Teaching and Learning Assistant - The Rise Sixth Form, co-located with West Thames College Isleworth

The school’s values are Be Proud, Be Resilient and Be Kind.

It is a real privilege to be the Head of The Rise School and Sixth Form and to be able to work every day with our wonderful young people and dedicated staff. Our values of being kind, being proud, and being resilient will not change under my leadership.

Our pupils are some of the most vulnerable children in society and we are passionate in our desire to see them bloom, experience success and develop confidence and strategies to overcome some of the challenges associated with their autism. Our pupils are at the heart of everything we do.

Our curriculum focuses on both social skills and academic achievement, these run throughout all our work and are both of equal importance. This allows our pupils access to a curriculum that is guided by the national curriculum but also reaches beyond it.

We believe our social curriculum is vital for helping our young people cultivate self-regulation skills and strategies to look after their mental health. Our social curriculum includes PSHE (Personal Social, Health and Education) lessons, Weaving Wellbeing Programme, Citizenship lessons, Yoga lessons, and embedded mindfulness sessions.

We are equally proud of our academic curriculum, which consists of both BTEC and GCSE qualifications. These qualifications give pupils the vital stepping stones into Sixth Form or college and then into further education,  university, apprenticeships, supported internships, and employment.

Our pupils have access to a range of opportunities that we offer as part of our LOTC (Learning Outside The Curriculum). Opportunities such as swimming, skiing, sailing, Duke of Edinburgh award, and after-school clubs that include robotics, and music. We also have a flourishing pupil council.

Thank you for your interest in The Rise School. We hope you find all the information you require on our website. Please do check out our Twitter feed, photo gallery and our latest news as they will give a genuine flavour of day-to-day life here at The Rise. We also love visitors! So please contact us if you have any further questions or queries or if you would like to book a visit.

Karen Oliver, Headteacher of The Rise School

Vision

Our vision at The Rise School is to create a vibrant learning community and be an exemplar school of best practice for children with autism and social communication needs by enabling our pupils to access a broad age-related curriculum.

We aim to achieve this vision by creating an environment where:

• Pupils and adults are happy to come to school every day and are proud of what they achieve.
• Parents and carers are confident that their children are safe, happy, making good progress and that their voices are heard.
• All pupils are given the support and challenges they need to learn and succeed in the world beyond school – their quality of life is key.
• All staff create consistently positive learning experiences that engage and challenge all our autistic pupils.

Values

Our values underpin all that we do at The Rise. They were chosen in a collaborative process that involved all our staff and pupils. We teach our values explicitly and celebrate them frequently.

Our values:

Be Kind
We demonstrate how giving and receiving kindness is important for everyone’s wellbeing.

Be Proud
Our pupils have much to be proud of and we want them to be strong advocates of themselves in their future lives.

Be Resilient
We know that our pupils will face challenges in their life, but we’re confident that, with the right strategies and attitude, they can flourish.

Ethos

The best way to convey The Rise School’s pupil-oriented and team-driven ethos is to hear from our staff directly. During a recent training day, our staff completed the sentence below in the following ways.

At The Rise School we:

• are champion adults to our pupils
• learn from each other and have fun
• are a great team
• take a positive and supportive approach
• respect one another
• are hard-working and resilient
• are passionate and determined
• acknowledge every achievement
• create a safe and positive environment
• are comforting, supportive and approachable.

About Us

The Rise School is a thriving special school based in Feltham, west London educating autistic pupils aged four to 18. It was set up by the Ambitious about Autism Schools Trust in 2014. This vibrant learning community equips young people with the academic qualifications and personal skill set needed to thrive in the world, socially, emotionally and, in time, in the workplace. The Rise School offers pupils the best of both worlds: special needs provision combined with a curriculum guided by, and reaching beyond, the national curriculum. Located on the same campus as the Tudor Park Education Trust, a secondary mainstream school, The Rise School enables pupils to access learning and social opportunities alongside their mainstream peers, whilst receiving the specialist support they need.

We have a Published Admissions Number (PAN) of 130. This is for 100 pupils in the Primary and Secondary site in Feltham and 30 at our Sixth Form site in Isleworth.

For September 2022 we are at capacity in Feltham (Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 4).

The youngest pupils at the school are currently in Year 5 (9-10 years old). We currently do not have a pupil cohort for Reception and Year 1 to 4 (4 to 8 years old).

Admissions to The Rise School are handled by local authorities. The school is reliant on referrals from local authorities, and all of these must follow the school’s admissions process.

Any new referrals will be considered in line with The Rise School’s assessment process.

Our primary and secondary curriculum is broadly similar to that offered by mainstream schools including subjects such as: English, maths, science, history, Personal Social Health Education/ citizenship, ICT, physical education and food technology. Pupils also attend swimming lessons once a week until year 10.

To meet our cohort’s needs, pupils access the school curriculum in small class groups of between 8-10 pupils. We also deliver weekly yoga and wellbeing sessions. We have a full-time Speech and Language Therapist and Occupational Therapist on the team.

The Rise School has great facilities including; fully equipped class rooms, fun outside playgrounds, a well-being garden, sensory rooms, soft-play rooms and a gym.