Avocet House
Turnstone House
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Yes, we are registered as a Residential Special School and as a Children’s Home. Our Learning Centre is the hub of much of our work in helping to expand learning. (See our Learning and Outcomes pages). We have highly qualified specialist teachers and teaching assistants. However we believe learning is far wider than the conventional “school” idea and therefore we look at learning opportunities over the 24 hour cycle not just a standard “school day”. All adults at SES are involved in moving social and academic learning forward.
You have two central people we call your Personal Tutor and your Learning Mentor. Between them they look after everything to do with you, your learning and your relationships at Avocet or Turnstone House and with your social worker and family. You also have what we call a Case Co-ordinator who supports the adults working on your behalf. All adults at SES have to make sure you’re listened to and become a part of the SES “family”.
We want you to feel confident that you can approach any adult, if you have a problem, and tell them what the problem is. However there are the special adults (e.g. Personal Tutor, Learning Mentor), whose job it is to make sure that anything you want to talk about is listened to carefully and acted upon. In the unlikely event that you feel no-one is listening to you, you can go directly to the Head of Care, the Head of Education or the Registered Manager. And if you still feel unhappy you can go directly to the Principal. You can also talk to your social worker.
No. Every young person has their own room. The young people also have their own room keys so that they can be sure that their possessions are safe at all times. We want you to bring all your favourite pictures, books, toys, posters, etc that you have. The room is yours and we want it to feel like yours.
The current fee level is available by contacting the Principal on 01508 549320 or 01508 517000.
We pride ourselves giving the assurance that our fee represents a total and holistic package that you are purchasing for the child. Unlike other placements we will never come back to you with reasons to “hike” the cost because of day-to-day issues. We will do whatever it takes to resource our “no limits” philosophy from the fee that you pay.
Essential to a swift decision about placement is having full and up to date information. Once complete information is available the admission panel will consider the appropriateness of a placement as quickly as possible. When a place has been agreed the timescale for the admission process will be as streamlined as possible without compromising what needs to be a sensitive journey for the child and family, in order to ensure full commitment and engagement with Avocet or Turnstone House.
Our philosophy of a personalised approach coupled with the view of ‘care and education without limits’ expressed in our vision statement intrinsically rejects the ‘one size fits all’ mentality and instead adopts an eclectic therapeutic approach that puts the individual child at the centre. Our definition of therapeutic therefore becomes a generic descriptor representing our eclectic approach to effecting positive change. This purposefully seeks to utilise the best approach for the individual (bespoke interventions) whilst underpinning this with some clear environmental and social structures. All aspects of a child’s life at our two establishments are potentially capable of having therapeutic impact.
Our view of therapeutic involves:
Arrangements for who visits where and when are made through discussion with the social worker and will be discussed before your child’s admission. At SES we want to help young people keep and build important relationships. We welcome visits and will do everything we can to help.
Every young person has a Personal Tutor who is the key adult that looks after your child’s overall needs. The Personal Tutor will be in contact with you on a regular basis and they may also arrange to visit you at home. We send home copies of all certificates gained which helps you share in the pride and pleasure of key achievements. Each young person has a review every six months that you are invited to and you will receive a full typed report in advance. You will be welcome to look at your child’s work and achievements any time that you visit.
