Our Welfare Officer is Sarah Cattley:
01892 520562
scattley@templegroveacademy.com
- Available as a first point of contact to parents who have a concern or a worry, to be friendly, helpful and welcoming to parents and others visiting or making contact with the school.
- Liaise with external agencies, such as Children’s Services, Early Help and child health to ensure children at the school and their families are supported
- Part of the team of DSLs.
- Work closely with SLT to implement the behaviour policy and deal with student behaviour issues.
- Manage attendance alongside the Deputy Headteacher and the Office Manager
- Encourage positive relationships with parents, the school and the community.
- Support the emotional well-being of pupils by liaising closely with the play therapist and the counsellor.
ELSA
ELSAs are Emotional Literacy Support Assistants. They are teaching assistants who have had special training from educational psychologists to support the emotional development of children and young people in school. ELSAs help children and young people learn to understand their emotions and respect the feelings of those around them. They provide time and space for pupils to think about their personal circumstances and how they manage them. Pupils are helped to find their own solutions rather than ELSAs telling them what to do.
We have been extremely fortunate to secure funding to train one of our LSAs to become an ELSA. We plan to have this additional support available for our pupils from September 2019.
Play Therapy
Play Therapy provides a safe environment for children to work through what is troubling them. It uses a variety of tools such as clay, puppets, sand, art, craft and drama to help children resolve their difficulties.
Since Term 1, Susie Horton, Play Therapist, has been working with a number of pupils at the school. She is in school every Friday and sees up to six children daily. Children working with Susie have at least 12 weekly sessions working with her.
Tracks
Tracks at Two Bridges School is an alternative educational provision for pupils who are at risk of exclusion.
Tracks develop positive relationships with pupils, their home school and parents/ carers to enable pupils to relearn positive attitudes towards their education. Tracks ‘borrows’ pupils for 12 weeks. For the first 6 weeks, pupils are at Tracks for 4 days and in their home school on the Wednesday. From week 7 there is a progressive reintegration process supporting pupils back to their home schools full time. Schools are fully involved throughout the whole process of this intervention. Individual targets are set, reviewed and evaluated in line with behavioural and learning needs.
Tracks also offer outreach support and some of our pupils are currently benefitting from this.
Speech Bubbles
A number of pupils in the school access Speech Bubbles.
Speech Bubbles was developed by theatre artists working with Southwark Pupil Development Centres, Speech and Language Therapists and schools. The approach encourages children to tell, act out and reflect on their own stories. Speech Bubbles practitioners use a thoroughly proven structure and their expert knowledge of whole body communication to promote children’s communication, confidence and wellbeing. Speech Bubbles sessions are a different kind of experience to a clinical intervention, practitioners work to create a space which is safe, playful and fun.
Gardening
We are hoping to work with volunteers from the area to restore the allotment and polytunnel area to full bloom. We are hopeful that this will lead to gardening opportunities for all and prove to have a therapeutic benefit. As Monty Don the gardener said recently ‘I would argue that there is no other activity available to so many people that sustains as much good health, as gardening.’