Our setting is committed to supporting our students and their families. A member of the Senior Leadership Team is usually available to talk to parents /carers throughout the working day during term time. If this is not possible, a return call before the end of the working day will be made by the pastoral mentor or Senior Leader.

‘Quality First Teaching’ is an entitlement for all students. Ad Astra Alternative Provision constantly strives to ensure that this is of a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ quality at all times. This is about mentors and education tutors meeting the needs of all our learners in all our activities. Sessions are carefully differentiated to take account of different learning styles and abilities. All staff are fully informed about student’s starting point using prior attainment data and relevant learning history. There is an ethos of continued professional development embedded in our setting to ensure that all staff members are trained and informed of new developments in education and in particular developments in the teaching of students with a broad spectrum of Special Educational Needs.

A wide variety of strategies are used to provide support for students across our alternative curriculum. The following interventions and methods currently exist:

• Differentiation of tasks, resources and outcomes

• In-class support (assistant mentors)

• Individualised support sessions for English, Maths

• Life skills/PSE social skills/behaviour sessions

• Use of IT facilities to support preferred learning styles.

• Access Arrangements for students with specific needs for internal and external assessments

For many students, changes to the way that the curriculum is delivered can make a significant impact on removing the barriers to their learning and make the expected progress. This is done in the following ways

• simplifying the language used to explain ideas and work

• developing an engaging, active and interesting scheme of work,

• tailoring activities to try and take into account specific interests

• In some cases it may be necessary to develop very personalised schemes of work or timetables.

• If appropriate, Ad Astra will include vocational sessions if it is felt this will benefit individual students, particularly in terms of progression post 16. We  currently work in collaboration with The Contracting Company (land based contracting work), York Council, Natural England and others to provide opportunities for students with require a greater amount of personalisation in their timetable.

Mentors and tutors plan to meet individual needs on a daily basis in order to ensure that all the students in the group can make the most of their learning experiences and make outstanding progress.

Some students may require interventions which are ‘additional to and different from’ that which is normally provided for all students in the classroom. This will be discussed with you during the review process. Typically the intervention will be to support an identified need such as developing reading, writing, maths or communication skills.  The work carried out is monitored by the SENCO and delivered by additional staff involvement both individually and in whole group sessions.