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Teaching and Learning

At Broadwalk PRU, we inspire our pupils to challenge themselves at all times. We provide a positive atmosphere where everyone is encouraged to achieve their personal best. We provide opportunities for our pupils to be capable of making personal choices and to be lifelong learners. We aim to involve families, pupils, young people, staff and other visiting professionals to ensure every learner achieves their best.

We provide inspiring lessons that build upon the prior assessment of the pupils, and aim to provide a safe environment where all learners achieve. There is a broad and balanced curriculum, which is differentiated to suit all our pupils. Challenging and measurable targets are set which are designed to stretch our pupils.

Teaching and learning is a priority at our school, as is the care and welfare of all our pupils. We have high expectations for behaviour and all our staff use positive behaviour management strategies. 

Staff are asked to identify their own training needs based on the cohort they are teaching. The senior leadership team will provide staff training as required, but staff are encouraged to stay up-to-date with new research concerning teaching.

Please take a look at the frequently asked questions below about Teaching and Learning at Broadwalk Green.

What additional support can be provided in the classroom?

At Broadwalk PRU we have a number of support staff who work with the young people to assist and support the teacher. This is often a Teaching Assistant (TA) (who is an additional member of staff) who works under the direction of a teacher or a Higher Level Teaching Assistant (HLTA). TAs work with small groups and on a 1:1 basis with pupils who need extra help with their learning and/ or behaviour. They try to do this by supporting their development of concepts and vocabulary and reinforcing the learning following a lesson. They will also provide opportunities to have additional practice in a particular subject area, or working through differentiated materials with them. TAs assist with developing pupils’ social skills give them strategies to help control their behaviour, if this is an area of difficulty. We have a teaching assistant assigned to each form group, as well as a learning mentor to support them until they move on to mainstream or specialist provision. If your child had a high level of TA support in their previous school or setting, we would like you to tell us. We have a team of 5 TAs who work across the PRU; 1 HTLA, 2 TA3s and 2 TA2s.

In addition to TAs we also have a team of Learning Mentors. 2 are pastoral mentors who work closely with the pupils offering support and one to one tutorials and 1 is a reintegration mentor, who supports pupils who are moving onto a new mainstream school as well as pupils who are having difficulties in their current educational provision.

At Broadwalk PRU class sizes are small in order to meet the needs of the pupils, this is to offer extra support and help them in class to make progress in lessons for their level.

What provision do you offer to facilitate access to the curriculum and to develop independent learning?

All our teachers are required to plan lessons that all of pupils can access. When a young person starts at the PRU, they are expected to complete baseline assessments in English (which will include a spelling and reading test), Maths, Science and ICT. They will also complete a questionnaire on how they feel they learn best, this is called a learning style questionnaire. This assessment information allows the staff team to understand each pupil's starting point and to plan the next step for them. If a pupil has barriers to learning, the teacher will meet with the support staff to make adjustments to overcome them. Sometimes teachers need help to do this so they may work with another teacher who has more expertise in the subject being taught or they may ask the school's SEN Coordinator (SENCO).

The SENCO may carry out additional assessments or tests to find out more about the pupil’s learning difficulties so that the curriculum and teaching can be further tailored to enable them to make progress.

If the SENCO thinks we need more advice about how to help your child learn, we will talk to you about this. We sometimes ask for advice from other specialists, such as Educational Psychologists, Speech and Language Therapists or specialist Advisory Teachers whose expertise could be in a more specialised area for example Asperger’s Syndrome or ADHD. The advice these professionals give is used to inform teaching and learning. We record the strategies we are using in a Provision Map which is an individual plan for your child to help them to make progress and improve their behaviour. This will be written by a team of teachers and support staff within school. This will also be shared with you and evaluated on a termly basis.

Some pupils need particular pieces of equipment to help them work and learn more independently. In our school we have:

  • A range of different types of pens, pencils and grips to help with handwriting
  • Some pupils may need alternative means of recording so they sometimes use a laptop or computer
  • We have sets of coloured overlays that help some pupils see text more clearly

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