Strive for progress, not perfection.

Welcome to the section of our website which tells you more about Strive @ Red Hall Primary School. 

Here you will find out about our brand new, local authority provision for pupils with Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs (SEMH).

Children who attend Strive are allocated a place through EHCP consultation with the school’s Executive Headteacher, Inclusion Lead and Teacher in Charge, who determine if we are able to meet their needs.

The wonderful things about Strive are:

• We have a purpose built unit, attached to our school for our children to learn in.
• We offer targeted support and intervention for pupils who have SEMH needs.
• Pupils are taught by highly qualified and experienced staff in small groups which focus on meeting their emotional and learning needs 
• Pupils are placed on roll at Red Hall Primary School and able to access our mainstream classroom lessons, as well as social opportunities with their peers, when they are able to.
• We offer a bespoke timetable, focusing on therapeutic interventions in the afternoon.

Strive Staffing Team

Executive Head Teacher – Ms Julie Davidson

Teacher in Charge/Strive Class 2 Teacher – Mrs Katie Jaitay

Strive Class 1 Teacher – Mr Ryan Todd

Teaching Assistants – Mrs Nicole Heseltine and Mr Luke Upex

Apprentice – Mr Ethan Brown

 

Our Therapeutic Offer

Lego Therapy

LEGO-Based Therapy is a social development program that uses LEGO activities to support the development of a wide range of social skills within a group setting.

Often, children have specific roles which they must adhere to such as a `supplier`, `builder` and `director`.

This is sometimes adapted in Strive as children enjoy building things of their own choosing and assisting each other with these builds.

Through accessing these sessions, children learn tocommunicate and engage with one another in a respectful manner. They learn to be resilient when things don’t go as planned, but moreover, the session teach them problem solving skills and how to work in a team. 

Playing with LEGO in a therapy setting promotes social interaction, turn-taking skills, sharing, collaborative problem-solving and the learning of concepts. It can be used to target goals around social skills, language and motor skills. By using a commonly adored tool like LEGO it capitalises on its existing motivation and supports self-esteem by allowing the participants to demonstrate their skills in a social situation. It also sets up a positive opportunity for guided social problem-solving to help develop social skills that can then be used in other situations. SEMH children sometimes find it challenging to understand what is expected of them in a social situation, particularly within unstructured play activities. LEGO-Based Therapy provides a highly structured environment where everyone plays a specific role within the group. This can help children feel calm and relaxed as they are doing something that they enjoy and know precisely what to expect and what is expected of them.

ELSA Therapy

ELSA sessions are bespoke. They are aligned to each individual or group, these sessions should be one, 30-minute session per week and should last 6-8 weeks. An ELSA session should be in the same area, at the same time, on the same day each week – consistency is important.

An ELSA’s aim is to remove the barriers to learning and to have happy children at school and home.

ELSA’s are trained and regularly supervised by the Educational Psychologists in the Local education Authority.

An ELSA can help children with loss and bereavement, self-esteem, social skills, emotions, friendship issues, relationships, anger management, behaviour, anxiety, bullying, conflict and relaxation techniques. 

An ELSA gives children coping strategies or ways of changing their thinking pattern, giving the child time to feel listened to and valued.

Drawing and Talking Therapy

Drawing and Talking is a therapeutic intervention for children, young people and adults. It is designed as a short-term, time limited, pro-active intervention intended to complement, rather than replace, the work of specialist mental health services. 

Through a 12-week cycle of 30-minute one-to-one sessions, this non-intrusive tool allows children, young people and adults to process emotional pain resulting from trauma. The child or adult utilises drawing as a way to help them express their feelings differently from ordinary verbal language. 

Sports Skills

Focusing on improving children’s mental health and teaching them new sports and activities.

We are also working on regulation during these sessions and teaching the children to work successfully as part of a team in small groups and being a “Good Winner” and not a “Sore loser”.

Each session we focus on a different word, these include:

• Honesty
• Belief
• Teamwork
• Passion
• Respect
• Determination

We also are working on fine and gross motor skills throughout.

Essential life skills such as etiquette, sportsmanship, and perseverance are taught through sports activities, which can then be applied beyond the sports context. Physical and mental health are closely aligned, we aim to improve self-management and growth skills.

Forest School

A large majority of children in Strive, access at least one forest school session a week – Specifically, children who benefit and tend to work better in an outdoor environment. The children mainly work within the same group consisting of no more than 4 children – this is beneficial as it ensures children can work effectively in small groups and I myself, can too observe children on a 1:1 basis when working in the forest school environment.  

Children access various areas of learning, such as: Mathematics; English; Science; SEMH related tasks and activities, as well as plenty of other non- core subject related areas of learning, developing their listening and social skills. 

Sessions tend to start with 5 minutes of play in our woodland area, followed by a 20- 30 minute task, and 5 minutes of play at the end. 

I have found that many children look forward to these outdoor sessions. Children can verbally explain the benefits of working outdoors and regulating emotions in an outdoor environment. I asked two children the following: why is the outdoors a good space to regulate? 

Child 1 – “Birds’ tweet, it’s nice to be in nature and the environment is calming you can sit in a nice area and think of good things to do, then when you’re calm you can go back and make things right again.”

Child 2 – “It’s nice outside, it’s also quiet which helps to relax your mind.”

THEME NEWS

In Class 1 with Mr Todd we are exploring the question “What makes leaders great?” researching around the changing power of Monarchs.

In Class 2 with Mrs Jaitay this term we are learning about Romans exploring “What did the Romans ever do for us?” Looking at inventions that have evolved from the Roman Empire.

PE

• Our PE days are every Tuesday and Thursday alongside the whole school. Children will participate in PE lessons where appropriate with their year group.
• Swimming Year 5- Thursday
• Swimming Year 6- Friday