HEART  

HEART (our therapeutic unit) influences the lives of our children on a daily basis. This influence starts with the induction process whereby students and their parents are visited in their homes by two members of our induction team in order to make a firm foundation for home/school liaison and support. This impacts upon students who  know who they are going to meet when they arrive for their first day thus alleviating the fear of the unknown and parents know to whom they are speaking when phone calls are made home. Parents report they find this close relationship useful as they get an accurate record of their child’s day. The impact of this is enabling more trusting relationships between parents and children and positive feedback when previously a phone call from school was often a negative experience.

Each student fills in an Induction Booklet during their first few days and this gives us valuable insight as to how they perceive their strengths and difficulties.  These booklets are used to inform several “contact meetings” made with induction staff over the first few weeks and months. This enables the school to learn what has gone well, not gone well and what staff can do to support each student., thus enabling greater access to learning. These booklets record the strongly positive attitudes of virtually all our students and provide valuable feedback to show how we are helping them. Daily monitoring sheets also provide feedback. Students mostly report how they have made friends (many for the first time) and enjoy the lessons. Many of these students have been out of school for months and, in some cases, years. These students are now accessing school and the National Curriculum on a regular basis. At the placement reviews the parental contributions bear witness to the changes at home as well as in education, “You have given me back my son!” was a typical comment at a recent review.