Reflections on Limmud Conference

20th February 2023Ali Durban

Sarah Sultman, Gesher Co-Founder

Over the past decade, we’ve been on a journey to launch Gesher, with seven years as a flourishing school following three years of deep research and engagement with the sector to anchor our plans.

Myself and my co-founder, Ali Durban, have learned many valuable lessons about what it takes to set up an organisation from scratch – and yet how far we still have to go to inspire the wider education sector about what needs to change to achieve equity for children with SEN and those who learn differently.

We’ve been building relationships with people to share our learning. We are particularly keen to share how we designed and built our school – creating a blueprint around a vision, purpose and design principles that we carry into everything we do.

Although Gesher is a special school, the idea of using a blueprint to define your work is not limited to the creation of a school. Our approach provides plenty of ideas for youth movements, communities and other education organisations.

In pursuit of our aims to reach a wider audience, at the end of last year, Ali and I were delighted to be invited to speak at Limmud Conference at the NEC in Birmingham to people of all ages and interests from across the Jewish community.

Limmud Conference is an annual five-day learning experience that brings together thousands of people to celebrate Jewish culture through arts, dance, song, book reviews and talks. Here we delivered two sessions: one on the ‘Gesher Blueprint – from start-up to Outstanding’ and the other on ‘SEN and the system’.

We were pleased to welcome educators, parents and adults with SEN to our first session to hear about our journey to build Gesher. As one attendee, Tal Bassali from Zehud Jewish Online School said:

“I was fascinated that someone had re-invented, redesigned something in education – the idea that anything was broadly by design was exciting to me. Most solutions need to be reverse-engineered.”

Our second session on ‘SEN and the system’ again drew an audience of parents of children who learn differently, educators and local authority employees with a SEND interest who asked us questions about our personal experiences and sought advice and support on how to navigate the complexities of the system.

While both sessions offered us a brilliant chance to share ideas, listen and contribute to other people’s work and lives, we were aware that we rarely reach beyond a SEND audience when we talk to people.

Our aim of broadening our reach means we want to engage the wider world of education to help achieve greater understanding and inclusivity for children who learn differently, but also because we believe that we can learn from each other.

 

 

Mazel Tov from Gesher! ~ New Years Honours List 2023

11th January 2023Website Admin

Last year was an enormously busy year for us at Gesher and for our community as a whole. As we start 2023 and reflect on the achievements of 2022 there are two members of the Gesher community we would like to extend a special congratulations to. Firstly, Rama Venchard, our Chair of Governors, who received an MBE in King Charles II’s first New Years Honours List for his services to education. And secondly, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who has received a knighthood in recognition of his interfaith initiatives, work with the Jewish community, and involvement in education programmes, of which we at Gesher have been lucky enough to be a part of. Mazal tov from Gesher! 

Rama Venchard MBE, Gesher Chair of Governors

THE VALUE OF GETTING IT RIGHT: VIEWS FROM AN AUTISTIC YOUNG PERSON

14th December 2022Website Admin

The current education system in the UK is setting up many autistic young people to fail. This is especially true of the assessment practices where the current system relies heavily on out-dated and old-fashioned standardised exams and tests which are unable to capture a young person’s real strengths and abilities.  

Joshua is an autistic young person who did not attend Gesher but spoke at our most recent Critical Friendship Group meeting, sharing his lived experience of the assessment process and his insights into how it could be improved for neurodiverse young people.  

Here, Joshua, now aged 18, tells his story of mainstream education and offers his advice to schools.

The importance of school support

In my early years I struggled to make friends. Some of my earliest friends were basically asked by my teachers because they felt bad for me. 

I was diagnosed in the summer of 2012 between Years Three and Four though I wasn’t told until later that year because my parents were working with my school to find the right way to explain it to me and my peers.

During primary school, my needs were well provided for. When I got my diagnosis, the school helped my parents put together a small Powerpoint that was used to explain it to me. This was then lightly adapted and shown to my classmates so they too could understand better.

I could leave lessons to take a breather and a walk if I needed to, as I struggled to sit still and focus for extended periods, I had a dedicated space I could go to cool off if I had gotten into an argument or fight over something, which was common because I was easy to anger as a child. Any time I felt I had a problem, I knew where I could turn.

The school helped me nurture the talent I had, often letting me complete tasks in a different way to the usual methods if it meant I was able to do it “my way” which would often involve a very flashy Powerpoint presentation. 

When schools focus on results, not the pupil

When I got to secondary school, however, there came a change. The school very much ignored any kind of ability outside of traditional educational achievement: you either fit their mould for a good student or you didn’t. And if you didn’t, you were left in the dust.

At secondary school, support I had grown dependent on during primary was almost non-existent and the staff were not friendly towards students. Even the SEN staff seemed to be less than interested. 

I will never forget the time I went to our KS4 mental health advisor and told her about how bad my depression had gotten at the time, to which she laughed and told me that I seemed to be very good at telling jokes. A story I genuinely wish I was making up.

When it came to work, methods I had grown so accustomed to were shut off to me because the school only wanted results in one specific way. You did it their way, or you failed entirely.

How the current assessment system sets neurodiverse children up to fail

I moved from secondary school to a different sixth form where support was available and actively advised to be used, and where I could work how I worked best, even if that meant going back to the flashy powerpoints like I would have done aged 10. As I grew up and came to understand what autism is and what it is to be autistic, I found it easier to make friends, especially in cases where they were also autistic.

Despite being in a better school, I spent most of my A-level time suffering extreme mental health issues and it was a miracle I even made it to sit the examinations

And now there’s a big problem. I’m currently looking for apprenticeships in software development, but on my applications, I can only put my grades, not the fact that I have neurodiversity where often the pressures of the school can break a student so easily and so quickly.

Starting out on your career becomes really difficult when, even though you are a strong candidate, the only important thing is your grade which says:  “you got this – this is all you are worth”.

How schools can learn from students’ experiences

For schools, honestly, I think my main piece of advice is just to listen to autistic students. A lot of schools, teachers, and just people in general confuse autism with being unable to look after yourself and understand your own needs, when in reality, it’s very much the opposite.

I was very lucky as my primary school helped me every step of the way to understand myself and be as comfortable talking about it as I am now.

The person who knows best what the autistic person needs, will ultimately be the autistic person.

OFFICIAL OPENING OF OUR LEGO CHANUKIAH

13th December 2022Website Admin

With Chanukah just around the corner we got celebrations underway this week with the unveiling of our 18 foot tall, LEGO Chanukiah. We were hugely fortunate to have the Chief Rabbi visit to officially cut the ribbon and present our students with their own mini versions to build over the Chanukah holidays! 

This project has been in the pipeline for over a year and was inspired by our student’s love of LEGO. It finally came into fruition through one of our Teaching Assistants, Danny Cazzato, who in a previous role, worked at LEGO.

Work started on the project back at the start of the year with Danny coming up with a design for the Chankiah and presenting to our students for feedback. Then, at the end of the November the build began with students spending an afternoon at school constructing the nine candles for the top of the Chanukiah. These were sent away to a factory to be glued together and have their lights installed. With the candles complete, construction also began on the base and the main stem, this time by a LEGO ‘master builder’. Once complete, these 5 large pieces, made up of a whopping 80,000 bricks, were transported to Gesher and secured to a wall in the school hall in less than a day! 

Tamaryn Yartu, Gesher’s Co-headteacher, said: “It was really important for us that the Chanukiah was made from LEGO because it’s something that our students really love to be creative with, both at school and at home. It was also fantastic to have the Chief Rabbi officially cut the ribbon and wish our students a happy Chanukah. Festival celebrations are something we love doing at Gesher as it brings the whole school together really beautifully.”

This year, Chanukah will begin on the evening of Sunday 18th December and finish on the evening of 26th December so we won’t be at school to light a candle each day, but everyone at Gesher is very much looking forward to being able to do this next year, when Chanukah falls into term time.

GESHER ATTENDS ELNET EVENT

13th December 2022Website Admin

In November, Gesher attended a reception to mark the 2nd year anniversary of the Abraham Accords, hosted by Elnet UK and the Board of Deputies, the keynote address was made by Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak.

Gesher’s blueprint and design principles have been informed by best practice from schools and learning communities all over the world including India, New Zealand, the United States and Israel. The school has been working with Elnet over the last year to highlight to central Government, in particular the SEND APPG, best practice in Israel in terms of teaching and learning and early identification of SEND. 

Ditch the Green Paper ….

2nd November 2022Ali Durban

by Ali Durban, Co-Founder Gesher School.

With the constant merry-go-round of Education Ministers and no appointment of a SEND minister since Kelly Tolhurst, we have been looking at what has progressed with the Green Paper since its submission in July. The answer is not much – other than an exchange in the form of a letter to current Minister of Education MP Robert Halfon, (and former Chair of the Education Select committee) from former Minister of Education, Kit Malthouse who writes:

‘We are proposing to establish local SEND and AP partnerships. These partnerships would be responsible for delivering a local inclusion plan which sets out the provision that will be made available in line with the national standards.’

To be clear, the Children and Families Act 2014 is the national standard (as opposed to a local inclusion plan), it already sets out a legal duty on LAs to secure and maintain Special Educational Provision through an EHCP. If provision is specified and quantified properly in an EHCP and the general principles of section 19 upheld (the need for the LA to have regard for what will help the child or young person to achieve the best possible educational and other outcomes), then an inclusion plan is not necessary.

What does need to be established is a clear accountability framework. Local Authorities need to be held to account when they do not uphold the legal standard (namely the Children and Families Act). At present the only setting for this is tribunal. It can take parents years to reach tribunal level, and the journey to get there is arduous, exhausting and often quite traumatic. Shockingly, around 95% of tribunals are upheld. This stark figure reflects that one of the biggest weaknesses of the system is in fact Local Authorities not doing what they should do legally. Establishing ‘new partnerships’ to deliver what is already written in statute will without doubt add another layer of delay to families trying to achieve the appropriate provision and outcomes for their child.

Tragically the human cost in all of this is the child or young person, who is at this point often in crisis.

Kit Malthouse goes on to write ‘The local inclusion plan will inform the tailored list of settings from which parents and carers are able to choose provision where their child requires an education, health and care plan (EHCP). The expectation is that all schools on the list will be settings that can meet the child’s special educational needs as identified in their EHC needs assessments. This aims to give parents and carers clarity on what is available locally which may still include mainstream, special, independent, or out of borough provision. Our intention is that this will lead to greater transparency about what is available for children and young people in their local school and greater clarity about how it can be provided. We also aim for this to improve the choice offered to parents and carers by suggesting options they may not have otherwise considered’.

This ambiguous statement shows a deep lack of knowledge of the SEND system. It infers freedom of choice.

However, choice is something that many families of children with SEND have never had.

The tailored list that Mr Malthouse refers to already exists in the form of a local offer. This list is drawn up by the Local Authority and typically based on cost. It does not and could not list a school to meet each and every need because:

● There is a lack of provision across the UK and the quality can differ hugely between LAs. Figures obtained by the newspaper ‘Schools Week’ show that over half of special schools had more pupils on roll than the number commissioned by their council. This was a 15% rise from 2017-18. There simply isn’t enough provision in-borough or nationally to meet need.

● Much of the provision comes out of the independent sector. In order to make the local offer list, a school must agree to section 41 – reciprocal duty to co-operate with the local authority on arrangements (admissions); this means that LA’s loosely control admissions and could see a school end up with a very mixed and challenging cohort of children. For this reason, many independent schools choose not to be part of the local offer.

There is no indication of what will happen if there isn’t an appropriate school on the list. Will parent’s once again need to battle to reach a tribunal to access the provision they need, whilst, once again, (same story here…) the child is left in crisis?

There is no mention in Kit Malthouse’s letter of placing the child and their needs at the centre of decision-making. A true local inclusion plan would see a timely and thorough multi-disciplinary assessment, followed by the family and LA working together to find the right placement with the child’s needs at the centre of all decision-making.

The reality is a 2-3 year wait for a full assessment, which is often not accurate because there is a vested interest to keep ‘need’ to a minimum (if at all) in order that there is less of a requirement to procure an EHCP and LA spend. When it comes to placement, the LA’s decision-making is based on budget and very often they will write “mainstream school” or the next cheapest placement in Section I.

Kit Malthouse’s letter highlights the disparity between what the central Government thinks inclusion is, versus the reality of what children, young people and their families face. 

We know the system is broken. Report after report after report has evidenced that children with SEND and their families are being consistently damaged and failed by the system. Much of it might be legally questionable. The proposed changes in the Green Paper continue to raise significant concerns as to the future of SEND provision.

What we need is a long-term plan for education, designed with those who bring their lived experience to a collaborative and inclusive process. We need to take the 7000+ responses from the Green paper review, analyse and publish the responses, as Tania Tiororro of Special Needs Jungle recommends.  She also writes:

‘DELAY further plans for improvement, DITCH the Green Paper in its current form and PUBLISH a straight analysis of the consultation as soon as possible

And perhaps most importantly, we need someone bold and brave who is willing to make real change and for once, put this group of children and young people and their needs first.

‘Life Changing’ Gesher School maintains its Outstanding rating 

12th October 2022Website Admin

Gesher School in Pinner is delighted  to share it has maintained its Outstanding Ofsted rating after an inspection in late September. 

Gesher is an all-through school for young people with mild to moderate learning needs. The school was last inspected in 2018 when it only had 13 pupils aged 4 to 7 based on a smaller site in Kilburn. This inspection was conducted at the school’s new site in Pinner with more than 50 pupils aged 4 to 14.

This is the school’s second Outstanding rating since opening.  Ofsted recently changed its inspection framework making it much more challenging for schools to achieve this status.

Based on the latest inspection, Ofsted said: 

Pupils receive an exceptional quality of provision. Leaders have designed an ambitious curriculum which is taught by the school’s expert staff. 

Together, the curriculum and therapies encourage pupils’ independent living skills and emotional well-being very successfully. 

Therapists, teachers and teaching assistants work together seamlessly as one team. They truly understand how to meet pupils’ varied special educational needs. While staff are nurturing, they also have high expectations of all pupils. As a result, pupils work hard and learn well.  

Ofsted also drew attention to positive comments made by parents through the online survey they were asked to complete: “Parents often commented that their children are thriving at Gesher. They described the school’s work as ‘in a different league’ and ‘life changing’”. 

Download: Gesher Ofsted Report 2022

Leadership at Gesher was also described by Ofsted as “exceptionally strong” with “senior leaders are supported and challenged in equal measure by the school’s governing body”. 

Gesher’s Co-Heads, Tamaryn Yartu and Nikeisha Webb-Hardy said ‘We are extremely thrilled and proud of the hard work and commitment that our staff has shown resulting in such a phenomenal achievement. Our students have made us very proud, and we are delighted to share in this outstanding achievement with our parents and wider community. We remain resolute in ensuring that we remain a flagship school- leading the path to success for all our students. 

“What began as a small project and primary school has grown into a thriving all-through school. Under Tamaryn and Nikeisha’s stewardship the school’s innovative approach to education has taken root with students happy and flourishing. This recognition by Ofsted is important in cementing Gesher as an exceptional school in the community and we are truly thrilled and excited for what the future holds for our students” say Ali Durban and Sarah Sultman, Co-Founders Gesher School.

 

Gesher School proud to introduce Co-Headteachers to oversee their next phase of growth

12th September 2022Website Admin

Gesher School is delighted to announce the introduction of a Co-Headship model as it continues its expansion from a primary school for young people with mild to moderate learning differences, to an all-through school. The Co-Headship will be a partnership between Gesher’s current Headteacher, Tamaryn Yartu, and Nikeisha Webb-Hardy. Tamaryn has been the Headteacher at Gesher since 2020, and will oversee the primary phase of the school, while Nikeisha, who has already spent a year at Gesher as a Deputy Head, will be responsible for the secondary phase of the school. The partnership will also ensure that Gesher continues to efficiently progress through its next phases of development.

In September 2021, Gesher School expanded into an all-through school, catering for students from Reception to Year 11. Currently, the school has 51 students, and over the next five years will grow to over 100. A key milestone for the development of Gesher over the coming years will be the expansion of the secondary phases of the school, while also retaining the high standards set within the primary phase. Having a Co-Headship model will facilitate expertise within each phase and ensure that there is continuity and an effective transition for students as they progress throughout their time at Gesher. 

The Co-Headship has also been designed to support Gesher’s ambition of developing into a ‘Centre of Excellence’, within the education system. Specifically, the model of Co-Headship will allow for the capacity of both heads to engage in their outreach work. In turn, it is hoped this will create many more opportunities for collaboration and development than could be achieved under a single headteacher. 

Speaking about their new joint roles, Tamaryn and Nikeisha said:

“We are deeply committed to supporting the holistic development of all students at Gesher, and will put the needs and well being of students at the heart of all decisions made. We are very excited about co-leading Gesher through the next phase of its development”.

Siddur Lakol: Far & Wide

24th June 2022Website Admin

As you are aware over the last year, Gesher School has been working in collaboration with the Office of the Chief Rabbi, the United Synagogue and the Daniels Family to create a new siddur; Siddur Lakol. Siddur Lakol, which translates to ‘A Siddur for Everyone’. As part of our involvement with the project, our primary classes were joined by members from the United Synagogue, the Office of the Chief Rabbi, the Daniels Family and the Chief Rabbi himself to participate in our inaugural Chaggigat Siddur. During our Chaggigat Siddur, each child was gifted a personalised siddur signed by the Chief Rabbi, and participated in a beautiful tefillah ceremony to celebrate the occasion.

News of Siddur Lakol has spread far and wide. You can read about it here:

Jewish News

The Jewish Chronicle

Israel Hayom

Israel National News

Jewish News Syndicate

The US