GENERAL NEWS NEWS... Leicestershire sees opening of new SEND school
A brand-new specialist school for pupils with Social, Emotional, and Mental Health (SEMH) needs has completed in Shepshed, Leicestershire, offering facilities for students aged 4-16 from September 2024.
Bowman Academy, which is situated on the former site of St Botolph’s Primary School, located to the east of Shepshed on Loughborough Road, will see pupils benefit from a range of facilities to suit their needs. This includes classroom suites with vinyl areas to support practical learning, a sensory “dark room”, practical teaching spaces including a domestic kitchen, a library, a calming room, and a main hall with a demountable stage.
The new build SEND school, which has been designed sympathetically to the needs of SEMH learning, has space for 64 pupils, with facilities for 16 primary-aged children across two ground floor classrooms, with the remaining 48 secondary-aged pupils split across two ground floor classrooms, and a further four on the first floor. The first floor also has an additional three classrooms for practical uses.
Steve Waldron, contracts manager at Bowmer + Kirkland, said: “We have been working for the DfE since 2013 and are proud of the 73 schools we have completed, but specialist schools are unique in the enormous difference they make to the pupils and their families.”
Councillor Deborah Taylor, cabinet member for Children and Families at Leicestershire County Council, said: “It is exciting to see the school completed and we’re looking forward to it opening and welcoming new pupils.
“The building of Bowman Academy is part of a wider programme to ensure provision is available to children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities in Leicestershire, as close to their homes as possible. This includes both the building of special schools and creating provision in mainstream schools.”
James Ellis, CIT’s director of SEND education, said, “This is a very exciting time for Bowman Academy. SEMH is a unique sector of education requiring distinctive building design to support the delivery of specialist teaching and care for pupils.”
Education sector employees more than twice as active as average UK worker
Mental demands of the job aside, working in education can be intense to say the least. Education workers are often reported to work well beyond their contracted hours, and retention rates are declining: in 2022, workforce data showed a record rate of teacher departures in England, with 40,000 quitting the sector.
Despite ever-increasing workloads within the sector, new research from workplace safety experts Altro has found that 81% of education workers in the UK say that the time they spend on their feet at work has a positive effect on their mental health – the most of any industry surveyed. This figure comes as part of a new piece of research from Altro which saw them survey workers across various non-desk-based industries to see where people were spending the most time on their feet at work, as well as the physical effects manual work takes on these workers.
The new research also reveals that education workers are more than two and a half times (2.73) more active at work than the average Brit, with an average of 9,559 steps in a single shift – compared to the average person’s 3,500 (3,000-4,000 is the average in the UK according to previous NHS figures).
Over the course of a career, education workers clock up roughly 90,717,947 steps on their working days – or around 40,634 miles. That’s enough to take a casual stroll down the full length of the world’s longest river, the River Nile in Egypt – nearly TEN times.
When it comes to the mental health affects the length of time spent on their feet during their shift, interestingly, nearly 4 in 5 (79%) education workers say they think it has a positive effect.
Despite the majority of education workers reporting the time spent on their feet at work has a positive effect on their mental health, Altro’s research uncovered a common theme with those in the education sector missing out on exercise, social events and even consulting medical advice as a result of
4
www.education-today.co.uk their physical jobs.
While most education workers think that their physical activity at work has a positive effect on their mental wellbeing, there were some clear physical wellbeing issues: • More than 4 in 5 (82%) say that they don’t drink as much water as they should when at work – the most of any industry.
• However, 58% of education workers say they drink caffeinated drinks to ‘keep them going’ at work.
• 45% say they often skip meals at work because they’re too busy with other work tasks.
• More than half (55%) say they also regularly skip out on exercise because they’re tired from work.
Physical health is important, and Altro’s study found that many education workers reported experiencing some negative physical aches and pains as a result of their job, with nearly one in 5 (18%) taking time off work due to work related pains or injuries.
September 2024
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48
