4 - 16 years: Emsworth
“Our son just started at Emsworth a couple of weeks ago. The change in him is amazing. He’s very happy.”
“The staff are lovely – helpful and supportive. . .I can’t praise them enough”
Emsworth is our largest education unit and currently accommodates 47 children. Pupils may come to us from the age of 4 years and will stay at Emsworth until they are 16 years old. There is a mix of day and residential pupils. The residential pupils travel in with escorts from our residential houses.
Each year, the children referred to our school have increasingly complex needs. Many can only cope with learning in a classroom of their own. Others need a quiet space or a range of personalised facilities. Our staff have proved themselves ingenious with their use of space and the accommodation at Emsworth is used extremely flexibly to ensure that we help each child to learn in a safe and comfortable environment.
And, of course, it is not just with physical space that our teaching team must be flexible. We recognise that every child at our school has their own particular needs and we strive to help them achieve their full potential through individual learning programmes.
Key stage 1 – Key stage 3
At Emsworth, we follow our own Essential Curriculum. This has been developed specifically to provide a foundation for learning for children with ASC. It enables us to cover the key subject areas of the National Curriculum at an appropriate level for each child, using methods which are relevant to their particular needs.
So, for example, many of our pupils will participate in a daily literacy and numeracy lesson - but these sessions will differ in content, length and delivery according to the needs of each child.
Underlying all of our educational activity is the wish to help our pupils engage with the wider world. Through a wide range of educational visits we help our students to learn socially appropriate behaviour in shops, restaurants and other environments they are likely to visit in everyday life. This type of experience is often followed by structured role-play to help the pupil to recognise the differences between people and to develop some of the skills of empathy.
Key stage 4
For pupils at key stage 4 our class curriculum is very practical and biased towards developing life skills and work-related learning.
All students are taught English, Maths, Science, ICT, RE PSHE and Citizenship and PE and all have a choice of additional courses. Our flexible approach to learning allows us to tailor our lessons according to each student’s needs. So, at Key Stage 4, some students may be able to follow GCSE courses, whilst the achievements of others will be accredited through the AQA Unit Award Scheme.
Key stage 4 pupils are all offered some form of work related learning which may include an off site work experience placement.
Hydrotherapy, massage therapy and Occupational Therapy are available for specific students. All students have regular speech and language therapy sessions.
Case studies
Click here to read about a typical school day for 7 year old Matthew.
Click here to learn how a kinaesthetic programme is benefitting 11 year old Josh.
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