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animal husbandry in the on-site, outdoor Countryside Learning Centre
where young people care for animals.
horticulture in the kitchen garden, polytunnel and greenhouse; cultivation
of seeds and plants in the vegetable beds and outdoor workshop;
gardening and groundswork at local off-site work placements.
administration and fulfilment tasks such as filing, delivering post,
shredding, laminating, packaging and printing.
customer services including running the student tuck shop and staff
resources shop on-site or working at a community garden centre off-site.
baking, health and safety, and food hygiene in our on-site, purpose-built
bakery (Bread & Beyond).
On-site and off-site work placements are developed with local and
national companies to support genuine, supported vocational
opportunities for the young people.
4. Communicating progress
How will both you and I know how my child/young person is doing and
how will you help me to support my child's/young person's learning?
Assessment and celebration of achievements
We have high expectations of our young people in all areas of their lives.
Through careful planning, which includes parent's views, we set goals and
targets for each young person's development in many areas of their life including
independence and behaviour management as well as curriculum areas.
Activities are broken into small steps and include a high frequency of reward and
motivation to encourage learning. We celebrate young people's achievements
and progress in a multitude of ways within both education and residential
departments on a daily and weekly basis with praise, achievement boards,
certificates and rewards and shared with parents through regular
communications by phone, in writing and in person.
To ensure that appropriate patterns of development are achieved for each
individual child, a number of assessments are used which support the ongoing
recording of progress and each young person has an annual and six monthly
report which contributes to the review meetings.
Individual Learning Plans focus on the individual objectives in the key areas of
the young person's education. These are reviewed by the class team on a
regular basis and new objectives set. Parents are encouraged to discuss these
targets. Informal assessments are carried out frequently to link to short term
planning and recorded to show progress against objectives; overall
achievements are recorded for reporting and analysis against national targets.
Young people also have the opportunity to work towards and gain nationally
recognised ASDAN accreditation, following an individualised learning pathway.
Assessment, record keeping, acknowledging progress and achievement are an
integral part of teaching and learning for all young people.