At Chapel House, children and young people (CYP) from Year 7 – 11 spend varying amounts of time in school. The CYP at Chapel House have been deemed medically too unwell to attend school and have spent an average of 66 weeks out of education. Students are generally at Chapel House for between 18 and 24 lessons a week, depending on their pathway (e.g. Stabilisation, Engagement or Learning), their health, their transition and any qualifications they may be taking. Lessons are 50 minutes long and there are 6 lessons per day.

In addition to this, CYP also get time at Whirlow Hall Farm (WHF). WHF offers a nurturing and therapeutic environment for CYP as well as practical activities like animal care, forest school and cooking. These activities build confidence, social skills and support over-all wellbeing.

The priority for CYP in Y11 is core — we have a significant number of students join us in Y11 and so the focus moves to them gaining literacy and numeracy skills and appropriate qualifications in core subjects, in order to support them into their next provision. This focus on core is balanced with personal interventions, ‘Healthy Me’, PSHE and for some depending on pathway, Humanities and/ or Life Skills. This is to compensate for the significant gaps many of our CYP have experienced prior to coming to us. Y11 students are also given the opportunity to study a GCSE in Art or Statistics as an additional subject where appropriate.

‘Healthy Me’ time is an experiential curriculum which has a different purpose to other discrete subjects which make up our curriculum offer at Chapel House. Here, CYP have an opportunity to experience a broad range of activities, such as cycling, boxing, walking in the Peaks, bushcraft activities etc. Often the CYP in our care spend little or no time as part of any clubs outside of school, or take part in any physical activity. We are mindful of the benefits of this on mental health, and so the ‘Healthy Me’ curriculum is aimed at providing a full range of activities for CYP to experience, with the hope they will continue with one or more in the future and that this contributes to the strategies they develop to support their ongoing emotional wellbeing. This curriculum also contributes towards the outcomes outlined in our Curriculum Policy and Framework.