In an educational landscape where the integration of movement and emotional wellbeing is crucial to unlocking student potential, Bure Park Specialist Academy is making a profound impact.
By using physical activity as a foundation for personal and academic growth, the academy is creating meaningful changes in the lives of boys with complex social, emotional, and mental health needs, offering a compassionate and innovative approach to SEND education.
Bure Park Specialist Academy, part of the Broad Horizons Education Trust in Great Yarmouth, opened in September 2021. It serves boys aged 5-16 with SEMH needs and is one of the first new special schools under Norfolk County Council's SEND Transformation Project.
The academy's curriculum aims to create a caring, stimulating, and academically driven environment to boost student achievement and confidence by reducing learning barriers and teaching positive behaviour.
Intent
Their brilliant Head of PE and Alternative Provision Lead, Anita Fiddes Kapadia, explains their approach:
‘The biggest challenges for our target group of year 6s at the start of the intervention was Attendance, Behaviour, Engagement, Mental Health, SEND, and supporting our Most vulnerable children.
We wanted our RISE Up programme to
1. Help to reduce the use of physical interventions to keep people safe
2. Help children understand the link between Physical Activity and Mental Wellbeing and give them the tools to self-regulate.
3. Develop engagement in PE with our Year 6s from the 2022-23 academic year.
Implementation
43 members of our staff accessed the RISE Up early intervention mental wellbeing and Trauma Informed PE teacher training courses.
We utilised the RISE up programme to teach the link between physical activity and mental wellbeing and to develop engagement in PE, particularly with our Year 7s.
We had some boys who didn’t like being physically active and had a couple of boys who were overly competitive affecting the rest of the group.
By putting the focus on the link between how physical activity helped their mental wellbeing it really helped with their engagement and motivation.
We still covered many of the skills of a traditional PE curriculum but the change in emphasis made a big difference. All of our students are now fully engaged in PE.
We used key words such as serotonin, confidence and frustration to develop literacy and help our students develop a self-care tool kit.
This self-care tool kit included teaching children the RISE acronym and helping them identify which activities they found useful when they were dysregulated to help them self-regulate.
De-escalating through RISE and relationships
I set up a Sport Sanctuary in my form room with treadmills, bikes, rowing machines. We have Bob our punching mannequin set up in the gym, and a trampoline in our thrive room so children could take part in Repeaters, Stress Busters and Energisers to calm their amygdala, widen the window of tolerance and access their pre-frontal cortex so they feel calmer.
When some of our children are starting to feel heightened and dysregulated they come to our sports sanctuary to calm down. You can see their tense faces and shoulders start to relax and within 5-10 minutes they are ready to return to their classroom to continue to learn.
Knowing our individual children’s triggers, and the activities they need and like to self-regulate is key to this. The boys can access our sports sanctuary at any time to deescalate situations.
We have spent time creating a culture where students use it only when they need to and it has become an embedded part of every day life in our school.
Impact
The RISE Up intervention has helped improve Behaviour, Engagement, Mental Health, SEND, and supporting our Most vulnerable children for our target group.
The RISE Up programme linked really nicely with the thrive approach which we use.
By combining the two approaches, we have seen a 24% decrease in one year in the number of physical holds for our target class when we intervene promptly with our strategies.
Restrictive Physical Interventions used for same class by year. | 2022-2023 (Year 6 class) | 2023-2024 (Year 7 class) |
Total | 50 | 38 |
This has resulted in all our students across the school benefitting from this approach. We have a number of LAC children and children with a social worker and they all use the equipment to regulate and prevent issues from escalating.
I completed an adapted version of the WEMWBS survey pre and post using the RISE Up programme to look at my perceptions of our Year 7 children’s wellbeing. These were the results:
As you can see 6 out of the 8 wellbeing areas have improved and 2 have stayed the same.
I completed the School Wellbeing Scorecard Pre and Post Intervention and our provision has increased by 25% from a high starting point.
Pre Intervention:
Post intervention:
I am really proud of the great work being put in by all the team here at Bure Park Specialist Academy to help our children be healthier, happier and develop vital lifelong skills.
The impact of our programme was brilliantly summed up by one of our awesome Year 7 students who said ‘Movement makes me feel happy’.’
Thank You Inspirational Teachers
Bure Park Specialist Academy has made significant strides in improving the wellbeing and engagement of its students.
By focusing on the link between physical activity and mental health, the academy has created a supportive environment that empowers students to self-regulate and thrive.
At Future Action, we want to thank Anita and the brilliant team at Bure Park who go above and beyond for their young people every single day. They are fantastic role models and we love partnering with them and many similar teachers across the country who show what can be possible in a post-lockdown education world.
We would also like to thank Norfolk County Council for funding our programmes for all primary, secondary and special schools in Norfolk to protect vital school budgets.
If you are a teacher in a Norfolk School and would like to access our RISE Up Wellbeing or Trauma Informed PE courses then please get in touch here.
Do you want to improve your students' wellbeing?
Take the first steps here by completing our 'School Wellbeing Scorecard here.
This action will help you map your school's wellbeing provision in 3 minutes and identify the key areas to focus on for your setting.
You will receive a personalised report and a complimentary login to our taster ‘RISE Up’ course. Here you will be able to experience Step 1 and 2 of our 9 Step RISE Up teacher training course.
Join our waiting list
We offer a range of services from courses, consultancy, keynote speaking and our book 'Time to RISE Up'.
To express an interest in exploring building a partnership with us, join our waiting list here:
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Thank you for all you give to your young people and have a brilliant week.
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