Latest News
Keep up to date with the latest news at Bridgewater School
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Our year in review and our Governors' Gazette
Tue 23 Jul 2019It has been another busy and exciting year at Bridgewater.
We hope that you enjoy looking back over the year in our Annual Review and reading our Governors' Gazette.
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'STEPS' Behaviour Parent Workshop
Tue 09 Jul 2019Thank you to the parents who attended the presentation on our therapeutic approach to behaviour. As the presentation is the property of Hertfordshire we cannot publish it on the school website.
Bridgewater has been using this approach towards behaviour for over 3 years now, so the aim of the talk was to inform you how we approach behaviour in the school. Our Behaviour policy was reviewed recently in light of this and the evening was designed to help you understand how the therapeutic approach to behaviour looks and the theory behind it.
The STEPS behaviour approach has been adapted from original work produced by the Norfolk STEPS team led by Angela Waddham
The term “Steps” is drawn from the Norfolk County Council statement on inclusion: “The process of taking necessary Steps to ensure that every young person is given an equality of opportunity to develop socially, to learn and to enjoy community life.” This statement reflects the philosophy, policy and practice at our school. Our approach has an emphasis on consistency, on the teaching of internal discipline rather than imposing external discipline, and on care and control, not punishment. It uses techniques to de-escalate a situation before a crisis occurs and, when a crisis does occur, it adopts techniques to reduce the risk of harm. An important aim of Hertfordshire STEPs is to provide opportunities to support and debrief both children and staff after a crisis, particularly if physical intervention has been required.
The feedback was very positive and we will be looking to repeat the presentation in the autumn.
Feedback:
The most useful parts were:
Being talked through the approach and the thinking behind it. The examples given were very useful….
Practical examples of how the approach is applied at the school…
Principles we can also apply at home…
Excellent informative delivery with plenty of opportunities for questions…
This is a link to the behaviour policy on the website:
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Chiltern Educational Trust update
Fri 05 Jul 2019You will be aware that Ashlyns School, Bridgewater Primary School, Greenway Primary & Nursery School, Swing Gate Infant & Nursery and Westfield Primary & Nursery have been working together over a long period to form a multi academy trust, to be known as the Chiltern Educational Trust. The Governing Body of Ashlyns School had initiated that process and the four feeder schools were excited to be involved in closer collaboration.
The Governing Body of Ashlyns School has however, now decided to withdraw from the process of forming the Chiltern Educational Trust.
All schools involved continue to remain committed to ensuring that the high quality of education currently delivered to our children will be maintained and that collaborative working between all local schools will remain a priority, for the benefit of all children in the town.