All students who attend Alt Bridge School have Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) which outline the requirements for the provision in school in order to meet their needs. The specialist support available within Alt Bridge can be accessed at different levels of intensity, for varying timeframes and in order to meet changing or ongoing needs. The diagram below outlines the kind of specialist support we offer our students at universal or specialist levels. We view this support as being wrapped around a student and available to them when required so that the level of support may vary within a given time frame in response to their changing needs overtime. The annual review process provides a forum to discuss these changing needs and the priorities for additional support so that there may be a clear plan in place. Within school, we also hold termly pupil progress reviews to evaluate progress in light of the support available and to consider any other approaches that may be beneficial.
The diagram below outlines the various specialist approaches that students may access at universal or specialist support levels. Some specialist support is able to be delivered by our highly trained staff, whilst others forms of support, we look to provide through one of our commissioned services or our local education, health and care organisations. Our partnerships with those external organisations and commissioned services is extremely important to us and we work closely with those services to develop the best packages of support for our students. You can find more out about our commissions services as our webpage ‘therapies at Alt Bridge’. More information can also be found out about local services at the Knowsley Local Offer website.
Universal Provision
This section describes specialist support available to all our pupils through the “every day” work of our staff team
- Highly Differentiated Broad and Balanced Curriculum delivered in an accessible and positive framework which covers the full range of the Secondary National Curriculum.
- Small Classes with higher ratio of adult support
- Philosophy for Children
- Mindfulness
- Life Skills programmes
- Enrichment passports and programmes
- Form Based Pastoral Care System
- The Zones of Regulation
- Restorative practices
- Reasonable Adjustments and Physical Adaptations
- Accessible resources
- Pupil Centered Approaches
- Differentiation and scaffolding
- That Spelling Thing approaches
- Online Interventions for reading including Lexia and Accelerated Reader
- SeeSaw online learning platform
- The Century Learning Platform – Intelligence based software to provide individual activities at the appropriate level in core subjects
- Careers advice
- Team Teach physical de-escalation and positive handling approaches
- School Nurse
Specialist School Provision
This section describes additional support provided to support pupils as required by our highly trained school staff team
- Individual pastoral support packages
- Learning Mentors available through The Wellbeing Hub
- Counselling
- Sensory Circuits
- Yoga and Mindfulness
- ELKAN – speech and language based intervention
- Thrive – A structured approach to supporting social and emotional needs
- Drawing and Talking
- Circle of Friends
- Drama Therapy
- Lego Therapy
- Forest School
- Specific Learning Difficulties Interventions
- That Reading Thing
- Targeted curriculum based support programmes
- Tutoring through the National Tutoring Programme
- Independent Travel Training Programme
- Social Communication Provision
- The CELLS Project
- The Get Away Safe Program
- Bully Busters
- Attendance support packages
- Individual timetables
Specialist External Provision
This section lists the services available to pupils in school through external specialist services who are commissioned by school or available within the Knowsley Local Offer.
- Speech and Language Therapy
- Occupational Therapy via Shine Therapy
- Sensory Impaired Service
- Educational Psychology Service
- Brook Advisory
- Pet Therapy
- KOOTH counselling
- CAMHS
- OSSME Autism Initiatives
- Social Care (CLA Team and Disabilities Team )
- Family First
- Commission Counselling
More information about the services above and designated workers from the above agencies can be found at our Therapies at Alt Bridge page.
Specialist classes
We currently have two specialist classes within Alt Bridge which we hope to expand further in 2022 to provide up to four specialist classes. We have a class for learners who require more intensive support for learning needs and another class for students who require significant support with emotional self-regulation. Both of these provisions are for students who may otherwise struggle to manage fully with a full secondary model of moving several times per day for different classes. Both classes have one designated teacher for the majority of lessons, however, students from these classes also access specialist teachers for more technical subjects. The classes offer enhanced provision such as the Thrive Approach and multi-sensory learning which is embedded. Both classes have a consistent classroom base and a higher adult to pupil ratio. Facilities also include designated toilets, kitchens and calm/sensory rooms to further minimise transitions throughout the day which may otherwise cause greater anxiety.
Find out more about these specialist classes on our curriculum pages.
