Ensuring the needs of the children coming to our school have been carefully considered and will be met appropriately:   

‘Every learner is important.’ This may very well read as quite a dry statement. It certainly does not reflect the passion and expertise we will afford any young person that comes to our school. However, in its simplest of terms, it neatly sums up our approach to ensure that each learner receives the individual care, guidance and support they need.   

It goes without saying that all learners will be viewed as unique individuals, with their own personalities, backgrounds, strengths, needs and aspirations. We know that learners will come with a primary diagnosis, documented on their EHCP, of SEMH. ASC will also feature on some EHCPs, even if this be documented as a secondary need. That said, we can broadly define the categories of children who will be supported. Very often, there are strong correlations between categories of learners, an example being excluded children and those with behaviour that challenges. The simple categories below provide a high-level overview of the major issues:   

• Vulnerable: these children may have a wide spectrum of need which make them more at risk of harm or abuse within a mainstream school setting.    

• Behaviour: for a significant number of reasons, some learners need specialist support to help them resolve and, where possible, overcome certain behaviour that challenges, so that they can access and participate within their learning, working harmoniously with other learners and staff.    

• Excluded children: There will undoubtedly be learners referred to us who are at risk of exclusion. We will seek to be proactive with all learners who are at risk, whatever the reasons behind. Often, one of the most common groups is learners re whom concerns are being raised in a provision where, ultimately, it is their current setting that presents as the big issue   

• Severely bullied: these learners will be given careful support and guidance while participating in first-class learning, to promote their confidence to engage and, without putting a finer point on it, to feel loved   

• Medical Needs: this group will cover those diagnosed as ‘anxious school refusers’ and others who, due to their medical conditions, are unable to successfully attend their mainstream schools.  This will not include provision for children in hospital. The needs of and provision for these learners will have to be individually tailored and will likely include a significant amount of home tuition. This said, we will gladly explore our capacity to offer an outreach service   

All of these groups will include learners with a wide range of talents and academic ability. Our detailed assessment programme will seek to clearly identify these. Thereafter, through a co-ordinated range of measures including high quality support, inspiring teaching, challenging targets, positive mentoring and support for parents, we can and will help to significantly improve each learner’s outlook, morale and attitude to enable them to access a curriculum and education they deserve so they can look to achieve to their full potential.    

Monitoring of Learners:   

The regular, detailed monitoring of learners over a wide spectrum of ability, need, physical, mental and emotional condition is a critically important element in ensuring that provision for each learner is well-targeted and improving the specific outcomes defined for each. Monitoring of learners is wholly in line with our strong assessment policy, promoting each learner’s progress, success and confidence.   

We will monitor each individual learner, and also specific groups, so that the school’s provision accurately targets every different cohort.  We will make use of the Department for Education’s Analyse School Performance (formerly RAISEonline) website, as well as our own internal analysis strategy to ensure that using all analytical tools, all learners are progressing and achieving significantly above local and national norms. Cohorts from ASP include:  

• Gender   

• Ability range (High, middle, low)   

• Learners eligible for Free School Meals (FSM)   

• Looked After Children (LAC)   

• Learners who have English as an Additional Language    

• Learners from Black & Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds    

• Learners in receipt of EHCPs   

• Learners who are Higher Prior Attainers   

• Other protected characteristics as appropriate   

In addition to these national cohorts, we will monitor groups of learners who are particularly relevant to us and our commissioners. Such groups will include:   

• Excluded or at risk of exclusion   

• Severely bullied   

• Vulnerable   

• Behaviour   

• Medical cases   

A Culture of Success:   

As a result of detailed assessment, which supports inspiring, relevant teaching and, in turn, leads to a greater chance of both learner engagement and attainment, the school will accurately record and report this success to staff and other learners, to parents and to commissioners. By enabling learners to become successful, the school will seek to break any cycle of low esteem and perceived powerlessness. Excellent teaching, sustained learner progress and access to a wide range of sporting, performing, social and artistic activities will strongly promote each learner’s confidence in their ability to positively affect their future. Through our pastoral programme, which involves regular individual meetings with teachers & learning mentors and is strongly underpinned by SEAL, each learner will become a more effective and independent learner.   

A Graduated Response:   

Our school will adopt a graduated response to meeting all needs of learners, making full use of our specialist staff, learning areas and school resources, whilst also working closely with other relevant professionals.  Through our robust initial assessment process, we will be able to signpost the most appropriate intervention to best support each individual learner. Assessment for intervention will be underpinned by the following:  

• Using the information to provide a personalised curriculum, focusing particular attention on actions to support the learner in school   

• Ensuring that observation and assessment provides detailed and regular reports about the learner’s achievements and successes, to inform future planning of their learning   

• Provide a wide and engaging range of opportunities for each learner to show what they know, understand and can participate in all areas of Academy life: social, curricular, sporting and pastoral programmes   

• Involve each learner as far as practicable and sensible, in planning and agreeing strategies to meet their needs and targets to achieve    

• Actively seek the involvement and support of parents in developing a joint learning approach at home and in school   

Early Identification    

As part of our detailed assessment process at The Promise School and with the collaboration of other schools, whatever needs learners have will be identified early. This robust process will commence before learners officially start.  Learning will take place in small groups or as individuals, ensuring that each learner has a curriculum tailored to their needs. Specialist support will be available within the school from specialists such as a speech and language therapist a CAMHS worker and access to educational psychology as required.    

The Promise School Leadership Team will:    

• Support staff in identifying and planning for learners with specific needs   

• Monitor progress across the school for all learners   

• Support teachers in planning for learners with EAL   

• Make arrangements for first language assessments where necessary   

• Train all staff in inclusive strategies   

• Monitor children who may be at risk   

• Co-ordinate specialist support services   

• Co-ordinate multi-disciplinary meetings   

• Organise individual and group intervention using a range of tools and programmes to boost learners’ outcomes   

• Organise meetings for staff with parents and professionals   

We recognise the importance of parents, so at every opportunity will invite them to be fully involved in all aspects of our work with learners.   

Formative assessment, as a continuing process, will be used for further supporting learners. We will measure each learner’s progress by referring to range of methods which include:   

• Evidence from teacher observation and assessment   

• Learner’s performance against level and grade descriptors   

• Learner’s progress against a number of individual targets, specific to each individual, which may be around: attitude, happiness, stability, behaviour and health   

• Specialised screening or assessment tools   

There will be huge value in the detailed collaboration between The Promise School and other schools (inside and outside of the Trust) This will significantly promote high levels of support to ensure smooth and seamless moves for each learner reflecting their needs, health, emotions and progress.     

Individual Learning Plans (ILP)   

These will be important documents which all staff will contribute to and use, developed in discussion with each learner and his/her parents on entry.  Strategies will be employed to enable each learner to progress will be recorded within an ILP.  Information will include:   

• short term (SMART) targets   

• teaching strategies to be used   

• provision to be put in place   

• when the plan is to be reviewed   

• outcomes (to be recorded when ILP is reviewed)   

Learners who are Higher Prior Attainers   

With regards to our learner cohort, we are aware that there will be a proportion who will either be academically very able or have a range of other gifts and talents. It may be that some academically gifted learners are underachieving for several reasons. Our detailed assessment programme will seek to clearly identify these learners.    

Our approach to our learners with higher prior attainment learners will be identical to every other learner: accurate assessment, inspiring and well-paced teaching, ambitious target-setting and regular monitoring. We will aim to produce high levels of learner engagement, excellent progress and continued success. Further in-house Trust collaborative work will be able to lend itself to ensuring lessons which are well-paced and capture the interests of these learners.   

In a similar fashion, those learners who their partner schools or our ‘on entry’ assessment identify as having above average abilities in a range of sporting, performing, linguistic or artistic areas, The Promise School will, again, uphold our ‘culture of success’ and provide a range of activities and opportunities which enable these learners to excel.    

Our staff will be given information on each learner’s particular abilities and what was done in their partner school to support this.  As part of our ‘on entry’ assessment process, we will look for recognised characteristics of gifted learners including tendencies to question readily, persevere with challenging tasks, think divergently, communicate fluently, show creativity, perceive patterns quickly, grasp new ideas rapidly, spot patterns and inconsistencies, make links within and between areas of learning, and perform at an outstanding level.   

All of the successes and achievements of our Learners with higher prior attainment learners will be carefully recorded and coherently reported to parents, other relevant parties and our own school community.   

EAL   

It may well be that the local demographic does not typically feature learners with EAL. However, we will prepare for this event, acknowledging that they have an additional and distinct set of challenges.  The most significant distinction is that they are learning through a language other than their first language.  TRCS will provide targeted support, such as translation software. Learners will have two main challenges for which they will be strongly supported to achieve success: they need to learn in English, and they need to learn the content of the curriculum. The learning context will have an influence on both, as learners could be affected by attitudes towards them, their culture, language, religion, and ethnicity.  Our pedagogy will be to use strategies to meet both the language and the learning needs of EAL learners in a wide range of teaching contexts, helping them to be successful and grow in confidence.   

EAL learners will be integrated within timetabled lessons for the bulk of the day, to promote their social development with bespoke interventions arranged as appropriate.  Those responsible for learner tracking will monitor data to ensure that, as with every subgroup, EAL learners make strong progress towards the individual targets set for them.    

Promoting Success and Achievement   

Through a carefully co-ordinated programme of whole school strategies, we will use our resources, staff expertise and programmes of assessment, target-setting and Quality Assurance to ensure that, to the best of our ability, every learner who attends will actively participate in a programme of learning and extended activity which most effectively supports the strong development of their progress, achievement, success and confidence. Every learner who joins The Promise School will be carefully assessed to ensure that he or she receives a programme of inspired teaching, personal support and where necessary, challenge to help them address and overcome the barriers which led to their referral to the school.   

Inspiring teaching: because of a rigorous selection process, The Promise School will appoint the best teachers. Through the use of professional development, every teacher will make excellent use of data to set lessons which are interesting and well-paced. Through the detailed programme of assessment, every learner will be well-known; because of formative assessment, each one supported to strongly improve, and, through summative assessment, their progress accurately captured and recorded.    

The Promise School will develop an individual programme of learning which supports each learner’s needs, to produce high levels of progress.