Vision & Values

The vision for The Wherry School is to provide the highest quality education, support and care for children and young people with autism (social communication and imagination, communication and interaction disorders) and their families.  The Wherry School staff are committed to providing the best learning environment for these children and young people (from 4-19) working within four main principles, creating a Centre of Expertise, which will extend opportunities for learners at The Wherry School and enable the inclusion and re-integration of them, where appropriate, into mainstream settings.  The principles on which the school is built are:

• The ‘individualisation’ of any delivery of the curriculum to the learners and the expectation to build on strengths but always looking to progress
• A ‘Holistic Pathway’ that recognises that every learner will take a unique journey through their education and personal development. 
• That ‘identification and assessment’ is crucial to plan and meet the needs of learners. 
• That ‘family support’ will be in place to support the learner in all environments

(This statement acknowledges the obligation to provide an individualised but broad, balanced and challenging curriculum for all pupils. The Trustees of The Wherry School value the abilities and achievements of all its pupils and are committed to providing, for each pupil, the best possible environment for learning)

Aims

• The Wherry School Trust puts children and young people at the centre of everything that it does, recognising that to achieve the best outcomes we:
• Always view children as individuals and in a positive manner. We believe in
  ‘unconditional positive regard’ and ensure that this is practised by all members of The Wherry Community.
• Adopt compassionate approaches. We seek to empathise with our students by
  listening to them and seeing things from their perspective.
  Seek to understand our students, so we can take action which is well informed and in their best interest.
• Use a ‘Positive Behaviour Support Framework’ which seeks to understand why
  children sometimes behave in a way that challenges.
• Use evidence based methods to improve children’s quality of life.
• Recognise that our children have emotional well-being needs which are not always expressed overtly. We seek to understand and remove all barriers to learning and personal progress.
• Take a holistic view of learning. As well as a child’s academic journey we work on supporting all areas of their lives, including emotional, social and psychological development.
• Accept that even when the journey may be hard and challenging, with many ‘ups and downs’, we will continue to try to find a way through that works for each child.
• Look to involve everyone in order to meet the needs of our students. We value each other, our staff, our students, their parents and carers, and recognise that a child’s journey can only be improved by working together so everyone feels valued!
• We aim for every child to achieve their full potential academically and personally so that they can make a significantly positive impact to the world around them