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FOR PARENTS

advice
and
guidance

We strive for excellent relationships with our families and we are in close contact with parents at all times. Weekly, and often more, telephone calls to parents or carers are made to keep you informed of your child's progress and parents can ring school with any questions or information whenever they need to.

Elmbrook School is there to help children to find a way back into long-term education. The PRU also helps schools to support children when they return. All the children who come to Elmbrook School have experienced problems caused by their behaviour at school. These problems have probably affected their learning and their ability to get the most out of school, and have often caused difficulties with other children. In many cases, schools have used up all the options and may be considering permanent exclusion as a last resort. Some of our pupils have already been permanently excluded from a school when they arrive.

Elmbrook School offers children a chance to change. We don’t believe that any child really chooses to be constantly in trouble at school, and take this as a starting-point. While we don’t tolerate any kind of violence or bullying, we understand that that many children deal with problems by ‘acting out’. A child may find it better to disturb lessons by constant low-level disruption than to show himself up by not being able to do the work in lessons, for example. Of course, schools are aware of this too and often put a great deal of effort and ingenuity into supporting children with behaviour problems. However, they don’t have the time or scope to work as flexibly or intensively as Elmbrook School can.

We start by asking schools to describe what the main problems are, and what needs to change to make things better. Then we use the information to set targets for improvement, which we share and discuss with the child from the beginning of the placement. We use these targets right throughout the placement, and try out different methods to help to achieve them. The targets are especially important at the meetings we hold to review the situation and to decide whether the child is ready to go back into school.

There is no magic formula, but we observe each pupil in lessons and during non-teaching times, trying to see things from his or her point of view. We are trying to understand why certain behaviour happens, the times when it is likely to happen and what can be done to make things better. We share our ideas with pupils, parents and school, and try to make them a key part of what we do.

Click on the quick access links below to get key documents, policies and essential information. If you cannot find what you are looking for - just ask!

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