VIEW FROM THE CLASSROOM
Intensive Interaction, Sensory Diets and Profiling and the Use of Visuals, alongside a whole school focus on inclusion strategies supported by the EEF. This has been crucial in upskilling all our teachers and support staff to ensure they feel confident in meeting pupils’ needs, but also so our families and children feel fully supported.
What has been the impact on pupils’ learning?
We’re at the start of our journey, but the transformation has been profound already. Whilst academic progress is crucial, SEND success can be hard to measure and requires an additional set of metrics. Using the Autism Education Trust framework, we can track wellbeing, engagement, and happiness. As a result, we’ve seen improvements across the areas which are harder to measure, including regulation at school and at home, social interaction, and confidence. In addition, disruptions in mainstream classrooms have reduced dramatically, attendance has improved, and most importantly, our pupils are visibly more settled and engaged, with many demonstrating newfound confidence in both structured lessons and play-based activities. It has been amazing to see children who were previously withdrawn now participating actively in lessons and play. Parents and carers tell us their children are more regulated at home and excited to come to school. Our teachers feel more confident too, with the support and enhanced knowledge and training to support all pupils.
What’s next for The Orchard? We see The Orchard as a continually growing, evolving part of our school, not a static project. Looking ahead, we’re working to expand its reach to support even more pupils across the school and further embed inclusive practice throughout our community.
We’ll continue to invest in leading training for our staff, work closely with our families to understand their needs, and explore ways we can help lead the way for other small schools to provide effective inclusive support for pupils with SEND.
already, we recognised that for some children, even highly differentiated classroom support wasn’t enough. We needed something more tailored. We wanted to give all our children a dedicated space that offered calm, structure, and connection – whilst ensuring they stayed a core part of our school community.
This was encouraged by BDAT’s ongoing work to build inclusive provision across the Trust as part of our ICARE values, which underpin each school’s approach. As an example, this is embedded into BDAT’s continuous professional development programme which is informed by the Educational Endowment Foundation’s (EEF) five key principles of good quality SEND teaching in mainstream classrooms. This has empowered every teacher and teaching assistant across BDAT to have the skills, knowledge and confidence to adapt their practice and interventions to support our children with additional needs across their learning.
How did you go about creating the space? Our journey started with sheer determination and the bold decision to repurpose our no longer used IT suite into a bespoke space. With
May 2025
support from BDAT, we secured additional capital funding, which enabled us to install essential features like changing facilities and ensured we met robust safeguarding measures. We also got creative to find cost-effective solutions. For example, we repurposed unused furniture and fundraised through our Christmas and Summer Fairs to gather additional funding for the project. We also took our time to get it right, initially only opening one room before opening the second room a term later, and The Orchard Garden over the summer. Throughout, we worked closely with educational psychologists and the local authority to ensure the space evolved with the children’s needs, understanding that The Orchard would be an ongoing journey. Our team visited and learned from other schools within the Trust and beyond, considering how their approaches might work within Shipley as part of a community-driven approach.
We worked hard to integrate the new space within our wider school community and bring everyone on the journey. We reviewed and enhanced our professional development opportunities to include additional training on
How can other schools set up something similar?
If you’re thinking about setting up your own bespoke provision, you’re already on the right path. Whilst there are significant challenges facing small schools across the sector, keeping your vision at the centre is essential in ensuring your space is a success and leaning into the support from your Trust or local authority as well as that of your community. Your teachers and leaders know your children best, so it’s important to reflect on what your children really need and how you can help create the best support. From our experience, start small and targeted; be creative in making it work; and maximise opportunities for collaboration across your communities. It’s equally important to invest in your people – carve out time and space for colleagues to develop their knowledge and listen carefully to your families. Much of what works so well in The Orchard was co-created with our pupils. While our journey is only beginning, our experience shows that small schools can adopt innovative approaches to inclusivity that make a significant difference to pupils and school communities, despite the challenges.
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