Tudor Grange Academy Redditch has achieved the Inclusive School Award with Flagship status.
Highly Supportive of the Needs of Students with ASD
Tudor Grange Academy Redditch is a smaller than average secondary school for students from Year 9 to 13. located in a socially deprived area of Redditch. The school currently has over 70% of its students in receipt of PP Funding. The school is a member of the Tudor Grange Academy Trust. Numbers in the school continue to rise with the school population growing in the last 12 months from 360 to the current 410.
The school’s Autism Unit, Treetops, has expanded this year to a 45-place unit for Year 7 to 11, and currently has 26 students on roll with a further seven students in the process of transitioning into the unit. These seven students are expected to be attending Treetops full time by the end of October. A further four students will begin to transition into the unit from November. Treetops plans to transition the final seven students into the base in January with Treetops expected to have 45 full time students by Easter 2024. The Treetops and Hive provision in the school is massively oversubscribed. Leaders are continuing to press the LA to extend the Treetops provision to post 16 students. Local councillors were invited to the opening of the new Treetops facilities and are now lobbying the LA on the school’s behalf.
The school is highly supportive of the needs of students with ASD and has a small Mainstream Autism Base, The Hive, in addition to their Treetops provision. In addition to the students supported in The Hive and Treetops the school has an additional 40+ students who have an ASD diagnosis that are supported wholly in mainstream.
The Tudor Grange Trust has grown to 13 schools during the last academic year with each school within the Trust being placed into one of the four Tudor Grange hubs based on their location and all hubs work closely together.
Autism Provision is Particultaly Strong
Autism provision at the school is particularly strong and the school employs a number of staff who are highly experienced in working with pupils with an Autism diagnosis. The Treetops facility, which opened at Tudor Grange Academy Redditch in January 2020, was originally funded wholly by the Trust but funding for the unit as a 45 place 11-16 school within Tudor Grange is now provided through the LA.
With the growth in size of Treetops the Inclusion Lead/SENDCo has become Head of Treetops alongside her other roles. Building work for the extension to Treetops was completed during Spring 2023 and Treetops now has a number of additional spaces including; a ‘domestic room’ where students are able to learn life skills that they will need for independent living as an adult, additional classrooms, in addition to the common room which students can use to prepare themselves for learning, to relax, socialise, prepare food and drinks and to eat their lunch, Treetops also includes a low sensory chill out room, fitted with adjustable coloured lighting, beanbags, soft blanket and stress toys and a meeting room where professionals and families can come together to discuss matters pertaining to the development, progress and wellbeing of the students.
The school continues to bid for post 16 provision within Treetops to enable pupils from Treetops and The Hive to have a smooth transition and consistency within their post 16 provision. The school currently has made adjustments to enable one Treetops student from Year 11 to continue post 16 study with them. This student studies three A Levels, working in the mainstream A Level classes with class sizes of around six students. The student has the option of completing any self-study time in the Treetops base.
The Hive continues to be funded by the LA for 10 students, with the school making the space available for several more students who need the support of the base at key times during the day, including PE, lunchtimes, and unstructured times of the day. Students in The Hive continue to be well supported by a team of staff, spending 20% of their day within the base focussing on an ASDAN life skills curriculum.
Support for additional students across the school with an ASD diagnosis continues to be highly effective across mainstream, predominantly because of the whole staff training on ASD and the depth of understanding amongst the whole team of ASD. Effective communication systems in school which include student profiles, Handle with Care emails, use of walkie talkies and regular informal sharing of information is supported by all staff knowing every student. This enables staff to know students’ individual needs, the reasonable adjustments in place and to build a rapport with students who they identify as struggling.
Sixth Form Continues to Grow
The school sixth form continues to grow in popularity and now has 56 students on role. Leaders are currently bidding for funding for a Mental Health suite for the 6th form which will provide them with a Mental Health counsellor/mentor, funded by a charity, with the school responsible for providing suitable accommodation. The school has reached the third and final round of the process and are hopeful their bid will be successful and will provide both 1:1 and group Mental Health sessions for post 16 students.
Emotionally Available Adults (EAAs) are identified across school for all students who request support with anxiety, with staff volunteering to become an EAA. All EAAs receive weekly training to support them and are allocated between one and four students who touch base with their student at agreed times during the week. Many EAAs also allow their students to contact them via TEAMS to request additional meetings and support as needed.
Leadership has seen some minor changes over the last year. The Inclusion Lead has become an Associate Principal, taking on Head of Treetops responsibility alongside her SEND role. She is now supported by an Admin Support staff member who will become full time, taking on some Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) duties later this year.
A new Deputy Headteacher will join the school after half term, from Tudor Grange Kingshurst, strengthening leadership of Treetops further with a focus on quality of teaching and personalised learning and scaffolding in Treetops, ensuring the Treetops curriculum is fully aligned with mainstream curriculum, including the use of Academy checkpoints and tests.
The Behaviour Policy within school, driven by the Tudor Grange Academy Redditch (TGAR) ethos, continues to impact positively on the number of serious behaviour incidents leading to exclusion and pupil attendance. Permanent exclusions have reduced to 0.4% of the school’s population compared to 1.9% in 2019 and 0.7% last year. Persistent Absence has also significantly reduced from 47.3% in 21/22 to 38.6% last year.
School Has Continued to Develop
The school has continued to develop The TGAR Way this year and has introduced a new mantra for students to support behaviour; ‘Considerate Corridors,’ ‘Respectful Language’ and ‘3.2.1. Ready to Listen.’ This has helped to standardise language used across the whole school ensuring consistency of expectation and practise for all students. Students our Assessor spoke to in Year 9 explained The TGAR Way was well introduced as part of transition, is implemented consistently and fairly, and felt that the rules were all easy to understand, relevant and straight forward.
Further developments have included the introduction of form time from January 2022 to help settle students every morning. Form time on a Thursday is used to teach the behaviour curriculum looking at an aspect of TGAR Way each week. Other features of Form Time include a ‘What to do When’ session and supports students to learn how to manage situations. As a result of these changes Tudor Grange has successfully standardised the form time routine and programme, enabling students to understand the TGAR expectations.
The ‘Behaviour Tier system’ continues to provide effective pastoral support. Form tutors are now providing more students with a six-week mentoring programme and form tutor interaction with families has increased and improved.
Additional developments within Tudor Grange this year for behaviour have included working with the Villa Foundation engaging with two different projects, the Aston Villa Alternative Provision project (AVAP) and the Premier League Inspires Programme. A total of 60 students are being supported by Villa over this academic year. The AVAP project provides places for 15 students each year who undertake sports leadership and refereeing activities alongside a range of AQA endorsed programmes including employability, The Premier League Inspires Programme provides a similar but shorter intervention for 15 pupils every term.
Incredible Ambassadors
Leaders have focussed on developing a PP Statement and have created a PP Pledge, implementing strategies in all classrooms to ensure PP are front and foremost in all lessons. The EAAs band every student as A, B, C or D based on toxic stresses. PP support, closely linked to these stresses is then identified and delivered. The school is using some of the PP funding to support their Thrive provision, enabling them to increase the Thrive practitioners. As a result of introducing Thrive students are now better able to regulate themselves.
Through the Thrive Programme students are successfully directed to counselling and mentoring sessions within school as needed and also have access to an external counselling service ‘Mental Link.’ Formal referrals to other agencies are also being made for more vulnerable students following Thrive sessions.
Our Assessor concluded, “The students I met with were incredible ambassadors for the school and were very positive about the way the staff supported and engaged them in learning. Extra-curricular activities are well received, including nightly homework clubs, sports clubs, drama, astronomy, and several curriculum related clubs.”
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