Follow the link to our latest Education Ofsted report.
“Breckenbrough School is a calm and nurturing place. Pupils benefit from warm
relationships and an ethos of positively resolving conflict. This helps them to
regulate and improve their behaviour. Pupils’ experience is significantly enhanced by
their personal keyworker. Pupils trust and respect this adult who supports them.
They are safe and happy in their school. Over time, pupils make strong progress in
their social skills. Older students mentor younger pupils. Pupils from all age groups
enjoy playing sport together at lunchtime.
Pupils enjoy an increasingly effective academic curriculum. They are proud to share
their work and achievements. In the sixth form, students are confident learners.
Several go on to achieve places at prestigious universities. With guidance, pupils set
personal goals. This helps staff match learning and care to pupils’ unique and varied
interests.
Personal development is at the heart of the school’s work. Pupils are carefully
encouraged to become increasingly independent and adventurous. They flourish in
an exceptional outdoor education curriculum. In these weekly sessions, they
experience caving, climbing, canoeing and more. Pupils develop important character
traits. These include teamwork and confidence. They use these transferrable skills to
overcome other challenges in their lives.”
See the link to York College, where we have students supported by our Outreach Team, among the students who gained top grades was Connor Clarke, who has secured a place to study Maths at Oxford University’s Hertford College after gaining four A* grades in Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Chemistry.
For children and young people on the autistic spectrum,
the internet can provide real opportunities for social interaction and learning
as it removes some of the challenges of face to face communication.
Despite this, they can be especially vulnerable to
risks online.
Many of our students have access to electronic
devices, play online games and have social media accounts to communicate with
others. This has a big impact on developing identities, friendships,
relationships, passions and aspirations.
Breckenbrough aims to empower and protect our
students by providing them with the knowledge to stay safe online. In order to
achieve this, it is important that staff, parents and carers have a good
awareness of the risks and dangers too.
Preparing your child to use the Internet
There is a great deal of guidance available on
how to support your child to use the internet safely.
Essential Guidance Includes:
Establish
ground rules with your child about how they can use the Internet, when and for
how long.
Talk
to your child about the kind of things it is ok to look at. A basic rule could
be if I won’t let you watch it on television, it’s not ok to search for it
online.
Ensure
your child knows to come to you or another trusted adult if they see something
that upsets them.
Talk
to your child about the internet and ensure they don’t share personal
information with others online.
Encourage
your child to use a nickname and avatar online and to speak to you or a trusted
adult if personal information is requested.
Agree
that if your child receives an email with an attachment that they will talk to
you before they open it.
Talk
to your child about rules for being polite and kind to others.
Parental control
One way of setting appropriate boundaries
online for your child is by setting controls on devices that connect to the
internet. InternetMatters.org offers a step by step guide to make
it simple and straight forward for parents and carers to set controls on
smartphones, broadband, gaming and social media.
Create a family contract
Decide as a
family how your child can use the internet, when and for how long and write it
down and/or draw pictures. Clearly displaying rules and boundaries will make it
easier for your child to keep themselves safe. Many children on
the autistic spectrum struggle to interpret their own emotions and recognise
risky situations. It’s important that you set clear boundaries for them online
and communicate these in a way they will understand, clearly setting out what’s
ok and what’s not ok.
Get involved
More young people are using the internet to
socialise and grow and it shouldn’t change the way you guide and support them.
Spend time with your child, show an interest in their online lives, talk about what
they’re doing online and reassure them they can approach you if they need
support. A number of our students use social media, I recommend to familiarise
yourself with social media applications so you can show support.
There are some useful websites for
children and young people to access regarding internet safety:
And
useful websites for parents are:
If you’re worried about online abuse or the
way someone has been communicating online, let CEOP know safely and securely by
clicking the link:
A simple name for an organisation with a simple mission. They collect, sort, ship, and distribute books to students of all ages in Africa. Their goal: to end the book famine in Africa.
Books For Africa remains the largest shipper of donated text and library books to the African continent, shipping over 47 million books to all 55 countries on the African continent since 1988. Last year alone, Books For Africa shipped 3.3 million books, and 155 computers and e-readers containing over 400,000 digital books, to 29 African countries. More than $2.7 million was raised last year to ship these books to the students of Africa.
Breckenbrough School are pleased to support this by donating resources no longer required by the school. We are pleased to share the certificate received from them for our latest donation.
We cannot endorse this or any other service but we publish it as a matter of interest to students and families
Family Dog workshops provide parents of children with autism with the advice and long-term support needed for choosing and training a dog to benefit the whole family.
Book a workshop
View our workshop locations and dates for 2020Book nowOur Workshops are ideal if you:
Are at the early stages of considering getting a dog to help your child with autism
Know that you want to get a dog and are looking for help choosing and handling a dog
Already have a pet dog but would like training ideas and support
We run a series of three one day workshops for families. At these you receive a combination of practical demonstrations, discussions, hands on learning and course hand outs. Find out what our workshops cover.
Our specialist advice and support has brought life-changing benefits to whole families. Research has shown that the families we work with have lowered parental stress, they go out more together and children with autism have fewer meltdowns as a result of their pet dog.
Long-term support
Following the workshops, ongoing support is available to families that qualify including telephone support, online resources, and a private Facebook group.
Setting off from the school at midnight is rarely an ideal scenario for a good night’s sleep. Thankfully, most of us managed the odd “petit somme” on the coach. Sitting on a stationary coach whilst shuttling along under the channel is always a surreal experience – I think the students enjoyed it.
We eventually arrived at the largest Aquarium in Europe (rather aptly named “Nausicaa”) in Boulogne. Very impressive it was too…
After the uplifting experience that was “Nausicaa” we managed to find our way back to the errant coach (more of this later….) and on to the more sobering raison d’etre for the trip. The memorial to the Canadian forces at Vimy Ridge near Arras. The scale of the structure is breath-taking, notwithstanding the reason for its existence, the commemoration of the 11,241 (identified) casualties of the Canadian Expeditionary Force who have no known grave.
Another bracing walk brought us back to the coach – thankfully where the driver left it – and on to our modest accommodation, The Chateau de Warsy…
After the evening meal, the lads were taken under the wing of the resident instructors who, somewhat naively, thought they could tire them out. Eventually, we all retired for a much needed sleep.
Day 2 started well, a very continental breakfast of croissants and pain au chocolat. Spurred on by our very time mindful driver, we all boarded the coach and promptly got lost… in the village. Sacre bleu!
On to the town of Albert, rather bizarrely twinned with Ulverston, and the amazing WWI underground museum. We got the feeling that the coach driver thought he was in the Lake District…
On to the extraordinary spectacle that is the “Lochnagar Crater”. The result of the biggest explosion of the entire conflict
“In This distant Land, Will Some Kind Hand, Lay a Flower on His Grave for me”. One of many very sad, poignant epitaphs that surround the entire crater.
The allied miners tunneled for almost 4 miles and laid 60 thousand lbs of amonial explosives under the German fortifications. This was a common practice on both sides and inevitably resulted in huge loss of life.
Some of the students had made porcelain poppies in art. These were laid at the memorial at Thiepval. Again, this a colossal monument to the British troops killed in action on the Somme.
The memorial to the Newfoundland Regiment is an eerie and unsettling place and the scene of a disastrous assault on the German lines. The land on which it lies was bequeathed to the Canadian nation by the French.
Day 3 saw us leaving the splendid chateau and head home via the inevitable visit to the chocolate factory… a place that is notoriously hard to find, especially with a coach driver who obviously hadn’t studied map reading or geography at school.
On eventually arriving close to the channel tunnel, we were met with MILES of trucks queued waiting due to the French Customs holding industrial action – who would have thought? The boys accepted this extremely well, considering we joined this queue of trucks for no apparent reason other than our driver thinking it was a good idea… some three hours later we boarded the shuttle for home!
