Bassaleg School (Newport) – Embedding support for Service children through the curriculum

Bassaleg School is a comprehensive secondary school in Newport, close to the Welsh/England border, so some parents commute to bases in England. The school is near to 104 Newport and Monmouthshire Regiment, Chepstow Barracks and a reserve unit at Cwmbran. The school has a mixture of different serving personnel, reservists and veterans.

The school is currently a pioneer school and is working with Welsh Government and other schools to take forward developments relating to the curriculum and professional learning.

Case study completed by: Ben Lane, Director of Standards, Health and Wellbeing

Number of Service children at Bassaleg School: 12 (1%)

Estyn 2018

The school’s tutor programme is an outstanding aspect of its work. It covers an extensive range of topics around mental health, relationship and sexuality education, building resilience, awareness around young carers and global citizenship. The programme is based closely on first-hand evidence, current research and the views of pupils and staff. This provides pupils with a wide range of opportunities to explore and develop their moral and social values. This provision is carefully integrated into the whole-school programme for personal, social and health education and is supported effectively by curriculum areas.

1. What are the experiences of Service children at Bassaleg School?

Service children have different experiences from growing up in different places around the world and will often have the skills to help other children build friendships. They are a diverse group, who have many skills such as tolerance due to their lifestyle.

Challenges Service children may face in education include:

Each child is different and has different needs
Social and emotional issues linked to the lifestyle of the Service family e.g. dealing with deployment, separation and changes to family unit
Educational challenges such as gaps in learning, as a result of mobility
Some children have had anger issues and been upset, finding it difficult to deal with their emotions
Some children struggle to settle and make friends when joining the school
New children will change the dynamics of a group/class or cohort.

2. What is the role of your Director of Standards, Health Wellbeing?

To plan the curriculum for health and wellbeing. Including the new health and wellbeing Areas of Learning Experience, its implementation across the entire curriculum and daily form time sessions. Our aim is to embed the ‘Four Purposes’ of the new curriculum by building resilience in our young people and providing them with the knowledge and opportunities to become:

Ambitious, capable learners who are ready to learn throughout their lives.
Enterprising, creative contributors who are ready to play a full part in life and work.
Ethical, informed citizens who are ready to be citizens of Wales and the world
Healthy, confident individuals who are ready to lead fulfilling lives as valued members of society.
Work with a variety of stakeholders to provide additional support for your young people and educate them about health and wellbeing related matters
To conduct surveys with pupils and to utilise pupil voice to gauge what interventions need to be put into place
To signpost relevant help and support both in house and through the use of external stakeholders.

Estyn 2018

The school has strong and effective tracking systems in place to monitor the progress, behaviour and wellbeing of individual pupils and groups of learners at all key stages, including those receiving alternative provision. It uses this information well to monitor pupil progress and to target additional support.

3. How does the school identify Service children and support them to overcome any challenges?

On arrival

The Director of wellbeing takes responsibility for the induction of all new children, including Service children. We arrange a meeting with the family, with the child and organise a follow up session to review the settling in period.

Support during their time at the school

Service children are not singled out, we ensure that as a group or individual they are included in the provision and support available for all children
We regularly ensure that a member of staff communicates with home as necessary
The school has a programme of various assessments to identify children’s needs and strengths
We regularly hold pupil progress reviews across all subjects, including mental health and wellbeing, this helps us identify dips and allocate support
Each year group has a progress lead with responsibility for monitoring and tracking each child in the year group, they then support with ensuring provision is in place e.g. interventions
To support children’s learning, we have learning coaches available on timetabled sessions
The school has study support sessions for Year 10/11, where they can undertake private study sessions with a staff member to support their needs.

Estyn 2018

The mental health ambassadors play an important role throughout the school in securing positive mental wellbeing for a significant number of pupils. These ambassadors have a good understanding of how to support their peers and provide useful guidance. This helps many pupils to make informed choices about engaging in activities that will promote their mental wellbeing.

Mental health and wellbeing support

The school has a wellbeing team that work alongside the Director of Standards, Health and Wellbeing
Two members of staff at the school at trained in Thrive and Emotional Literacy Support Assistant
The school has a wellbeing tutorial programme that is undertaken every morning with form tutor
Year 7 are currently being taught the new Welsh curriculum learning area of health and wellbeing, which includes nutrition, fitness and general wellbeing
Mental health ambassadors are appointed across each year group to offer guidance and support to their peers following induction and training
Year 8 follows a programme called The Arrow Project – areas of significant support are identified, and interventions are put in place for groups across the year group. Workshops are led by the educational psychologist.

These include:

Understanding emotions
Problem solving significant issues to improve resilience
Mental health support through drop-in sessions
Delivering the five ways to wellbeing programme
sleep hygiene curriculum.

On the basis of listening to learners, more time was provided to the school’s Religion, Morals and Philosophy (RMP) department to focus on learning about and developing successful relationships with family and friends. Ensuring rich and stable social circles helps to support individuals with their mental health
Each year group is assigned a Director of Wellbeing and an Assistant Director of Wellbeing to support the pupils at a pastoral level. In addition to this there are also three Progress Leaders to help support the pupils with their academic performance
The school has two Pastoral Support Officers (PSO) who help to support the pupil’s social and emotional development. Pupils are able to self-refer to the PSO support
The school has extensive counselling and advice support for both our young people and the staff at the school. The school has also been working with Newport Mind to develop a ‘whole school approach to mental health’ which provides support for pupils, staff and parents/carers.

Estyn 2018

The school tracks closely the involvement of vulnerable pupils and those with protected characteristics in its community activities and pupil groups. It uses this information effectively to actively encourage involvement of a diverse range of pupils to ensure that all pupil representative groups are reflective of the school population as a whole.

4. How does Bassaleg School measure the impact and success of the strategies and support?

It is important to measure the impact of any intervention and support offered as this bring about future change and development. We use a variety of different methods for measuring the impact which is always based around a before and after measurement.

Examples include:

Using a random selection of pupils as a focus group to share the pupils’ perspectives
Pre and Post surveys
Pre and Post testing and assessment
Impact analysis undertaken during ‘Wellbeing walks’ at various time of the day
Use of external data such as that as the School Health Research Network survey to make comparisons over time.

For further information, see the Bassaleg website – wellbeing resources.

Produced date: July 2020

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Bassaleg School (Newport) – Embedding support for Service children through the curriculum