the “provision for promoting the health and well-being of boarding pupils” as “outstanding.”
Gillian Ridgway, Head Teacher at Cedar House School, said: “I am delighted that Ofsted has recognised the fantastic achievements of the staff and pupils at the school. The ‘Outstanding’ inspection grades are well deserved and reflect the successes of the school. This will now be our third year of being recognised as an outstanding provider by Ofsted and demonstrates our commitment to provide quality care and education, enabling all our pupils to reach their potential as productive citizens.”

PONTVILLE SCHOOL
Pontville School in Ormskirk has been rated ‘Outstanding’ for the overall quality of its education and its residential provision.
Pontville School received the praise following its latest inspection by Ofsted.
The report highlights the school as being “particularly successful in improving pupils’ communication skills, increasing their self-esteem and confidence as well as preparing them for adult life.”
Inspectors also pointed to the “overwhelmingly supportive” questionnaires received from parents, including the following typical comment; “School life for our son before going to Pontville was so emotionally hard and stressful. He is now a much calmer and centred young person due to Pontville’s effect on him. We are absolutely overwhelmed by what a wonderful school it is.”
In 2009, the school achieved a 100% pass rate for GCSE exams, with some pupils gaining seven, which the report says is due to the “outstanding curriculum and outstanding teaching and assessment.”
Iain Sim, Head Teacher at Pontville School, said: “Everyone has worked tremendously hard to ensure we are delivering the very highest quality education for our pupils. Such ‘Outstanding’ results can only be achieved as a result of the dedication and commitment shown by all of my staff.”
Pick up a Penguin

Lakeside School has a brand new pupil in the shape of Polly the Penguin.
The 3ft fibreglass figure was designed by the pupils at Lakeside School as part of ‘Go Penguins’, a public art project to mark Liverpool’s Year of the Environment.
The project saw 140 individually designed penguinsdisplayed throughout Merseyside between November and January this year. Lakeside was one of 93 schools to get involved in the project.
Vicky Size, Head Teacher at Lakeside School, said: “The pupils are absolutely thrilled with Polly the Penguin and enjoyed designing her for the exhibition.
“Polly’s clothes are based on our school uniform. Each pupil designed and painted their own purple square depicting their favourite aspect of Lakeside, so we had a wide range of pictures ranging from football matches to frogs in the lake.
“The finished result was fantastic and Polly was a real credit to the school when she went on display at Liverpool’s Met Quarter shopping centre. We are now really looking forward to getting Polly back to the school so she can take pride of place in our entrance hall.”
PONTVILLE SCHOOL CELEBRATES IT’S CENTENARY

PONTVILLE SCHOOL CELEBRATES IT’S CENTENARY
Pontville School, a special school in West Lancashire, is celebrating one hundred years of educating and caring for young people who have speech, language and social communication difficulties.
The school was opened in 1910 by the Catholic Church to cater for up to 75 young people with special educational needs aged 9 to 19 and has seen many radical changes since then.
Since the school was taken over by the Witherslack Group 9 years ago, it has benefited from a full modernisation programme including specialist areas for literacy, numeracy, science, home economics, physical education, art and craft. A significant investment has also been made in ICT across the site to network all classrooms and install interactive whiteboards to enhance the curriculum and young peoples’ learning.
In the latest Ofsted inspection, Pontville was rated as Outstanding in all areas of education and care.
Iain Sim, Head Teacher at Pontville School, said: “The school has long track record of helping children with significant social communication and language impairment needs associated with autism.  Recent additions to our professional therapeutic team include speech and language therapists, an occupational therapist and additional therapeutic approaches such as meditation and relaxation.  This means Pontville is now a leading school in the UK for young people with these type of special educational needs.
“All subject areas in the school are designed to teach communication skills as a central theme to their content. By having this focus within the curriculum, skills that are difficult to transfer become more naturally acquired as they are practised in all lessons across the day and in the residential setting for those accessing this facility.”
“We will be having an Open Day to celebrate the centenary on the 23rd of July and parents, local authorities and any other people working within SEN are welcome to visit on the day to look at our provision.”
For more information about Pontville School call the school on 01695 578734 to attend the Open Day.
Walking Tall at WCEI

A teenager from The Birches Children’s Home in Southport was walking tall when he raised more than £800 for charity.
 
Bradley, who is 16, walked seven and a half miles from Ormskirk to Southport to raise money for the NSPCC. He was joined on the journey by his family,friends and staff from the home.
 
Bradley trained for his sponsored walk with his Key Worker, Paul Mowatt, by walking from Freshfield to Southport, along Fisherman’s Path.
 
Paul Mowatt said: “Bradley is always doing things for charity so we were not surprised when he told us that he planned to do a sponsored walk. We are all extremely proud of his achievements and look forward to seeing what fundraising activity he comes up with next.”
 
Bradley said: “Many people came to support us along the way which was great and we were able to raise a lot of money for a good cause.”