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The Bridge School makes a difference to the lives of the pupils who attend. This is demonstrated by the examples below.
All names have been changed to protect the anonymity of the students.
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Rahul is a 14 year old young man with Angelman Syndrome with considerable communication problems who is operating at around P5. He's quite large and has considerable clout and became aware of this. He has a history of occasionally lashing out - usually flapping and slapping. He also used to harbour grudges and would slap people who had done something to upset him in the past sometimes weeks or months later.
Rahul needed a way of saying "No". We realized that this behaviour was his way of saying "No". Rahul had a right to say no and a right to be listened to, but we had to change his method of saying no (so that other people did not get hurt).
We became much better at reading Rahul's behaviour. If he started to flap this was taken as an indication that he was not happy. He was then given choices through a visual system. He could choose an alternative activity, to work with the group or a specific individual, or to wait for a few minutes before joining the class activity.
Giving Rahul the control and giving him a voice about what he wanted altered the challenging behaviour and incidences where he lashed out became much rarer.
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Michael is 9 years old. He has cerebral palsy and profound and multiple learning difficulties (P2-3). He has always bitten people when he doesn't want something (especially when he was being put in his standing frame). He then began to start biting a lot of the time, and found it extremely funny, laughing every time he did it.
After careful observations and discussions with Michael's parents it became clear that Michael enjoyed the reaction when he bit. To deal with this we recognized that Michael always had bitten and probably go a sensory pleasure from biting. What we needed to change was what he bit, so that it was not flesh.
He was provided with some safe soft rubber tubing which he could lift to his mouth to bite and strongly encouraged to do this. He was also not given attention when he did bite (a very hard thing to do) but staff and his parents went out of their way to give him very energetic attention at times when he was not biting.
With the consistency of this approach across home and school Michael came to realize that he could get his sensory fill from biting the tube and that people would give him lots of attention for just being himself.
The above two case studies relate to pupils from The Bridge. They have been adapted from case studies also cited in Peter Imray's (Head of Development and Consultancy) book - Turning the Tables on Challenging Behaviour. This is available form Routledge publishers ISBN 978-0-425-43758-5.
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Hardeep is 9 years old. He started at The Bridge when he was three years old. He had a diagnosis of an autistic spectrum disorder. Speech was late to develop, but with support from school staff and the school based speech and language therapist he developed good language skills.
With the development of his language it became clear that Hardeep was quite able. His teacher had recently worked in a mainstream school and had very good links with the Primary School next to The Bridge. She worked with staff from the Primary School to plan her lessons so that Hardeep, and some of the others in his class, were learning the same things as the children attending the Primary School. Hardeep made very good progress.
Hardeep's class started to visit the primary school for social events and less academic events. It became clear that Hardeep was settling in really well and was happy to be 'buddied up' with one of the mainstream children. Slowly he started to attend the Primary School for a few lessons without the rest of his class, just with a teaching assistant whom he knew well from The Bridge.
He became more and more independent of the teaching assistant and the next step was for him to go out to play with his mainstream peers. He managed this well and soon was up to attending lessons and play every morning and returning to The Bridge for lessons in the afternoon. He started to ask if he could go full time to the Primary School.
This was carefully discussed with his parents and the educational psychologist and Hardeep now goes to school full time at the Primary School.
He started by being supported by the teaching assistant he knew well, but now she has come back to The Bridge and he has a new teaching assistant.
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Parents also tell us that we 'do a good job'. Below is a selection of quotes from parents of pupils leaving the school.
Story 1: Our daughter attended the Bridge School between the ages of 12 and 19. Previously I had always felt that when her school said 'do drop in at any time' that we were always in the way if we did so.
At The Bridge it was different; I always felt that I could drop in, talk about any problem (and very often either receive help in solving it or have it solved for me, or just provide a listening ear), meet and chat to any of the staff and was always part of a happy caring environment. Everyone always made us feel welcome and never a nuisance.
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Story 2: My son attended The Bridge School from the age of 2 to 16 when we moved out of London. Throughout his time at The Bridge my son developed into a happy, friendly and confident young man. The school supported not just David to grow and learn but the whole family and we were included in all aspects of David's education; we were also given, as was David, great support when he suffered bouts of illness a couple of years ago.
The atmosphere at The Bridge was to me, always like visiting members of your own family, always a cup of tea in hand, friendly faces who all knew our son well and what was going on in his life (obviously through great staff communication) and plenty of advice regarding health, benefits, education and the future.
Meetings were always conducted professionally yet informally enough for us
parents to be able to put our views and concerns across and know that they were listened to and would be acted upon. My son has now moved on in his life, but I know he had the best possible start.
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Story 3: The school cared not only about my son but us as a family. They enabled, empowered and befriended us. They were trustworthy, thoughtful and completely professional. My son enjoyed every minute of his time at The Bridge both with the students and staff.
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Story 4: The staff are angels without wings (just for info this is actually quoted in our last OFSTED report).
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Story 5: In my country my daughter had to be hidden away and was ignored. I didn't know what to do, I felt that I had lost her but when we came to England The Bridge School gave her back to me.
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Story 6: My son loved the curriculum which was really relevant to his needs, and being at school. We were always treated with respect and I can't fault the school.
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Story 7: My daughter attended the school for many years from the age of 2 years to 19 years old. Her needs became increasingly complex as she grew older but the school was always able to adapt to her daily needs.
Staff always bent over backwards to support her not only with her education but with her emotional and health needs as well as supporting our family in whatever context was needed.
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