THE SCHOOL

Belstead School in Ipswich is a secondary school for students with severe learning difficulties. These are young people who have very significant intellectual impairment. They have great difficulty in communicating, and many of them are unable to speak. Conventional behaviour and ordinary everyday tasks such as going on a bus are exceptionally difficult for them.

THE INNOVATION

Belstead School wanted to help its students to become involved in their local community to prepare them for life beyond school, but it faced a problem with students who came to the school from other parts of Suffolk . Located in Ipswich , the school could only introduce them to local facilities in Ipswich , not to those of their home towns. Belstead has found a solution by creating Inclusive Partnerships with a school and a college in other towns.

In the case of two students from Haverhill , the partnership was

Sue Chesworth,
Headteacher of Belstead,
stresses that setting up these partnership
arrangements was not easy. Such projects
depend on very strong support and
commitment from the Head and
senior leaders at both institutions.

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Year 12 and Year 13, the students attended the sixth form at Samuel Ward for two consecutive days a week, accompanied by a member of staff from Belstead to support the students throughout the two days. In the other three days of the week, they attended Belstead School .

The two students, Gary Dawson and Luke Hynds, enjoyed being part of the sixth form common room at Samuel Ward. One of the Samuel Ward A level students took a particular interest in the two visitors and she volunteered to support them during her private study periods. She found this so engrossing that when she finished her A levels and left the sixth form she decided to work with special needs students as a career and joined the staff at Belstead. Ruth Robbins has been a Learning Support Assistant at Belstead School since September 2004.

This first Inclusive Partnership ran from September 2003 to July 2005. Gary and Luke have since progressed to college courses and community-based leisure activities.

A Belstead teacher, Michelle Hughes, played a key role in establishing the partnership with Samuel Ward, setting up the arrangements, accompanying and supporting the two students, and helping Samuel Ward staff to adjust to them. Once the partnership was well-established, a learning support assistant was able to take over the support role, and Michelle simply monitored the project while being able to turn her attention to setting up further partnerships.

The next partnership project was with West Suffolk College in Bury and it began in September 2004. It enables two post-16 Belstead students from Brandon , near Bury, to attend the college for one day a week and school for four days a week. The students have been joining different mainstream classes in vocational subjects, the most successful of which have been motor vehicle studies and a sports and leisure course. The two students integrate well into the college: they are able to eat independently in canteen and they have some social contact with the college students.

The school is continuing to build on these partnership arrangements. It hopes a Year 9 student from Haverhill will be able to attend Samuel Ward for an occasional session, and that a similar arrangement can be made for a student from the Thomas Wolsey School . Samuel Ward School is strongly committed to the principle of involving students with special needs into the mainstream community and is keen to repeat the arrangements when Belstead again has sixth-formers from Haverhill . In the meantime, Belstead is in discussions with another mainstream school about the possibility of involving a local Belstead student in its sixth form.

A related development at Belstead is the creation of what might be termed an “Increased Flexibility” programme in a special school. It is designed for profoundly disabled Year 11 students who need an alternative to the traditional curriculum. The school worked with Community Education and a voluntary agency, “Re-Think Disability”, to produce the programme. It includes:

•  going on public transport (for example, helping students to get on a bus without physically resisting, and when accompanied by unfamiliar staff)

•  shopping

•  swimming in a leisure centre

•  going out for drinks

•  going to the cinema.

The fundamental aim of the programme is to get students out of the familiar confines of their school and into the wider world around them and to become involved in local activities and meet unfamiliar people.

ISSUES

PARENTS Parents were strongly supportive of the projects from the outset. They were consulted in advance and were very pleased that their children might be able to attend a mainstream school. An evaluation conducted at the end of the first year of the project found great satisfaction amongst the parents. The parents receive a great deal of information, week-by-week, from the accompanying member of staff about how the students are faring at the mainstream institution.

STAFF (AND STUDENT) DEVELOPMENT The Inclusive Partnerships have benefited staff and students. Staff and students at the mainstream institutions have become more familiar with special needs students, and have therefore become welcoming and accommodating to those with special needs and better able to engage with them. The Partnerships have produced a more inclusive ethos in the host institutions. Belstead staff have benefited too. When they saw, especially from videos of the students' work, what their students had been able to achieve at the Samuel Ward School , they raised their own expectations of their students.

The Belstead students have undoubtedly benefited from the experience. It was noticeable that at Samuel Ward their behaviour became more mature, and by contrast it regressed when they returned to Belstead. Moreover, it was not just the Belstead students who benefited. There were only very occasional incidents of mainstream students being inclined to tease or torment their guests, and these incidents were always nipped in the bud by the accompanying teacher, with the result that the mainstream students immediately realised how they ought to behave towards people with disabilities. Indeed, one Samuel Ward student, a difficult youngster at risk of exclusion, became a champion of Gary and Luke after being challenged about his attitude towards them.

RESOURCE IMPLICATIONS Establishing the partnerships took time and effort. Once a partnership is operating there is the cost of providing an accompanying member of staff to support the students at the host institution. In addition, having one member of staff to support only one or two students is, of course, an expensive staff-student ratio. The Samuel Ward partnership was established with financial support from the LSC. Furthermore, although the host institution is local for the students, it may not be local for the accompanying member of staff who may then have a longer, possibly much longer, journey to work. Fortunately, in the case of the first Partnership project, the accompanying teacher, Michelle, happened to live half-way between the host school and her own school.

ADVICE TO COLLEAGUES IN OTHER SCHOOLS

Setting up these partnership arrangements was not easy. The accompanying teacher found it hard work to challenge prejudices and stereotyped perceptions in the mainstream institutions and to elicit positive attitudes from her mainstream colleagues. Nor did staff at Belstead find the partnership arrangements easy. They had to come to terms with additional resources being devoted to a few students whose behaviour when they returned to Belstead deteriorated from what it had been at the mainstream school. However, the difficulties have to be measured against the significant benefits of the scheme.

Sue Chesworth , the Headteacher of Belstead, stresses that such projects depend on very strong support and commitment from the Head and senior leaders at both institutions, as well as keenness and energy on the part of the accompanying staff.

CONTACT DETAILS

Sue Chesworth , Headteacher

01473 556200

headbelstead.kgk@e2bn.net