The not-so-simple journey back to school
MORAL DUTIES, risk assessments, class bubbles, conflicting scientific evidence, second spikes… for families up and down the country, going back to school this September is going to be a little more complex than just popping out for a new pair of shoes and a pencil case.
As a result of this uncertainty, many children are displaying the impact of the coronavirus crisis on an emotional level. Which is why, for organisations such as Norwood — and its Children and Families division in particular — the past few months have been key for both imagining and implementing the services that will be needed.
As Sue Cohen, Norwood’s psychological therapies manager, puts it: “We have been pushed to do things differently and have really sharpened our flexible and creative side.”
Norwood has covered all stages of the school journey. For children preparing to start in reception, the charity’s occupational therapy team created a six-week structured programme called Get Ready, Get Set. Run over the summer holidays, Get Ready, Get Set was introduced to ease the transition that would ordinarily be smoothed by existing childcare or nursery routines.
For children who have experienced
Get Ready, Get Set, the unfamiliarity of new school routines and set-ups will not be an issue. But what of those pupils whose schools will feel somewhat different and who have already been affected by the loss of routine and seeing their friends? To help these children, Norwood has partnered Heads Up Kids and PaJes (Partnership for Jewish Schools) to provide the Back 2 School programme, a framework for schools “to support [children] to reconnect, rebuild relationships and make sense of what has happened and where we are now”.
This programme has been downloaded more than 170 times and will be widely used when the school gates reopen.
For children who will find going back to the classroom even more challenging, Norwood is also providing Back on Track, a short-term art and drama therapy group, once a week for six weeks, starting in October.
“These groups will be aimed at the more vulnerable,” says Cohen, “children who may find it hard to regulate their feelings and find the concentration needed for learning.”
But while all that expert support, advice and assistance will be invaluable, there will still be some children whose barriers to learning necessitate further intervention.
Daniel Stavrou, Norwood’s education manager, says: “For children who have been diagnosed with some form of special educational need or are simply presenting with social and emotional behavioural challenges, Norwood’s special educational needs service, Binoh, is putting in place a new specialist provision.
“The need for this sort of support often becomes visible around year four. Until then, the child might have been able to mask their difficulties.”
Some of these challenges may have come to light when parents were home-schooling — as behavioural patterns that might have been easier to hide in classes of up to 30 pupils quickly became apparent.
Norwood has always had a small specialist unit, but the plan now, says Stavrou, is “to provide four morning sessions every week that will present a time-bound intervention, focused entirely on reintegrating these children back to school after one or, in some cases, two terms”. This vital work will be undertaken only with the full support of each child’s school. “When we unlock what works well with each child, the idea is to hand these findings over to the school,” says Stavrou. “We want schools to work with us around what’s best for each child.
“We appreciate that taking a child out of school is not an ideal scenario,” he adds. “There is always going to be a social cost associated with that. But the truth is, sometimes, going back to school could actually exacerbate the ongoing difficulties.
“So before we initiate this intervention, we ask ourselves: is this step justified by the potential to re-engage this child with learning? If the answer is yes, we begin this process.”
This highly specialised work will be done in a small group setting with two permanent, qualified and experienced special needs teachers and further input from other practitioners, such as Norwood’s speech and language therapists and an educational psychologist. As well as the lessons, built around the core curriculum and tailor-made for each pupil, the programme is designed to enhance social resilience and emotional wellbeing.
The months ahead will be an exceptionally busy time across the charity’s team of child specialists and education experts. But Norwood, the UK’s largest Jewish charity for families in crisis and adults with learning disabilities or autism, is well equipped to deal with the ever-changing education landscape.
“We believe that, however disengaged from learning a child might have become, everyone has the ability to learn and grow,” says Stavrou.
And it is precisely this — Norwood’s “no child left behind” ethos — that will prove rather more vital to the community’s wellbeing over the coming months and years than any shiny new pair of school shoes ever could.
We support children to reconnect, rebuild relationships’