Accomodation 

Pupils are based in eight houses, Tarn, Lake, Beck, Fell, Peak, Whitbarrow, Dale Cottage and the Coach House.

Each house includes appropriate facilities for recreation and leisure, including facilities for private study, a dining area and kitchen for preparing snacks and drinks and pupil telephones for calls home.

 

Pupils are encouraged to personalise their own individual areas, including choosing their own duvet covers and pillow cases. The routines extend to keeping their rooms neat and tidy and to assisting with minor domestic chores. Each house has its own team of care staff including a House Leader.
 

Individual Support 

We believe in a personalised approach to looking after young people in our care. This is based upon our highly motivated, qualified and committed staff team achieving a good balance of care and control through the development of sound positive relationships. All young people are allocated a key-worker who is responsible for regular one to one sessions with young people to discuss any concerns, anxieties or problems they might be experiencing and ensuring all their welfare needs are fully met.

Key workers also work in partnership with parents and carers by communicating regularly with them and offering practical advice and support when needed, to ensure the best outcomes for young people. Each young person has an Individual Care and Education Plan which sets out targets and strategies in a number of areas. Young people participate in the setting and review of these targets as part of the school’s negotiated care planning ethos.



 

Activities 

Young people are encouraged to participate wholly in the ‘24-hour curriculum’ which promotes their participation in recreational, sporting and cultural activities via an evening and weekend activity programme and inter-school teams and fixtures. There are established links with the local community. Young people at Witherslack have excellent opportunities to be able to engage in a wide variety of interesting and stimulating activities, which include swimming, canoeing, gorge walking, climbing, cinema trips, bowling, camping, ice skating, and football, to name but a few.

If there is a particular interest or hobby a young person wishes to pursue, we will do our utmost to accommodate and encourage this. All activities are carried out by appropriately qualified staff. All pupils have an annual week’s residential camping experience.

 

Environment 

We support young people through their adolescent development, helping them make their own choices and mistakes, in order for them to learn and grow. We strive to work creatively to develop a range of flexible residential experiences that are valued by young people and promote the ideals of resilience, resourcefulness and independence.
 

Staff

All staff have access to regular training and development programmes in all aspects of their work. Residential Child Care Officers are given access to NVQ Level 3 in Caring for Children and Young People and all Care Managers have access to NVQ Level 4 in Child Care.
All staff are recruited in line with DCSF guidance regarding Safeguarding Children in Education.