Hello and thank you for visiting our website.
Elemore Hall is a multi-site Durham County Council Special School for around 200 secondary aged pupils who have Social, Emotional and Mental Health Difficulties (SEMH). It comprises of the Elemore Hall site in the north-east of County Durham, the Windlestone site in the south-west and the PACC site in Durham City. Pupils are referred to the school through SEN Casework at Durham County Council and can join the school at any time during Key Stages 3 & 4 (space permitting).
Our vision is “to create a safe, happy, positive, successful and worthwhile place to be for all members of the school community”, in reality we seek to do much more. We work hard to overturn the frustration, rejection, fear of failure, lack of self-confidence and poor self-worth that many of the pupils who are referred to Elemore Hall arrive with and we aim to rebuild and equip pupils, socially and academically, so that they are better prepared for leaving school and life post 16.
Our school based curriculum offers pupils the opportunity to achieve success in the classroom and to build on this leading to qualifications such as GCSEs and BTecs in a range of subjects that we have carefully chosen to provide a broad and appropriate launch pad for post 16 choices. Outside the classroom our social curriculum and enrichment programme offers pupils a wide range of regular and adhoc activities to help develop their personal and social skills and life experiences. Most pupils take part in the extended day provision (until 5.30pm or 7.30pm on different nights) and/or residency (up to 4 nights per week) – these add a highly valued extra dimension to the educational provision at Elemore.
Our PACC (Personalised Alternative Curriculum Centre) provision is still part of the school but is based on a discreet site and offers a more individualised programme. PACC only admits up to 20 pupils in KS4 and provides for those whose needs have not been or cannot be met within a school or other environment. At PACC we work with the more difficult to reach young people by providing a curriculum that enables pupils to achieve GCSEs and BTecs whilst also using the higher staff-pupil ratios to ensure that each individual has a package of experiences that works best for them and engages them in education. All pupils who attend PACC are on the roll of Elemore Hall and whilst PACC is not an Alternative placement itself, pupils may attend some carefully chosen, relevant AP as part of their PACC experience.
We are ambitious for our pupils. This starts with seemingly small (but absolutely essential) things such as them being healthy and safe, feeling as though they belong and have adults in school who care about them. Once we have done this we can move onto improving attendance, improving classroom skills and knowledge, developing self confidence and supporting them to build appropriate social skills. When we have the basics in place we can gradually raise the aspirations and ambition of each individual pupil. Our intention is that pupils at Elemore should have the same, or better, opportunities and aspirations as pupils at any school. The pages of this website will give you a flavour of some of the things that we get up to in school but every pupil’s journey is unique. We are proud of the success that we have with most of our pupils. The majority of Y11 leavers from the school go on to college or training courses, apprenticeships or employment.
There is a lot of information within the website that I hope you will find interesting and informative. Most visitors comment on the warm, welcoming and purposeful feel of the school, despite the wonders of modern technology we can’t yet put that feeling on the website, so if you are a prospective parent/carer or pupil, or an interested professional please contact the school to arrange a visit.
As Windlestone and PACC have only recently become part of Elemore Hall, we are working hard to build common curriculum and a unified approach, we are making good progress on this however it will take a while until these sites are fully represented in photographs or information about the school. Many of the photographs used on the website were taken by pupils as part of their GCSE Photography course.
If you require any additional information or a paper version of anything on the site please feel free to contact the school.
Best wishes
Richard Royle
Headteacher
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