Briarwood is a Bristol school committed to providing a high quality of education, care and life experiences for children and young people with Severe and Profound Learning Difficulties, Complex Needs, Autism and Sensory Impairment from 3-19 years. The school is based on three sites. The Primary and Post 16 Departments are on the Briar Way site. Our Secondary Department is on the Snowdon Road site, co-located with Bristol Metropolitan Secondary Academy and finally The Pod is our Early Years Centre, co-located with Barton Hill Academy. The Secondary site has a specialist centre for pupils with behaviours that challenge, called The Nexus.

Briarwood is a Bristol school committed to providing a high quality of education, care and life for children and young people with severe learning difficulties, complex needs including autism and sensory impairment from 3-19 years.

The school is based on three sites. The Primary and Post 16 departments are based on the Briar Way site. Our Secondary department is based on the Snowdon Road site, co located with Bristol Metropolitan Secondary Academy and finally The Pod is our Early Years centre based next to Barton Hill Academy. Both Primary and Secondary sites have specialist centres for pupils with behaviours that challenge, called The Nexus.

If you're searching for your next teaching post, why not contact us now? You'll be working at a great school and be part of a friendly, helpful team. We're always interested to hear from enthusiastic, committed teachers!

Whole School Vision

Enjoy, Engage, Learn

The values of Briarwood School are that all pupils should Enjoy their time with us, so that they can Engage and Learn to their full potential.

Enjoy

• Our aim is for the School to be a happy, welcoming, nurturing environment, where all pupils feel safe, secure and are ready to learn.
• All aspects of school life are designed to inspire and engage pupils, by implementing a mix of curriculum areas suitable for the different stages of education, creative approaches and essential life skills.
• We stress the importance of the personal development of each child and young person, to include social, emotional, physical, spiritual and moral education. These form part of each Pupil’s Individual Learning Map. As well as focusing on English and Maths, we also set skills based targets which promote independence, self-respect, dignity, self-esteem, self-confidence and self-regulation.
• Through an appropriate and exciting environment, we can meet our aim to value learning, safety, independence and play, ensuring maximum achievement.

Engage

• The role of communication is key in all we do and underpins our approach to learning – each class has a bespoke approach to communication using strategies for both children and adults to communicate effectively. This includes Makaton, PECS, symbols, iPads and Smartboards, photos, Intensive Interaction, music, objects of reference and body signing.
• We also use our specialist knowledge and skills to effectively meet the needs of pupils with SEND. We undertake regular training in a wide range of well-known strategies including TEACCH for children within the Autistic Spectrum Disorder. We also offer in house “Twilight” training on a number of areas of SEND.
• We value enrichment and inclusion and include this in the school year through such mediums as sport, dance, music, theatre, celebrations, community visits, charity fundraising, horse riding and swimming.
• Each child has a personal Engagement Profile which includes specific strategies for staff to use, to ensure engagement for learning is a priority. Each Profile also includes information about our “Optimal Learning Environment. Through refurbishment, planning and careful design, we can ensure an inspirational, accessible and adaptable environment that fosters a culture of learning and meets the requirements of all pupils.
• Pupils with more complex needs can access the curriculum through the use of multi-sensory approaches.  This enables the children to use and integrate their senses to learn about themselves and the world around them.  The balance between subject based sessions and therapeutic input may be different for each pupils and is planned according to individual needs.
• Behaviour plans are developed for pupils that may display challenging behaviours. These focus on developing self-regulation, emotional literacy and de-escalation skills.

Learn

• We provide a bespoke approach to learning, to support the needs of children with often complex and widely differing needs. All pupils should be supported to achieve, no matter how small the goal or milestone.
• Progress of learning, behaviour, physical and emotional development is closely monitored by Teaching Staff, which is fed in to whole school systems of assessment. This ensures we are always aware of where a pupil is on the learning journey and what appropriate next steps are to help them move forward in many areas.
• We have a developing curriculum, relevant to each stage of the children’s learning journey, which prioritises key areas and an appropriate mix of academic and life skills. See Department Vision Statements and the Curriculum Policy for more details.
• All staff or professionals working with the pupils should develop a culture of supported independence and encourage pupils to be as independent as possible in the world around them.
• We also encourage pupils to use and access resources in the local community, in order for pupils to build relationships and engage with their community spaces. We aim to promote the social inclusion of all pupils and prepare them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life as pertinent to their circumstances.
• We are part of Multi-professional teams, working alongside families, education, health, social care, physiotherapists, Speech and Language Therapists and others. All these people support our ability to offer each pupil an individualised package, to meet all their needs and to ensure they thrive and learn to their full potential.
• We strongly encourage links with Parents/ Carers as partners in learning through the use of Family Link Workers and involvement in target setting through the EHCP process. We see this is a vital component for our pupils.