ISLE OF WIGHT
Many of our students have rejected traditional schools for many different reasons, and so our approach is to provide an educational setting that doesn’t look and feel like a school.
Our main Isle of Wight site is on the Riverway Industrial Park. It is set back away from the road and is a private detached building with a garden to the rear. It has various indoor areas, including multiple relaxed classrooms, a food tech kitchen, a large indoor recreation room and fully accessible toilets.
The building is set out in such a way as to inspire young people to want to come in.
This is set up as an indoor venue suitable for subject-specific lessons, and where students can drop in to make use of the facilities and use it as a base to then head off to do other activities, visits or project-based learning.
OUR CURRICULUM
Our curriculum is based on engaging young people with learning by inspiring an interest in the world around them. We use project-based learning and individual interests to build an intrinsic motivation based on progressively increasing positive associations.
When appropriate, we provide explicit lessons appropriate to the young persons identified needs. We conduct comprehensive baseline assessments using a range of assessment tools and background information from previous settings and external professionals.
We aim to provide awards and certificates that support and enhance future outcomes. These include functional skills, GCSE, Open Awards regulated vocational awards and AQA unit awards.
STAFF APPROACH
We passionately believe in the transformative power of the outdoors. We utilise the stunning natural environment which surrounds us to engage, challenge and excite the young people we work with and as a vehicle to explore concepts such as risk, relationships and resilience.
At OEA Alternative Education, we see each young person as an individual who needs a distinct approach and strategy to re-engage them with education and learning. OEA Alternative Education prides itself on designing a curriculum to match the young person rather than expecting them to fit the curriculum. Young people who have had limited engagement in other settings will not only find an entire academic timetable too stressful and demanding, causing them to disengage, but it will not meet their social, emotional, and behavioural development needs.
Targets, participation and engagement are monitored daily for all young people, with our ‘School Information Management’ system being used to record instances of both positive and negative learning and engagement. This allows staff to evidence and evaluate the effectiveness of any intervention and adjust it accordingly.
TESTIMONIALS
I have seen real positive change in AA and he now appears to want to increase and start to engage in his learning opportunities. It goes without saying how you have all helped to shape him with your involvement into his education package.
So refreshing that he is self-motivated to get out of bed and come to the OLC. He has never been a child that felt able to do this even from Primary School. It’s always been a struggle to get him to school. He now just wants to come!
CC really enjoyed it and it has helped us engage him in a more meaningful way today. He has even been able to accept negative information from us and his carers. I know it is early days but I get the sense he was grateful for having the opportunity and it really helped build a sense that as adults we are here for him.