Our Vision
Our ambition is to unlock the potential of all children because every young life is special.
We want students to leave The Compass School open to possibility and gifted with the potential to change the world for the better.
We have high expectations of all students and believe that with the right support every student can succeed at The Compass School, enabling them to contribute to society and live healthy and fulfilled lives.
At The Compass School, our Wellness Curriculum runs alongside the Academic Curriculum.
The Wellness Curriculum focusses on the five aspects of human experience that keeps us all well:
- Connecting with others (communication and interaction)
- Making a contribution/giving back (independence and community participation)
- Taking notice/awareness (mindfulness/sensory activities/calming techniques/communication and interaction)
- New learning (learning which is child-focused)
- Physical body (Being healthy, eating well and getting enough sleep)
We all need to be well in ourselves and to feel that our presence is a positive force for good for others. We strive to re-engage students and their families and to create strong, positive relationships and to support children to meet their EHCP targets.
We are ambitious to for our students and the overall aim is to use any interventions for the shortest period of time necessary and to evaluate their impact at least half-termly. We know that the best experience at school comes from high-quality teaching in the classroom.
Our vision is for our pupils to contribute to society and live healthy and fulfilled lives: the wellness curriculum will provide the foundations for pupils to achieve this goal.
Being prepared for life
The Wellness Curriculum is underpinned by our trauma perceptive practice and our determination that our students will develop the resilience to meet increasing demands over time, so that they are prepared for life. Restorative justice is one of the ways in which we support students to understand consequences and develop their resilience by asking them to consider the impact of their behaviour on others and to put things right.
The curriculum is planned to start from activities with the lowest level of demand and build resilience over time – for example, starting with playing a board game with chosen peers and building up to taking part in a group activity with pupils from another school.
The Wellness Curriculum is planned to meet individual needs and to remove barriers for individuals. The five areas of the curriculum also help everyone to be mentally healthy and we will support all pupils to continue to be active, to connect, to take notice, to learn new things and to contribute through our PSHE curriculum.
The curriculum is organised around our STAR values (success, teamwork, aspiration and resilience) so that pupils can understand what these mean in practice and show how they are living the values in their daily lives.
Our School STAR Values
We believe that our school provides a compass to guide the children and young people in our care – ‘True navigation begins in the human heart’.
Each journey through life is unique. Starting from different places, we travel with others but we each discover our own way through the challenges life brings. We will educate and guide our pupils to successfully travel their path to adulthood.
These are the values we expect our pupils to embrace and they underpin our curriculum They are embedded in our code of conduct, our curriculum, our school policies and procedures and the day-to-day life of the school:
Success
We strive to be the best that we can be – understanding. ourselves and our unique contribution to our community.
We produce the best work that we can so that we feel proud of ourselves.
We are committed to equality and understand and value diversity – success for all.
Teamwork
We understand that we will achieve more together than we can alone.
We value kindness and build trust.
We are honest with ourselves and each other fostering mutual respect.
Aspiration
We respect and develop ourselves, our community and our environment.
We champion the potential in everyone.
We work towards leading healthy and fulfilled lives.
Resilience
We keep trying, even when things are hard.
We learn from our mistakes and believe we can improve.
We know how to handle stressful situations.
Please see below examples of what this looks like at The Compass School:
Pupils learning about the General Election, the important of voting and how to cast their vote.
Looking after our pupils’ mental health and being involved with raising awareness and fundraising.
An End-of-School-year trip to Stubbers’ Adventure Centre:
