More Than Ed Independent SEMH School
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More Than Ed is a 'Good School' (Ofsted - July 2022)
Our Vision
"Creating a culture of nurture, confidence and self-worth where children can grow"
Our Ethos
Relational
Trauma-Informed
Relational
We aim to ensure that all members of More Than Ed Independent School relate to each other with repect, kindness, empathy and good humour.
Nurturing
Trauma-Informed
Relational
Our approach allows our young people to engage with missed early nurturing experiences, giving them the social and emotional skills to deal with the trials and tribulations of life, for life.
Trauma-Informed
Trauma-Informed
Trauma-Informed
We understand how trauma affects the brain and the lives of young people, therefore, every student always has their 'available adult' creating a safe environment, where they can learn to regulate and study.
Our Approach
We believe that all behaviour is communication, and that young people will often exhibit extreme behaviours when they become anxious or feel unsafe in their surroundings. This makes it almost impossible for some young people to succeed in a mainstream school, as their underdeveloped Executive Functioning Skills result in their working memory, their ability to concentrate, and their problem-solving skills being severely impaired.
For any young person to learn, self-regulate, and develop socially, they must initially feel safe and secure; they must feel confident that the adults around them will protect them from situations that make them highly anxious, and that they will support them in learning to understand their emotions and anxieties.
By building an ethos of mutual trust and respect between staff and students, we have no need for sanctions or rewards, and we pride ourselves on never having used physical restraint on any young person. We never use restorative practice or force a young person to relive a stressful situation or incident; this simply serves to retraumatise them.
Our trauma-informed practices ensure we give all our young people the best possible chance of developing their resilience, self-esteem, and good mental health, with all staff being fully trained in Trauma-Informed Practice, ACEs, Attachment Theory, and Nurture Principles.
More than 50% of our students are residing in Local Authority Care (LAC), post-adoption or living under either an SGO or Kinship Order. As the proprietors have previously fostered young people, they are acutely aware of the challenges faced by this particular cohort, and we have become specialists in this area.
Learning at More Than Ed
Maths
PSHE & RSE
English
Students study four key areas in Maths:
- Money
- Time
- Measure
- Number
The vast majority of our students work towards sitting Functional Skills examinations in Year 11. We offer Entry Level and Level 1 and L2 examinations: the appropriate level will be chosen specifically to meet the ability and the engagement of the student.
Our more able students may be offered a GSCE Pathway in Maths, however, their successful completion of this course will always depend on their mental health and engagement levels. Academic ability is sadly not always enough to study at GCSE level.
English
PSHE & RSE
English
Our English Progression Map is set out to meet the individual needs of our students. We have devised a route for progression feeding into Functional Skills qualifications at the end of year 11. Aspects of the National Curriculum are integrated in the Progression Map, and this allows young people to drop in at their level on reaching KS4.
As with Maths, more able students may study a broader curriculum towards sitting English Language GCSE. Again, this will depend upon their mental health and engagement.
PSHE & RSE
PSHE & RSE
PSHE is constructed using the PSHE Association Framework. The curriculum covers; Self Awareness, Self-care, Support and Safety, Managing feelings, Changing and Growing, Healthy lifestyles, EDI and British Values.
RSE is taught in line with the the National Curriculum, however, is adapted to suit the learning needs and vulnerabilities of our cohort.
Physical Education
Physical Challenge is offered at More Than Ed in line with the National Curriculum. We cover a wide range of activities including Football, Cricket, Basketball, Athletics, and Rounders. We also offer Yoga, Core Stability and Gym activities for students unable to access the full PE curriculum, and all activities can be accessed on either a 1:1 basis or in a small group.
Due to the nature of our students' social needs and mental health, we aim for all sport to be non-contact and non-competitive.
KS2/3 Science
KS2/3 Science
KS2/3 science will support students' understanding of the world around them, including plants, everyday materials, seasonal change, animals including humans and the human body.
The curriculum aims to equip students with the confidence to ask questions and the skills to begin to find their own answers.
Through building knowledge and key skills, we hope that our students will embark on an exciting journey of discovery and engagement with the world around them.
KS4 Science
KS2/3 Science
KS4 Science will support students with their further study of the world around us including the human body, life skills and safety.
The curriculum is modelled around the AQA Unit Award Scheme which allows students to achive short qualifications through a range of skills.
Due to the nature of our students, we aim to support individual needs to create a more bespoke curriculum. Students are encouraged to study in groups to develop better communication, problem solving and sequencing skills.
History
Geography
KS2/3 History aims to provide students with a solid understanding of their place as citizens of the World. Beginning with local places, events and people of historical significance, students can start to appreciate the historical wonders of their local area, understand their place in history and then begin to ask questions about events that have shaped our World.
In KS4, students build upon thier previos studeies and work towards AQA Units of Achievement. Students also have the opportunity to further their studies during enrichment time.
Geography
Geography
KS2/3 Geography begins by encouraging students to look at the natural world in their locality, and then gradually work outwards.
We want our students to be able to find their way around, give directions in various ways, and to be presented with the awe and wonder the World has to offer. We hope that Geography will spark an interest in students to travel widely and discover more.
In KS4, students build upon their previous studies and work towards AQA Units of Achievement. Students also have the opportunity to further their studies during enrichment time.
Focus Friday
Executive Functioning
Focused Friday is a suite of creative lessons celebrating important events in the Cultural Calendar. These sessions have been designed to develop students' understanding of equality, diversity, inclusion, and British Values.
Seeking to build students' Cultural Capital, this subject offers them an excellent opportunity to address topical issues from a Social, Moral, Spiritual and Cultural perspective.
Executive Functioning
Philosophy for Children
Executive Functioning
All our students suffer from Executive Dysfunction to some degree. This is caused by such things as adverse childhood experiences, ADHD, developmental delay or poor mental health. This can result in an inability to manage their own emotions, thoughts and actions. Symptoms may be a weak working memory, difficulties with concentration and organisation, poor problem-solving skills, and issues with controlling their emotions.
In order to develop their Executive Functioning Skills, students participate in a variety of fun activities and challenges that allow them to test and practice some of these core skills. These activities are currently focused on developing;
- Attention and listening
- Communication
- Planning and problem solving
- Sequencing
Philosophy for Children
Philosophy for Children
Philosophy for Children
Philosophy for Children sessions are all about encouraging our young people to communicate, to debate, to listen, and to consider other people's points of view.
These weekly sessions provide students and staff with the opportunity to work in small groups and share their ideas and opinions on a range of engaging and topical subjects.
Subjects for discussion may include questions such as:
- Is it ever ok to kill?
- Do all animals have equal rights?
- Are all drugs harmful?
- Do adults always know best?
- Coulld robots do every job that a human can?
Enrichment/Offsite Activities
Enrichment/Offsite Activities
Enrichment/Offsite Activities
Our extensive offer of offsite visits and onsite enrichment activities helps our students to build their social and cultural capital, enabling them to grow in confidence. We support our students to engage with a wide range of social settings, working alongside peers and external groups to establish a broad knowledge and skills base around topics that interest them.
Enrichment activities can include:
Cooking, music lessons, Gym, Bike Shack, community/vocational activities
Offsite visits include:
Local sites of historical significance, museums, areas of natural beauty, orienteering, exploration and survival skills.
Reading for Pleasure
Enrichment/Offsite Activities
Enrichment/Offsite Activities
All students engage in daily reading sessions, as reading is a priority within our curriculum. To encourage our young people to read for pleasure, we have carefully selected reading materials to suit each student's individual interests.
Blackwell Books, the largest academic and specialist bookseller in the UK, make regular visits to our school in order to select the individual books we require to keep our library dynamic and current. This ensures that our collection includes books from all genres and accommodates all reading abilities
Success and Achievement @ More Than Ed
Judging success at More Than Ed requires a fundamentally different approach. We work with students who have experienced severe trauma, whose progress rarely follows predictable patterns, and for whom a single day without crisis can represent a significant achievement. Traditional measures of success are focussed on linear academic progress and standardised outcomes and fail to capture the complex, often invisible progress our students make in emotional regulation, trust-building, and trauma recovery.
Success in our context means something profoundly different. We measure success not just in academic terms, but in a student's growing ability to trust adults, their willingness to attempt new learning despite past failure, or their capacity to remain in their own room for a full session without becoming dysregulated.
Quality of education is always a priority for us, therefore we ensure we maintain the highest standards of therapeutic education whilst providing robust evidence to regulators, commissioners, and families that our approaches are effective. We balance the need for rigorous monitoring of student progress with an understanding that forcing our square pegs into round holes of traditional measurement would both misrepresent our work and potentially harm our students by imposing inappropriate expectations.
Success at More Than Ed encompasses the development of safe, trusting relationships between traumatised children and the adults who support them. It values progress that is relative to individual starting points rather than standardised benchmarks, understanding that a student learning to accept praise represents greater progress than another student achieving a GCSE or A’Level. It integrates therapeutic approaches with learning, recognising that emotional regulation must come before academic achievement, and that for many of our students, successful emotional regulation IS the achievement.