Premise

 

At Right Choice, we believe that we are born with the innate ability to learn. However, we also accept that each individual or group of individuals learn differently. It is our belief that “If pupils don’t [or can’t] learn the way we teach… perhaps we should teach the way they learn” Eppig, P (1981) Education by Design.

 

With this in mind, our curriculum offer gives due regard to address the factors underlying the individual learner’s disengagement from learning. We understand that some of these factors can be a combination of learning, psychological and behavior related. It is based on the premise that if a person is fully engaged then learning can begin to take place and with learning comes achievements and those achievements then yield progression.

 

How do we engage learners?

From the point of entry to our programme, we adopt a psychotherapeutic approach to engaging our learners, based on an understanding of the key interventions that we know works with disengaged learners. Our methods include, but are not limited to the following:

 

  1. Nurture – Our learners and their families often come to us with prior negative experiences of education and learning within the school setting. Our first focus is to provide a nurturing and safe enough environment within which a healing narrative can begin to emerge from the initial negative experience of the school setting. Our staff have basic counselling training which enables them to understand the learner’s objection to engagement and then help them understand it and work to overcome it.
  2. Food – We understand that food in an important aspect of learning and if a child is not getting the nutritious food they need to thrive, then they may find it difficult to engage. At RC, all learners are given breakfast in the morning upon arrival and a cooked lunch in the afternoon. Lunch is served to all learners and staff so that the intimacy of eating breaks down the barriers to engagement. We find that during lunch, learners learn to relate to staff as human beings rather than a title and this connection transcends into the in-classroom relationship between teacher and learner.
  3. Therapy – Therapeutic interventions are woven into each learner’s programme offer and this enables them to have a safe enough space to talk to our school psychotherapist about issues that may be of concern to them. We find that providing this space for each learner adds another layer of deeper understanding of the learner needs that may or may not be captured in any documentation held on the learner.
  4. Every encounter COUNTS – We seek to ensure that every encounter the learner has with our staff is therapeutic and based on an understanding that consistent unconditional positive regard can help overcome what may be an ingrained way of behaving.
 

Please request a copy of our Trans-theoretical Model of Behavior Change and Assessment & Learning policies for more details on how we engage our learners.