The SEND department are continuing to deliver our interventions during these difficult times. We have some fantastic support programmes including Social Skills, Mentoring, Counselling, Wellbeing and Study Skills Support.

Our students are thoroughly enjoying their online Social Skills sessions and are fully engaged with the Talk About programme. We discussed emotional regulation and coping strategies. Our students enjoy using role play and mindfulness activities during these sessions.

Our wonderful counsellor, Sophie is providing weekly remote counselling sessions to support student wellbeing. All those receiving are giving positive feedback about the active support that it is.

Some students are also receiving additional mentoring  support during this time.  We are very proud of how well they have engaged with target setting and mature discussions. Stephen Spielberg said when talking of mentoring, “The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves!”

Our Wellbeing sessions promote confidence and self esteem. We explore ways to cope with anxieties and worries and provide support to our students. This week we had a  lively debate about different qualities and some interesting insights from the way they viewed the world. One student spoke on the one hand about social media giving them a reason to live but on the other hand how if you don’t post you go unnoticed but if you do you attract criticism. We discussed leadership and if this is always a good quality looking at the current political decisions here and in America. An interesting mature session!

Our year 9 social skills group discussed emotions and feelings and why they may show different feelings that are not real in different situations. One student said going for a run helps them when they are angry as they do not always want to tell their parents in case they get upset. All students participated well.

Our year 8 group have explored different learning styles and each student identified how they felt they learn best and we had a discussion about what ideas they got from the learning style video clip. One student said he was very forgetful and felt that writing things down in one place with diagrams could possibly help him remember. We equip students with memory supporting techniques that can be used outside of the intervention.

The SEND team are still providing booster sessions and study support sessions for our students. The week ended on a high with 8N watching a clip of Gnomeo and Juliet and comparing to the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet. They then went on to complete Readingwise and Bedrock activities and all worked hard. Year 9 study support and well-being looked at qualities in people and then detailed discussions re learning styles and how they could make the most of learning online. They also discussed very maturely different strategies that could be suggested to teachers to help them more effectively access learning.

We are really proud of our amazing students.