The Hub is our centre for young people who need an extra stop on their road into education, specialising in those tricky cases where an extremely bespoke approach is needed, focusing on relationship building and establishing a safe, secure base without the added pressure of a more traditional timetable or the overstimulation of a busier school environment. Young people at the Hub are supported to develop their own behaviour management techniques, build independence though life skills and focused well-being sessions, blending in bespoke, person centred educational targets to build confidence in a safe environment of their own design before progressing towards a more traditional path in a supported way.
Every pupil at the hub follows a bespoke curriculum, with the initial focus being entirely on engagement, and on their emotional and social curriculum. Building a sense of safety and a few positive key relationships is the first step. A Hub pupils’ Lifehouse Learning Pathway centres around the preparation for adulthood curriculum, with a curriculum aimed at developing positive attitudes to learning and that supports progress towards a pupils personal Long term outcomes from their Education, Health Care Plan. Subject curriculum areas and subjects for qualification are introduced as the pupil begins engagement. Hub staff draw on a bank of micro-schemes of work and create personal micro-schemes to engage pupils in learning. Subject learning then follows lower school schemes of work and Qualification learning draws on the Upper School Qualification Curriculum schemes of work, as it becomes appropriate to draw on formal schemes of work for an individual pupil’s curriculum. The learning pathway and curriculum for each Hub pupil is initially identified for the medium term only – for one academic term at a time initially. The plan is reviewed throughout the term and in a formal review at the end of each term, next steps are identified. Formal learning is integrated into the curriculum at a pace appropriate for that individual pupil, and learning pathways are extended to year long plans when it is appropriate to plan in the long term for an individual pupil.
Students that attend the Hub have often experienced a breakdown in previous placements or prolonged periods of being out of education altogether. The primary focus in the early stages of bringing a student into the Hub focuses on wellbeing, safety and security in the setting and relationships with the small, specialised team. Once the students time progresses, the staff team carefully build a curriculum around the young person concentrating on their likes and interests with the eventual goal of working towards recognised qualifications in those topics – the child & their special educational needs are paramount in these decisions and regular input from the SENCO assigned to the Hub is given to ensure that all aspects of wellbeing lifeskills and academic learning are related to progress in key areas from the students EHCP and Pupil Centred Plan. At the beginning of a student’s time the timetable is extremely bespoke and flexible and with support from staff and learning their interests, goals and aspirations a timetable is built and to suit the needs of the students. Their individual progression rates allow this to slowly shift from a wellbeing and Lifeskills heavy timetable to a more structured and academically focused timetable. We believe that one of the main reasons that the Hub is successful is that it does not present as a ‘normal school’, which is what all of our students have previously found challenging and they often state, before visiting, that they would not go back to a ‘normal school’. It provides an appropriate environment which slowly moves towards a more traditional school structure for each student at an individual rate to suit their needs.
Progression ‘out of the Hub’ is dependant on the individual student needs. In some cases, a student at the Hub will interact with peers and attend lessons at one of the other school environments and begin a slower, supported transition towards the eventual goal of joining that setting full time. Every aspect of this is keyed directly to the young person and their individual aspirations and needs. A student attending the Hub would have to move to another faculty by a certain age, if the anxiety about leaving he Hub/joining a new school would cause them to disengage and regress. In situations such as these, the continued engagement and established safe, secure base of the Hub would remain. We currently have a mix of students working towards variations on these two paths. Some who feel ready to move from the Hub and others who wish to go further academically but cannot physically make the step to ‘leave’ the Hub. Each progression & transition plan is carefully constructed with the whole team, student & parent/carer input, as well as input from the SENCO’s and the Intervention Staff from across the school as appropriate to each individual. Socially and Emotionally Students interact with peers from other settings through groups following outdoor learning e.g. forest school, Duke of Edinburgh & lunchtime activities. These groups include mixes of students from other faculties. In addition, at the Hub, a half termly Hubcon is held (a small-scale gaming convention) where students with similar interests from the other faculties are invited to attend and interact with the Hub students and team.