About CYCES

CYCES is an independent special school providing education programmes for pupils who are some of the most disadvantaged of all and have complex behavioural, emotional and social difficulties (BESD).

CYCES was originally established to provide education for children residing in the Together Trust children’s homes. Now about half our pupils are looked after and come from children’s homes or are fostered and our staff are experts in understanding how being in the care system affects children.

What CYCES offers pupils:

• Intensive personal support, to re-engage with education, help manage their own behaviour and develop more positive relationships with others
• Intensive literacy support
• A whole series of activities that motivate and engage learners in ways that are not so readily available in other settings
• The opportunity to catch up on basic educational skills
• The opportunity to return to their local school
• Access to accredited courses including five GCSEs
• Opportunities for alternative programmes
• Wide-ranging and ongoing assessment of progress from their baseline.

One of the most important roles the school has is to re-engage pupils in learning. We work with youngsters who have sometimes had long periods out of school, with a history of failure involving permanent exclusion or risk of permanent exclusion from school and the rest of society.

At CYCES we believe the prerequisite to learning is for the learners to feel safe. A focus of our efforts is to provide clear consistent boundaries and challenge contained in a curriculum based on the National Curriculum.

The curriculum is personalised and has opportunities to gain accredited qualifications up to GCSE. To meet the extraordinarily varied educational experiences and achievements of our pupils and their degree of appetite to learn, we have an emphasis on curriculum themes that have a track record of engaging hard to reach pupils. They include art, drama, food tech, dance, sports, and outdoor pursuits. The activities often provide an alternative teaching environment.

For some who have had incomplete or restricted early experiences, CYCES has developed a nurture group, which is accredited by the Nurture Group Network with the Marjorie Boxall Quality Mark Award. As with many of the CYCES achievements, this was achieved "having met the standards at the highest level".