Kibble Education and Care Centre
Kibble Education and Care Centre is an independent, charitable service in Paisley,
Renfrewshire, which serves young people with significant social, emotional and
behavioural needs. Twenty-eight Scottish local authorities and one English local
education authority have placed young people in the open school. Kibble includes
an open school and a secure unit. The open school provides education and
residential care for care, support and education for up to 64 young people between
the age of 12 and 18 years. Since 2010 Kibble has been registered to accommodate
both boys and girls and has a primary school class at Gleniffer Braes, Paisley. The
secure unit, called the Safe Centre, provides secure residential care and education
for 18 young people. In addition to the school and Safe Centre, Kibble offers a range
of services including workplace experiences at Kibbleworks and an Intensive
Fostering Service to support carers.
Inspectors noted the following features of the school’s work which contributed to the
school receiving an evaluation of “excellent” for Q.I. 5.3 in the third edition of How
good is our school? 1Evaluations take account of the context of the school and these
features are just part of the overall approach the school takes to improving young
people’s learning experiences and achievements.
Meeting learning needs
Tasks activities and resources
Young people receive a very broad range of programmes and courses leading to
improved learning outcomes. They benefit significantly from having their curriculum
tailored to suit their needs. Young people achieve successfully and engage in
learning through a wide range of certificated courses. Vocational programmes
provide exceptional opportunities for young people to develop skills for learning,
work and life. They progress to more advanced learning because of the
well-structured programmes provided in Skillzone, Kibbleworks and the vocational
work base in the open school. In the vocational courses young people have very
good opportunities to use their basic reading and comprehension skills and to apply
skills in measurement. Staff use imaginative approaches to deliver the curriculum
and have very good partnerships with the voluntary sector and local businesses.
Staff involve young people in discussing the types of support that would be helpful to
them. Where appropriate, young people have access to a range of specialist
support services. Care and education staff work together closely to ensure that
young people receive appropriate levels of support and challenge. They are highly
effective in helping young people overcome their barriers to learning. Care support
workers play an important role in helping young people make the most of their
learning experiences.
1
http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/Images/HowgoodisourschoolJtEpart3_tcm4684258.pdf
1
Identification of needs
Staff have developed clear and effective approaches to identifying needs and
planning appropriate levels and types of support. Support is tailored to the specific
needs of the young person and is adapted to address changing needs. There are
very effective systems in place to ensure continuity and consistency in delivering
support to young people i.e. well-trained staff and a strong sense of teamworking.
Communication across care and education is efficient and effective. Staff work well
in multi-disciplinary team meetings. Key worker, key tutor and care support worker
roles provide wrap around support for each young person. Learner profiles are very
well planned and presented. They contain relevant and helpful information on the
young person. Progress and achievements are recorded clearly and the style and
content are very suitable and meaningful for young people themselves. Alongside
behaviour and high quality care plans, these planning approaches support strongly,
young people’s progress across their Kibble experience. Staff engage young people
in talking about difficulties and in findings solutions to them to enable them to
participate in educational experiences. Specialist Intervention Services provide a
range of specialist assessments and interventions for young people. These
programmes are providing young people with valuable support for anger
management, substance misuse, aggression and violence and offending behaviours.
The Looked After Children nurse provides very good support to young people for
their health and wellbeing needs. She has formed very good relationships with the
young people and has won their trust. She ensures that young people have the
necessary information to make informed choices about medical interventions or
treatments.
Roles of teachers and specialist staff
Overall, the service provides outstanding personal support that enables each young
person to gain as much as possible from their Kibble experience. Education staff
provide well considered levels of support and challenge. They use flexible and
adaptable approaches to address and meet young people’s changing needs. Young
people have very good access to specialist intervention services. There are
appropriate arrangements in place for identifying young people’s health and
wellbeing and learning needs. Psychologists carry out an initial screening of
emotional wellbeing. They assist in identifying specific learning needs and support
education staff in devising suitable programmes of learning. Staff use standardised
tests to provide an indication of young people’s literacy and numeracy skills. They
are proactive in gathering information on young people’s achievements from
previous schools/placements. Staff involve young people, their parents and
colleagues from partner services who have worked with the young person to identify
barriers to learning and appropriate programmes of support. In the Safe Centre,
staff take very good account of young people’s complex needs and provide them
with tasks and activities that are appropriate and suitably challenging. Staff are
responsive to young people’s changing needs and situations and adapt learning
experiences and levels of support in well-considered ways. Partnership working is
strong in the Safe Centre. There are high levels of consistency in applying agreed
strategies to support individuals across care and education.
2
Young people have access to a range of support mechanisms. Support is tailored to
the specific needs of the young person and is adapted to address changing needs.
The school has very effective approaches in place to ensure that care and education
staff take a holistic approach to addressing the needs of young people. Key tutor
and key worker roles are carried out very effectively and young people feel valued,
respected and well supported. The class support worker role helps to ensure that
continuity of support from the care to education setting.
Meeting the requirements of the legislation
The Centre has very effective arrangements to ensure that the requirements of
legislation are met. Staff are alert to young people’s emotional and mental
wellbeing. They know each young person well and have established very positive
relationships with them. Each young person has a suitable individualised
educational programme/learning profile. These are planned and set out very
effectively in a way that clearly reflects the young person and their strengths, needs
and successes. Care plans contain clear information on how young people’s care
and educational needs are being addressed. Young people are fully involved in the
planning process. Education staff meet each morning to discuss young people’s
progress. Staff act well on the information to adapt programmes to address
changing needs. Young people also have regular dialogue with key tutors and key
workers about their progress. Young people’s progress is reviewed regularly and
young people, parents and those involved in supporting the young person are fully
involved. Young people feel that they have a good say in planning their next steps.
3