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.”
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:
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.
Please see below a link to an article about PDA.
We cannot vouch for the website this article is hosted on or the other content on this website but this article maybe of interest to you.
Owing to the extreme weather conditions the decision has been made to close the school to all students and staff, as of lunch time on Thursday 1st March 2018. Read more
The charity DEMAND Design & Manufacture for Disability is to produce a specialist sensory rocking chair to help the students at Breckenbrough.
The project has been supported by the Co-op Local Community Fund, with local people’s kind support, have raised the £1134.00 needed to make this chair.
Each chair is built to accommodate the needs of children and teenagers with autism and other sensory processing disorders using a fabric hood to restrict light and sound input. The chair provides a safe place that students can learn to go when the stresses of the day simply get too much, meaning the children can recharge, recollect themselves and better cope with sensory overload.
A huge thanks to DEMAND, Co-op Local Community Fund and all the kind donations to the Co-op Local Community Fund to enable the school to receive this fantastic resource in the new year!
