Heart of the Forest Community Special School
Special / other · Coleford · GL16 7EJ
SchoolFacts estimate: Ofsted awarded no overall grade at this inspection
We show the lowest of the four areas Ofsted did judge, listed below. Why some schools have no overall grade →
Inspected 25 February 2025
Read the Ofsted report ↗At a glance
160 pupils · 100% of 160 capacity
- School type
- Community special school
- Age range
- 4–19
- Gender
- Mixed
- Free school meals
- 53.3% of pupils
- English as additional language
- 3.5% of pupils
- SEN support
- 0% of pupils
- EHC plan
- 100% of pupils
- Sixth form
- Yes
- URN
- 134190
Key stage 2 results (2024/2025)
11 pupils at the end of key stage 2 in 2024/2025
No pupils reached the expected standard in reading, writing and maths (0%). Key stage 2 tests measure the age-11 curriculum; most pupils at special schools are assessed under other frameworks, so 97% of special schools publish 0% here.
GCSE results (2024/2025)
13 pupils at the end of key stage 4 in 2024/2025
no pupils entered
no pupils entered
no pupils entered
no pupils entered
Progress 8 is suspended nationally for 2024/25 and 2025/26. These cohorts sat no key stage 2 tests (COVID), so there is no baseline to measure progress from.
Source: DfE performance tables 2024/2025. “Suppressed” means the DfE withholds figures for very small cohorts. National averages are not shown here. The England figures are dominated by mainstream schools, and pupils at a special school are working towards outcomes those measures were not designed to capture, so the comparison would mislead more than it tells you.
Special educational needs
Needs this school records that it caters for, in the order it lists them.
- Visual Impairment
- Other Difficulty/Disability
- Speech, Language and Communication Needs
- Autistic Spectrum Disorder
- Physical Disability
- Moderate Learning Difficulty
- Severe Learning Difficulty
- Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulty
Provision type: Resourced provision.
Attendance (2025/26 autumn term)
Autumn-term absence, DfE pupil absence data. Lower is better.
Staffing
Full-time-equivalent, 2025/26.
Teacher retention (2024/25)
80% of teachers stayed at the school the following year · 20% left the state-funded sector
School Workforce Census, DfE. The ratio counts full-time-equivalent qualified teachers; retention follows teachers in post one November to the next. Open Government Licence v3.0.
Spending per pupil
Total expenditure ÷ pupils, council-maintained school finance return (DfE Schools Financial Benchmarking, latest year). Higher spending is not a measure of quality. It often reflects greater pupil need or a smaller school. Open Government Licence v3.0.
Where pupils go after GCSEs
Destinations measured the year after leaving, latest DfE destination measures release.
Inspection history since 2015
- 25 February 2025: Requires improvement
- 23 May 2023: School remains Good (Concerns) - S5 Next
- 30 January 2018: School remains Good
Ofsted management information. Ungraded and monitoring visits do not award a new grade. How the two inspection systems work.
The area around the school
- Child poverty (IDACI)
- 2/10among the most deprived fifth of England
- Overall deprivation (IMD)
- 2/10among the most deprived fifth of England
English Indices of Deprivation 2025 (MHCLG), decile of the small area the school stands in: 1 is the most deprived tenth of England, 10 the least. IDACI counts only children in low-income families, which is the measure closest to the intake a school is likely to draw on.
| Census 2021 | This area | England |
|---|---|---|
| Adults with a degree or higher | 16.3% | 33.9% |
| Adults with no qualifications | 29.9% | 18.1% |
| In managerial or professional work | 16.9% | 33.2% |
| Households deprived in two or more ways | 33% | 18.1% |
| Residents in very good health | 37.6% | 48.5% |
| Homes owned by the occupier | 44.2% | 62.3% |
| Social housing | 45.4% | 17.1% |
| Privately rented | 10.2% | 20.5% |
| Detached houses | 13.3% | 22.9% |
| Flats | 11.6% | 22.2% |
| Homes with four or more bedrooms | 7.5% | 21.1% |
| Households with no car or van | 28.8% | 23.5% |
Census 2021 (ONS) for statistical area E01022238 (a lower layer super output area), the neighbourhood of roughly 1,229 adults that the school stands in. These figures describe the area, not the pupils. Children travel in from further away, and for selective, faith and some other schools usually much further. Open Government Licence v3.0.
Roads around the school
- Child pedestrian casualties
- 0an urban school averages 2.0
- Collisions at school-run times
- 0an urban school averages 5.8
- All reported collisions
- 9an urban school averages 30.6
- Of those, serious or fatal
- 4an urban school averages 6.1
Every collision reported to the police within 500 m of the school in 2021–2025, from the Department for Transport's road casualty statistics (STATS19). "Child pedestrians" counts casualties aged under 16 on foot; "school-run times" means weekdays 07:30–09:00 and 15:00–16:30 outside August. A high count usually says the school sits on or near a busy road, not that the school is unsafe: counts rise with traffic and with how built-up an area is, which is why the comparison is with other urban schools. Distances are straight-line from the school's recorded position. Open Government Licence v3.0.