Headteacher of Mount Grace School and ASCL member, Peter Baker, has discovered an effective and efficient way of reducing pupil exclusions in his secondary school. An on-site student retreat area, and the introduction of Accipio Learning’s live online teaching, has helped motivate students disillusioned with learning or at risk of exclusion and transformed the school’s provision for these vulnerable children.
As is the case with many schools, a small number of students who arrive at Mount Grace have been moved from school to school to avoid exclusion and they often bring inherited problems. Children who have been unable to settle at their former school often experience similar issues at their new school. Previously, there was no real provision for supporting these students so Mount Grace set up the Retreat.
The Retreat sounds more like a spa than a place at school and in some respects, it is similar. It is an environment away from the main school where students go to escape from what has been an unsuccessful time at school. The Retreat allows students to take a step back from the distractions and disruptions of a frantic and noisy classroom and enter a calmer space. The area has enabled persistently disruptive students to continue with their education whilst removing them from the classroom and from their peers. Personalised inclusion programmes can be developed for each student to re-engage them in their learning and a key part of this is the online teaching provided by Accipio Learning.
Peter Baker explains: “The Retreat has proven to us that often students are not rejecting the subjects themselves; rather it is the environment in which they are taught. By removing students from this space, they are given a new lease of learning. In the Retreat, students log on to the online school for their lessons. Wearing a headset with a microphone in front of a computer screen, students are in their own learning space, free from distraction and disruption. The virtual classroom captures their attention and students find it quite an intense learning experience - but this shows us that they’re working hard!”
Mount Grace has found that these students respond better to learning in the Retreat as they have the support of all the subject-specialist teachers in the Accipio online classroom as well as two full-time members of staff permanently at hand to help with assignments, coursework and general time management across all subjects. Accipio also allows for laptops to be set up in students’ homes where this is necessary, as the online lessons can be accessed anywhere.
Mount Grace currently has three students who learn through Accipio’s online teaching programmes, one of whom is preparing for five GCSEs and two who are sitting three subjects. The former student is looking to go on to further education in September and hopes to study for a qualification in health and social care. Before the Retreat and the online teaching, college would have been an unlikely route for her to choose after compulsory education ended.
The Retreat, coupled with the Accipio online teaching, has created the best possible solution to exclusions for Mount Grace.
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