Pivot Academy

Pivot Kirklees is an All-through school that supports learners from Year 5 to Year 11.

This comprises of Pivot Kirklees Lower School and Pivot Kirklees Upper School. The school is based on one site but has two main areas that have been thoughtfully designed to meet the needs of the learners.

It is a therapeutic nurture provision for learners with complex social, emotional, and mental health and other learning needs. Trauma informed practice and approaches are embedded throughout our provision. We place the young person at the centre of all we do, recognise each of our learners is unique with diﬀerent experiences and oﬀer a pathway to reﬂect their individual need and allow for success. All our learners have the potential to succeed and do well, we believe in setting high aspirations and supporting each of them to achieve their goals. Our aim as a school is to allow our young people to experience and understand the world around them, enable them to achieve to their full potential and equip them with the tools they need to play a successful role in the world beyond school.

Our core provision — How we achieve our aim.

We know our learners have often experienced anxiety, attachment diﬃculties, trauma, sudden endings and/or negative educational experiences. Research and experience show planned transitions are a key element to success and therefore our work with new learners starts as soon as their place is conﬁrmed with a thorough transition plan and induction process, the pace and approach of which are personalised to meet the needs of each individual learner. This broadly incorporates introductions and opportunities to build key relationships through a range of approaches including; personalised transition booklets, social stories, telephone calls, team sessions, home visits by a range of staﬀ, out of hours visits to school with parents and carers, oﬀsite activities with key adults, oﬀsite activities with peers and phased timetables. Every transition is individual and planned with learners and home by our Transition Lead, a member of staﬀ dedicated to ensuring a smooth transition for every learner

We oﬀer a calm and nurturing environment where pupils feel safe to learn and make mistakes. Each lesson, day and week oﬀers new opportunities and a ‘fresh start’. By discreet teaching and embedding Zones of Regulation throughout our practice, we support learners to regulate their emotions enabling them to access the setting and learning. Our class sizes are small with high adult to pupil ratios where every learner can be provided with the support, they need to successfully access the curriculum. We have several deﬁned calm spaces within the school which learners can access with the support of a member of staﬀ from our experienced pastoral care team. This team consists of staﬀ who are available throughout the day to fulﬁl their primary role of supporting learners when they need time away from the classroom environment to enable them to become regulated and ready for learning. All our learning environments are purposely created to be ‘low stimulation’ to prevent sensory overload.

Our learners have diﬀerent learning levels, so lessons are highly diﬀerentiated. Provision is centred around individuals’ needs and pupil voice is key to this. We focus on developing the whole pupil, and visual, adjusted timetables to suit the needs and preferred learning styles of the learners are in place for all. As many of our learners thrive in practical and experiential learning activities, we oﬀer a multitude of outside learning and enrichment opportunities such as bushcraft, animal care, horticulture, creative/performing arts, music, DT, PE and cooking.

Our highly skilled team of Intervention Mentors deliver a wide range of academic (e.g., SNIP Literacy Programme, Toe by Toe, Beat Dyslexia, plus 1, Power of 2), social and personal development intervention programmes (e.g., SULP, Social Skills, SEAL, Black Sheep Narrative) whilst our group therapist oﬀers a number of diﬀerent therapies and counselling options (e.g., Lego Therapy, Drawing and Talking Therapy, CBT). Our Pastoral Team deliver wellbeing as part of our curriculum and our class teams provide key pastoral support to our learners including daily meet and greets, transition support, regular check ins, planned ‘talking times and ad hoc additional emotional support when learners need it. We have dedicated therapeutic and intervention spaces where this work takes place.

All staﬀ participate in an extensive induction programme and continued professional development. Our staﬀ use trauma informed and attachment aware practice to help learners to develop resilience, self-esteem, and good mental health.

We have a SENCo team who are based on site and work closely with learners, families, staﬀ and external agencies to ensure the very best provision is in place for all learners in line with their EHCPs. Our Transition Leads and DSL’s oﬀer support for both the learner attending the provision and their wider family as needed. We employ a range of specialist practitioners including an Educational Psychologist, Social Workers, Therapeutic Leads, Autism Specialist and SEN Leads. This team enables immediate access to an extensive and comprehensive package of support for our learners (e.g., Building Resilience, Worry Management, Anxiety) and their families (e.g., Parenting for Anxiety, Webster Stratton Parenting) and provides ongoing training to all staﬀ to ensure they have the skills and knowledge to meet the complex needs of our learners.

Learning & Curriculum

The Pivot curriculum oﬀers the opportunity to develop both academic skills and fundamental skills in order that young people receive a well-rounded education experience. Areas such as emotional regulation, friendships and social skills along with programmes to develop life skills for independence such as safety, self-care and cookery are key to supporting our learners throughout their school life.

We recognise that because our curriculum is unique and speciﬁcally designed to include PHSE and Zones of Regulation, in addition to the academic areas of reading and extended writing, in our Golden Thread, it is crucial that the curriculum clearly identiﬁes what the essential aspects of learning are for each subject and ‘What Learners Must Know and Not Forget’ is an important thread that runs through both lower and upper school.

Pivot Kirklees – Golden Thread

Reading
PSHE
Zones of Regulation
Extended Writing
What Learners Must Know and Not Forget

Assessment

Whilst we are a therapeutic provision, we recognise the value of academic learning and want our learners to achieve to their full potential. We work with our learners to set aspirational goals which we then help them to achieve by ensuring all learners follow an appropriate learning programme and pathway suited to their levels on entry and their ability. Many of our learners are working at levels signiﬁcantly below expectation due to missed learning for several reasons. Often there is little meaningful assessment data for these learners. We deliver baseline assessments for literacy and numeracy (e.g., Salford, SWR, GWST), alongside communication (e.g., BPVS, Pearson) and social and emotional needs (e.g., Boxall Proﬁle, NFER) so we have a full understanding of the whole child.

These assessments are delivered in short bursts by key, familiar adults when we are conﬁdent the learner feels secure enough to engage.

Lessons

Our lessons are designed to give many opportunities for success and structured to meet the individual needs of our learners. This might include chunked learning activities, use of repetition and over learning, precision teaching, pre-teaching, learning aids, diﬀerentiated levels and methods of support etc. We want all of our young people to love reading and this is reinforced through various strategies and interventions where required and by oﬀering a wealth of opportunities to promote reading for pleasure and purpose. Our academic oﬀer supports learners through both lower and upper school and includes the core subjects English, Maths, Humanities, ICT, PSHE and PE) and additional subjects such as Art and Careers Support. This core oﬀer is further enhanced by learners having the opportunity to study a range of practical vocational subjects and complete qualiﬁcations that match their abilities.

An example of the range of subjects and qualiﬁcations on oﬀer at Pivot Kirklees Upper School:

Functional Skills Oﬀer

English FS L1, L2 (AQA or Pearson)
Mathematics FS L1, L2 (AQA or Pearson)

GCSE Oﬀer

English (AQA)
Mathematics (AQA)
Biology (AQA)

Other Offer Awards

Step up to English Entry Level, Silver, Gold (AQA)
Mathematics Entry Level (AQA)
Science Entry Level (AQA Unit Awards)
Health and Fitness Award or Certiﬁcate (NCFE)
Computing / IT Skills Award or Certiﬁcate (NCFE)
RSE Award (NCFE)
PSHE (AQA Unit Awards)
PSD Award (NCFE) or AQA Unit Awards
Humanities Entry Level (WJEC)
Health and Social Care Award or Certiﬁcate (NCFE)
Food and Cookery Skills (NCFE) or AQA Unit Awards
Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award (DofE)
Creative Craft Award or Certiﬁcate (NCFE)

OW - Pivot student

OW has a diagnosis for ASC. He started with us in September 2019. OW has been out of school for a significant period of time due to school refusal and anxiety. Staff met with OW during the school holidays in preparation for the start of the academic year. It was established that OW has a keen interest in animals and as a result was introduced to the school puppy. A timetable was agreed in which OW would come to school with the understanding that he will have a 1:1 session with the dog every day before going to class. His timetable focused on lessons and activities he liked including boxing. When OW has been unable to attend due to anxiety staff have visited him at his home. These staff have included our Therapeutic Lead and our Educational Psychologist.

Mum is delighted with his progress as are cluster. Mum recently stated

I also would like to say an absolutely massive thank you for all the help and support you and all your staff have given OW, myself and husband really appreciate it! We are over the moon that not only is OW attending Pivot, which he is now doing willingly but he is now taking himself! Which is the 1st time in over 3 years that he has managed to achieve this, speaks absolute volumes of the fantastic work you are all doing, we cannot thank you all enough!!

JG - Pivot student

JG has a diagnosis of ASC. He was a previous school refuser due to anxiety and not having his ASC needs met. School staff met with JG during the end of the previous academic year at his home. A transition programme was then put in place for JG to visit school and meet his peers at regular periods during the Summer Holidays. Mum was then supported with the transport application and getting him to and from school until school transport was allocated. A transition timetable was put in place for the start of the school year and within the first month JG was attending fulltime. As JG and most of his peers are reluctant to complete Physical activities we introduced the class to weekly horse riding sessions. JG has progressed in his riding ability and recently completed AQA accreditation for Horse riding. JG’s mum is very supportive and has described how she has got her life back and has greatly improved her mental health knowing he is happy and safe in school. His current attendance is 88% this is a huge improvement as his previous attendance was 0%.