Our learning place is exactly the learning place your child needs.
All of the parents and carers we work with report the same experience: low school attendance due to SEND, EBSNA, health issues and/or anxiety, with no suitable place for their child to learn in and belong.
They want an education offer that is:
Flexible
Supportive
Bespoke
Specialist
Strengths and interests based
Understanding of mental health needs, the barriers they create and the current inability for their child to attend and integrate happily.
And that's why we made BCE.
BCE = Benevolent Childhood Experiences
“The relational care [she] has received at BCE will become part of the narrative she carries forward: the memory of people who understood her, believed in her and helped her reconnect with her own strength. These moments often feel ordinary at the time, but for young people navigating challenge, they become the life‑shaping ones.”
Maple and Me: The immeasurable power of a Walk and Talk for young people with SEND.
‘She has been relaxed and willing to engage. Compared to her trying to attend a mainstream college. Totally different behaviour and a pleasure to see. The first time for a long while I've seen her be so positive and willing around education.’ (Post-16 Parent Carer)
Establishing trust is the first movement towards our learners being able to join the steady stream of wanting to return to learning, and that’s our specialism here at BCE.
Not making something that will be helpful to children with SEND, simply because nobody has made it before, is no reason not to make it.
What we have made here at BCE is a safe learning place to belong in. Where strong trusting relationships are the only factor worth measuring and assessing daily and, learners come not just to learn but to be a part of something they own and care for. It is productive, creative, aspirational, inspiring and valuable and as such it adds immeasurable value to their part in the world.
Online learning doesn’t need to be distanced learning.
Our remote learning offer is designed in the same way as an in-person lesson - with a maximum of four individuals in mind and their experiences, aspirations and strengths setting the direction of the lesson.
Every online lesson is led by the young person’s key adult who is based at our Ashburton studios and they meet in person half-termly, minimum. Live feedback, support and challenge along with real-time intervention, genuine interactions and relevant next steps are all at the centre of an online lesson with BCE.
It’s simply not acceptable to use the words ‘Make Them’, when it comes to Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance.
For children with a history of absence from education, the only ‘making’ we do at BCE is in our creative arts studios. With specialist staff facilitating the practical, expressive, vocational (and often messy) lessons, our learners find themselves just Choosing to join us.
Making, persuading, expecting and our least favourite, ‘getting them to’, are just not words belonging in our organisations’ vocabulary and highly successful Belonging Strategy.