Tutor Support

All of our students are assigned a tutor when they arrive at the Academy. The form tutor is an essential link between school and home, and often the first port of call if a students or parent/carer has a query or concern. Tutors will support students with homework, uniform, equipment and organisation, as well as providing emotional support if they feel worried or overwhelmed.

Form tutors can be contacted via College Admin: 01858 440770

Email: office@robertsmyth.tgacademy.org.uk.

Nurture Lunch Support

We offer a variety of games clubs for those students who prefer quiet time or find social times difficult. The children gain new friendships which helps them build their confidence and resilience.

J3 is available for students who are known to the Inclusion department, others might prefer to ask for a library badge which gives them permission to use this facility at social times.  Alternatively there are music, art and lego clubs on certain days students can sign up to. 

PSHE Programme

A new curriculum for PSHE has been developed by the department for education. PSHE will focus around three core themes:

Health and wellbeing
Relationships
Living in the wider world
We want our students to be happy, healthy and well-rounded and the changes to PSHE will support them on this journey

Working with Parents

We value the input and feedback of all parents and strive to develop strong links. The academy has both a main school and SEND parent forum.  There are also termly SEND coffee mornings where you can meet the team.  We also send out both Trust wide and school related parent voice questionnaires which we use to better support our community. It is vital that all parents feel empowered to have their say and work with the academy to build strong relationships for the students. In addition to the questionnaires, we send out monthly Spotlight on Safeguarding newsletters. 

Check ins 

We offer some students a check in during the day or first thing in the mornings.  This helps them to regulate and talk through any concerns they have before the day begins. 

Teen Health

Teen Health’s mission is to support the emotional and physical wellbeing of young people of secondary school age and above — whether in school or within the local community. We have a dedicated Teen Health officer who works in our school once a week.

Teen Health can help with: 

• Boosting confidence and self-esteem
• Coping strategies for starting a new school
• Building positive relationships
• Managing exam stress
• Accessing support for physical health
• Receiving advice on drugs and alcohol
• Overcoming feelings of sadness or worry
• Staying healthy and safe

Home visits

When a child has been missing or absent from school for an amount of time, the pastoral staff at the academy will conduct home visits to check in on student’s welfare. Where possible, parents will be given advance notice.  

CUBE

The Cube Market Harborough offer lunch time and counselling support. Lunchtime drop-ins are all about fun games, food, and having a chat. They are at Robert Smyth Academy on Tuesday  and Friday lunchtimes. They run sessions for years 7,9,10 and 11. 

Peer mentors

Our peer mentoring provision at RSA aims to help students who need extra support with wellbeing, attendance or academics. Our team of student mentors have gone through a training programme to best support younger students, and this leads to strong relationships with mentees. Sessions take place every week and impact hasn’t just been seen in mentees feeling safer and happier around the site, but also in increased attendance.

Learning Mentors

Our Learning Mentor Team have a combination of various unique skills to offer, from SEMH to complex communication needs groups. The staff show great commitment in helping those often vulnerable students achieve and grow in character.

THRIVE

Thrive helps us to check children’s readiness to learn, to identify any gaps and then plan to meet them. Through doing so, we will be able to make sure that all of our pupils have what they need to make the best possible progress in their learning.

What does it take to develop healthy, happy, confident children who are ready and open to learning? Recent advances in neuroscience, attachment theory and child development have provided some of the answers to this question.

The Thrive Approach draws on insights from these fields to provide a powerful way of working with children and young people that supports optimal social and emotional development. In addition, the Approach can equip you to work in a targeted way with children and young people who may have struggled with difficult life events to help them re-engage with life and learning.

SEN Support

Our objective is to support and equip students with additional needs to fulfil their academic and personal potential, ensuring they are given equal opportunities, enabling and encouraging them to feel valued members of the Academy Community.

We encourage parents of ASD children to seek help through the following websites; https://www.autismlinks.co.uk/ https://www.aspie.org.uk/

Any parents that have children that may be suffering with their mental health are advised to gain advice from the following website; https://youngminds.org.uk/

Early Help Family Support

If you are experiencing difficulties in your family or are worried about your children, there are people who can offer help and support. Difficulties could be for example:

• mental health problems
• domestic abuse at home
• drug or alcohol dependency
• your child starting school
• struggling as a lone parent
• debt problems
• housing problems

Here you can find advice and guidance to help support your family. If you need more help than your usual support network, for example your health visitor, child’s school, doctor or Children’s Centre, the family support process can help.

CAMHS

CAMHS is used as a term for all services that work with children and young people who have difficulties with their emotional or behavioural wellbeing.

Local areas have a number of different support services available.

These might be from the statutory, voluntary or school-based sector, such as an NHS trust, local authority, school or charitable organisation.

Educational Psychologist

We have an Educational Psychologist that works at Robert Smyth Academy. She will complete an assessment with students that may be showing challenging behaviour. Once assessments are completed, our SEN Team adapt profiles for each individual child which staff use to support their need in and around school.

Mental Health Practitioner

Education mental health practitioners (EMHPs) work across education and healthcare to provide mental health support for children and young people in schools and colleges.  They help children and young people manage common mental health problems, particularly mild to moderate symptoms of anxiety and depression, and behaviour problems.