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Sally Allen Inclusion Co-ordinator Part of my role is to coordinate the programmes running at The Base I also provide support to our students through 1:1 mentoring and group work. Child A had a lot of barriers to learning which significantly affected their ability to be successful at school. Child A’s home life was transient and chaotic, and there was limited support from Child A’s parent/carer. There was Police and Social Services involvement with the family as Child A would often run away from home. Child A’s attendance to school was poor (54%), meaning that Child A missed huge chunks of her learning and found it difficult to access the work when she did come into school. Child A also displayed challenging behaviour and lacked in social skills. All of theses barriers to learning meant that Child A was at high risk of permanent exclusion and needed lots of support. I was Child A’s mentor and had weekly sessions with her in which we covered appropriate behaviour, anger management, making good choices, attendance, social skills, positive relationships and issues at home. Child A was on a Success Card with three personalised targets which she would show to me at the end of each day. Good cards meant personalised rewards! Child A was also put into a smoking cessation group for one term to explore addiction and the effects of smoking. Child A had 8 sessions a week of extra literacy and numeracy at The BASE to help her ‘catch up’ with work she’d missed due to her poor attendance. This was really beneficial for Child A who was then able to access the work in lessons reducing the amount of challenging behaviour in class. Child A started attending Breakfast Club which meant she was able to start the day off in a positive way and this also stopped lateness to morning lessons. I regularly liaised with Child A’s social worker and parent/carer to maintain good relationships and keep them informed with Child A’s progress. I invited Child A’s parent/carer to an informal coffee morning at The BASE and as a result they eventually signed up for a Positive Parenting Programme. Child A’s attendance went up to 92% and her behaviour improved significantly both in and out of school. She was able to use the social skills she had learnt to form some solid friendships and her confidence grew and grew. Ultimately, Child A knew that she was cared about at school and felt safe. Without the support of the Inclusion Team I believe that Child A wouldn’t have been able to succeed at school to the degree that they did. It gives me great job satisfaction knowing that I am part of a team that helps to remove the barriers to learning for many young people and consequently this allows them to reach their full potential. Often it’s the little things that make a big difference, and sometimes you have to think outside the box and go that extra mile for our students. 8
What is Counselling A Young person’s guide. Clare Welch “What can a counsellor offer me” A counsellor can offer you the time and space that you need in order to talk about your problems. They won’t talk at you or tell you what they think you should do. They give you the time that you need to talk about issues that are affecting you so that you can reflect and decide for yourself what is the best solution. Counsellors can help you explore the options that are available for you. They won’t try to change your behaviour or thoughts only you can do that. “Will everything be private and confidential” The counsellor that you see will go through an agreement with you on your first meeting. This may sound scary but the counsellor will answer any questions that you may have regarding this. Basically, the agreement will state that everything that you say to your counsellor will be completely private, unless you say something which indicates that you or someone else is in danger of harm. In this case, your counsellor would have to pass this information on to Mrs Elton, but they would always talk you about this first. This helps to keep you and the counsellor safe. “Will my parents/carers have to know that I’m coming to counselling, and will they know what we talk about” In most cases it would be nice if you could tell your parents/carers that you are seeing a school counsellor, but we understand that sometimes it isn’t easy to do this. The only reason your parents/carers may be told about something you said in counselling would be if you or someone else were in danger of harm. But your counsellor would always talk to you about this first, before they passed on any information. “Will my teachers need to know that I’m coming to counselling” The counselling will take place during school hours so you will need to be excused from your lessons. Miss Allen or Mrs Elton will tell your teacher that you have a weekly appointment at The BASE so you will need to be excused from those lessons. Your teacher will not be told that you are coming to The BASE for counselling. “If I don’t like counselling what do I do” If you decide that you no longer want to see your counsellor for what ever reason no one is going to question you or force you to go. All you need to do is tell Miss Allen, Mrs Elton or your counsellor. We might ask you to go one last time just to finish off your counselling properly, but that is up to you. If you changed your mind and decided you wanted counselling again at any point, all you would have to do is tell Miss Allen or Mrs Elton and they would put you back on the waiting list for counselling. “How long will I need to be there for” You will have one session of counselling a week. Each counselling session will last for 50 minutes (one period), and you will usually have your counselling at the same time every week. You can have counselling for as long as you feel you need it. Some people have counselling for just a couple of sessions, and some people have counselling for months and months! There is no ‘right’ amount of time to have counselling for, because everybody is different. You may have more questions that you want answering as this is only a brief introduction to what we can offer you. If you want to ask any questions before starting counselling you can come to The BASE and ask for Miss Allen or Mrs Elton. We will try our best to answer any questions you may have! ………………………………………………………....... Some things students that have said about counselling at The BASE… “I would recommend counselling to other people because it helped me a lot” “I could talk easily with my counsellor and felt she listened to what I said” “I was never judged” “My counsellor helped me to understand things” “She (a counsellor) gave me different ways of viewing the situation, helping me to understand more and feel better” 9
Page 1 and 2: Inclusion at Whitley Academy www.wh
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Page 5 and 6: Learning Support Caseworkers Kane H
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Page 17 and 18: The Base Resource List These are so

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