Clannad School

• Location: London
• Gender: Male & Female
• Age Range: 8 - 17
• Capacity: 5
• Ofsted Rating: Good

Clannad school is a small, intimate learning environment that provides specialist education for pupils with social, emotional, and mental health (SEMH) difficulties, who are residents in Clannad House. The school caters for a maximum of five pupils who are provided with one-to-one support or work in very small groups. Rated Good with Outstanding features by Ofsted in December 2022, Clannad school provides pupils with individualised and bespoke curriculum and timetables to meet their individual needs.

“Pupils at this school succeed and achieve well. They enjoy their lessons and their learning. This is because staff make lessons fun and interesting and help pupils to build up their knowledge.” – Ofsted 2022

Our Mission

To recover, restore and rebuild a child’s journey to success through a trauma-informed and therapeutic educational experience.

Our Vision

Our vision is to develop well-rounded, confident, and responsible individuals who aspire to achieve their full potential. We do this by providing a welcoming, happy, safe, and supportive learning environment in which everyone is equal, and all achievements are celebrated.

“Pupils experience a curriculum that is underpinned by a strong vision and clarity of purpose. This vision runs from senior leaders to those staff working with pupils in classrooms. Pupils’ needs and well-being are at the centre of this vision, which is based on an approach that gives pupils the social and emotional skills that they need to learn.” Ofsted 2022

We believe that a happy child is a successful one. We are committed to providing a positive, safe, and stimulating environment for children to learn, and feel valued. We intend for all children to enjoy their learning, achieve, and become independent life-long learners.

We aim to create and deliver a safe and high-quality educational experience for every student by:

• Providing an aspirational and engaging curriculum that will encourage pupils to learn.
• Ensuring that pupils achieve, no matter their starting point.
• Delivering the highest standards of teaching and learning to ensure excellent progress and achievement.

The Clannad Family

Our children come from all walks of life. We work with each child holistically, not only developing them academically but also morally and socially, to help them on their journey to recovery. The school and the home are situated on the same site, making it easy for the children to access the facilities. Education and Residential staff work seamlessly to provide a safe and nurturing environment where the children can grow and learn, with the support of our Clinical Team which is made up of a clinical psychologist and a clinical therapist who are on-site two days a week.

The School Day

We meet and greet our students at 9am. The first 30 minutes is spent in ‘Early Morning Activity” (EMA) when we catch up on how the pupils are feeling, what is going on in the world around us, the timetable for the day and any key messages, whilst playing a board/ card game, sensory circuit games or yoga.

Formal lessons start at 9:30am. The timetable focuses on core subjects in the morning, with foundation subjects happening in the afternoon. Each lesson lasts about 40 to 45 minutes, with short breaks in between for pupils who require this intervention. After each subject, there is a short break to help the students refocus and refresh.

Points are awarded throughout the day based on personal targets set by the teachers and pupils (these points are then added up to give students weekly certificates, reward time, and termly prizes (vouchers/games/toys) to motivate them to achieve).

The student is at the heart of everything we do. Their bespoke timetable is developed based on Clannad School’s Initial assessment which looks at their Mathematics, English, personal interests, and previous school reports.  From this, our teaching staff plan relevant and engaging activities to meet the needs of each pupil. The National Curriculum and SMSC form the base of our curriculum. Below is an example of a typical day at Clannad School.

Assessment

Assessment is critical to measure the progress of our students. We do this through formative and summative assessments throughout the academic year. Examples include quizzes, tests, and academic and practical challenges. This is carefully used to inform planning and communicated to the relevant team(s). On a practical level, we use “B Squared” and Teacher assessment frameworks (Learning Ladders); these enable us to closely monitor students across all subjects to identify gaps in learning to determine areas for development and track progress.

The assessment results are shared with the students. It is important they understand how they are doing and how to get to the next level. This information is also shared with third parties e.g., social workers and relevant professional bodies, as appropriate, at the end of each term.

Enrichment

Pupils benefit from extra-curricular activities that enrich their learning experience and help promote British values. They learn how to swim at the local leisure centre through one-to-one lessons and join the local library to support and improve their reading skills. Some of the other planned activities include:

• Trips to various adventure centres
• Farm visits
• Trips to places of worship
• Visits to museums
• Talks by the local police to raise awareness of bullying and violent behaviours
• Cultural Day
• Sports Day
• Art & Craft Day

The Curriculum

Clannad School strives to provide an outstanding education for all pupils. The balance between core and foundation subjects is critical. Activities are designed to meet the requirements of the national curriculum, however, the learners require bespoke programmes, hence, they receive a broad, balanced education, that considers the individual differences in their backgrounds, abilities and needs. Cultural capital plays a pivotal role in helping the pupils understand how their learning fits into the real world. At Clannad School, we want every pupil to reach their personal best in everything that they do. This will help them become happy, confident, and responsible young people who are able to live and work alongside others.

“The curriculum for English, mathematics and science is carefully planned so that knowledge and skills are identified and prioritised. A lot of emphasis is put on identifying gaps in pupils’ learning and providing a bespoke experience for each pupil. This helps to ensure that the curriculum covers the learning that pupils have missed.” Ofsted 2022

Subjects:

• Numeracy
• Literacy
• Science

We also offer several foundation subjects, such as:

• Art
• Computing
• Design Technology/Food Technology
• Geography
• History
• PE
• PSHE/RSE

Offsite Curriculum

On Wednesdays, we offer an offsite curriculum that allows pupils to access learning outside of Clannad School, academically, socially, emotionally, and physically. These outdoor provisions enable our pupils to experience a unique blend of activities such as adventure activities, farm education, environmental learning, British heritage sites, and team building among other spiritual, moral, social, and cultural (SMSC) learning opportunities. It has proved to be extremely successful in building self-esteem, developing confidence, increasing motivation, getting active, being healthy, having fun and raising aspirations.

Facilities

Our teaching environment comprises three classrooms. The rooms have been designed to maximise learning and include, private study booths, desktop computers (with controlled Internet access), large TVs and a range of interactive resources.

Emerald Room

The Emerald Room is our main base. The room is outside the residential home and holds four private study booths where each child has access to a desktop computer. It has a large TV and a whiteboard to aid teaching and a table for one-to-one or small group tuition. It’s a spacious room and most of the learning resources are kept here. It is used for assemblies and larger group activities. There’s a well-kept front garden just outside the Emerald Room, with astroturf and a gazebo for outdoor learning/relaxation when the weather is good.

The Cabin

The cabin is our latest addition to Clannad school facilities. It offers 2 classrooms, Sapphire and Amethyst, with large TVs to aid teaching and a table and chairs in each room for one-to-one tuition. Each room also has a bean bag for relaxing and other sensory equipment for children to use to make it a calm and nurturing environment for learning. The children have planted flowers on flower beds beside the cabin, which allows them to take pride and ownership of their space.

Clannad school is a very small intimate school with a maximum capacity of five pupils. Pupils have one-to-one support or work in very small groups.There are designated areas within the school that pupils may use as calming spaces when dysregulated. These include, but are not limited to:

• The front garden, just outside the Emerald room.
• The back garden (climbing frame and swings).
• The reading corner at Ruby room.
• Therapy room.

Trauma-Informed

Clannad staff are trained to work therapeutically, using trauma-informed strategies with pupils, to recognise potential triggers for the individual children they work with. Moreover, Clannad has its own in-house clinical therapist who is available two days a week to support both staff and pupils who may be struggling. All the pupils at Clannad understand that when they need a break or they need to regulate themselves, they can go into the back garden for some self-regulation time.

“Pupils’ behaviour improves hugely during their time at Clannad. While incidents still arise, these become less serious over time. Pupils take greater responsibility for their behaviour and are more switched on to learning.” Ofsted 2022

The Attachment and Trauma-Sensitive Award validates schools that demonstrate a culture of compassion and nurture, fundamental components for getting children into a state of ‘learning readiness’. The award is issued only to providers who can demonstrate they have met its rigorous quality standards.

While a selection of our school policies are available to download, please contact education@five-rivers.org if you can’t find what you’re looking for.