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We recognise that some children may be affected by circumstances which impinge upon their educational progress. It is the responsibility of our teachers to be sympathetic to the particular needs of each child, whether those needs are to do with their mental health, general or specific learning difficulties, physical and sensory impairments or emotional and behavioural difficulties.
At Aldenham, we take a joined-up thinking approach. We believe that academic and pastoral needs are inseparable. We place a lot of attention on the need for positive mental health, and our pastoral care is especially strong.
We do have a very small Academic Learning Support department who have the ability to offer intermittent support, usually outside of lessons. We aim to make reasonable adjustments to ensure that all our pupils are able to access the curriculum appropriately to flourish. Please note, however, that we are not in a position to provide intensive 1 to 1 support in lessons. It is our expectation that all students are able to engage productively with learning and display a reasonable level of independence from Year 7 onwards. As a mainstream environment, prospective parents need to understand that our teachers have little or no experience of dealing with persistent highly challenging behaviours or learning needs, and we are not able to keep on roll students who demonstrate that their level of need causes disruption to the learning of others.
We support our international students who may have English as an additional language, by helping them to understand English for academic purposes, and with any cultural or subject specific differences they may need to know to enable them to access the curriculum effectively.
We are proud of our inclusive approach and the maturity and acceptance of difference found amongst our pupils.
The Academic Learning Support is currently led by Mr Harding and he can be contacted directly here if you have any questions about the level of provision.
Managing Wellbeing
The STEER Assessment
The challenges of modern life are creating an increasingly difficult world for children to navigate. Building a fundamental toolkit to regulate their own behaviour helps to develop resilience, mental resourcefulness, and adaptability. Students who can STEER effectively are likely to see reduced levels of anxiety and a better ability to manage their own environment through life. The STEER assessment was founded by Dr Simon and Dr Jo Walker to build a new generation of social-emotional applications to prepare young people with the human skills to thrive in life. Combining education and psychology backgrounds they set out to solve three big challenges.
First, how to identify young people with mental health risks early, and before they need specialist support.
Second, how to reliably measure the impact of schools on students social-emotional development.
Third, how to empower young people with skills to steer the road of adolescence for themselves.
At Aldenham School we are using STEER to help us track and support the mental wellbeing of our students with positive results already visible across the year groups. The short assessment provides staff with a snapshot of how the student is coping with the various challenges of young adulthood which allows the right support to be put in place early. We are very pleased that STEER has recognised the success with which this program has been implemented here at Aldenham and we look forward to it continuing to support the outstanding pastoral care we have always offered.
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