Statutory Information

All young people admitted to the Poplar Adolescent NHS hopsital unit are automatically enrolled with us. They will also remain on roll with their own school. This is known as dual roll. We willl liaise with the school to agree their education while they are with us and arrange reintegration when they are discharged. We sometimes offer day placements to young people following discharge. This has to be agreed with our team, parents, carers and the local authority.

Admission to the Poplar Adolescent NHS hospital unit is through professional referral such as CAMHS, EWMHS or other mental health professionals.

School Uniform

We do not have a uniform, however, we have a dress code which can be found here. We encourage young people to take part in sports activities and for this they need suitable attire such as tracksuit bottoms and trainers. We also take young people out, where possible, so appropriate clothes such as coats, warm clothes and shoes will be required, depending on the weather.

Ofsted Reports

Our Ofsted reports can be accessed from the Ofsted website here. We are currently rated as 'good'.

Test, Exam and Assestment Results

The majority of our students are dual registered. Most exam entries are made through the student's home school and we do not, therefore, publish exam data. We support students to take GCSE, A Level and BTEC exams, where approrpiate, and enter students for a range of other qualifiactions including Functional Skills, ASDAN short courses, Trinity Arts Awards and others. Details on exam achievements for our students are reported to the Management Committee.

Performance Measures Website

The Performance Measures Website publishes data for schools and colleges. As a hospital school we do not have any data published on this website.

School Opening Hours

Young people attend education between the hours of 9:45am and 3:00pm. We ask that you do not arrange to visit or take your child on leave during these times without discussing this with us or the ward consultant first. We are a small staff, but there is usually someone available to speak via telephone between the hours of 8:30am and 4:30pm, term time only. We operate according to Essex Schools term dates and our term dates, including training days, can be found under the 'term dates' section on the 'general information' menu.

Curriculum

Our curriculum is designed to meet the needs of each young person and key teachers will work with them and their home schools to agree the right balance of academic and personal development work. For full details please see our Curriculum pages on this website and our Curriculm policy. If you require further information please get in touch with your child's key teacher or any member of the education team. As our curriculum is individualised, we make every effort to make it accessible to all young people, including those with disabilities.

Remote Education

Where appropriate, we are able to offer remote education. Remote education can be used in the event of a lockdown, if a student needs to self isolate, when students are on home leave or in other circumstances where a student cannot attend in person. This will be offered where we feel it will not be detrimental to their mental health. We also work with the students' home schools to ensure that, whereever possible, they can have remote access to their own school's remote offer. We are finding increasingly, that students are able to continue engaging with their home school through the use of google classroom or other virtual learning platforms. For further details, please see our Remote Learning policy or speak with one of the education team.

Behaviour Policy

Our behaviour policy is based on the expectation that all interactions should be respectful and considerate. Our behaviour policy, including our statement of principles, can be found in the policy list on the left.

Pupil Premium and Recovery Premium

Pupil Premium is money that schools may receive for students who are either in receipt of free school meals, or who have been eligible in the last six years. The school may also receive additional funding for any student who is in public care. The reason for Pupil Premium funding is that, nationally, the statistics show that Pupil Premium students do less well than their peers in external examinations. The aim of this money is to reduce the gap in attainment.

Pupil Premium is generally received retrospectively based on the annual school census and, as our young people are usually here for less than two terms, we often do not receive any. When we do receive an amount, it is used to provide additional support for young people in most need. We are able to provide one to one support with a specialist member of the team who works with the young person to identify the most helpful next steps. The one to one support may include literacy and numeracy support, trips out, music sessions and a range of other targeted activities.

We did not receive any Pupil Premium for the academic year 2021 to 2022.

We did not receive any Pupil Premium for the academic year 2022 to 2023.

The recovery premium grant is part of the government’s package of funding to support pupils whose education has been impacted by coronavirus (COVID-19).

In the academic year 2021 to 2022 we received £960 Recovery Premium. This went towards updating our IT equipment to enable staff to deliver remote education.

Intended outcome: To enable all students to have remote access to learning when required.

Strategy: Update server, renew laptops for all staff to enable remote lesson delivery.

Cost £2214.19 (£960 recovery premium. Remainder funded from school budget).

Public Sector Equality Duty

At Poplar we seek to embed equality of access, opportunity and outcome for all members of our school community, within all aspects of school life. With this aim in mind, we set an equality target as part of our School Development Plan each year.

Our 2021 to 2022 equality target was to increase access to physical activites for all students. This is particularily relevant to our young people, many of whom have restricted opportunities as they are held under the Mental Health Act.

Our 2022 to 2023 target is for staff to increase our understanding of transgender issues. This is particularly relevant to our unit as we are seeing an increasing number of young people who identify as transgender.

For further details please see our Equality policy or speak to a member of the education team.

Special Educational Needs and Disability Information

Please see our SEND Policy and our SEND information report which are both in our policies list.

Careers Programme Information

Young people are able to access careers information as part of our group PSHE programme and individually with their Key Teacher. We also have an adviser from the Department for Work and Pensions who visits regularly. For many of our young people, thinking about the future can be very difficult and much of the work we do reintegrating young people back into the community is an important step towards thinking about future goals, including career aspirations.

The careers leader is Clare Varley who can be contacted through the contact details page. For further information please see the Careers Policy.

Complaints Procedure

The Complaints Policy sets out The Poplar Adolescent Unit - Education Centre’s approach to dealing with concerns and complaints. The SEND information report also includes information regarding arrangements for handling complaints from parents of children with SEND regarding the support the school provides.

Governors' Information and Duties

The Poplar Adolescent Unit is designated as a Pupil Referral Unit and, as such, we have a Management Committee in place of a Governing Body. Our Management Committee carries out the same duties as a governing body and our Management Committee Members have the same responsibilities as Governors. For Management Committee Information and Duties please see the 'Management Committee' page.

Financial Information

We have no employees who earn more than £100,000 per anum.

We are required to provide a link to the Schools Financial Benchmarking Service and you can find the page relating to Poplar Adoescent Unit here. Please note we are not able to select the schools which we are benchmarked against and some of the other organisations on the list are significantly different from us in a number of ways. This means that direct financial comparisons are not always helpful. If you require further information about our finances and how they are managed, please speak with someone from the Finance Committee. Details can be found on the 'Management Committee' page.

Charging and Remission Policy

We do not charge for any trips, equipment or materials.

Values and Ethos

A statement of our ethos can be found on the 'Welcome' page. Further information can be found on the 'Curriculum' page.