Our approach

How are we different?

Calder House offers a unique approach to whole school specialist provision - one which delivers one-to-one specialist help without the loss of classroom teaching and which is tailored to meet the needs of each individual pupil.

“All the staff at Calder House were very caring and considerate towards our son while maintaining firm boundaries and high expectations of him and his behaviour.”

Former pupil’s parent

Our approach

Countless children feel stranded in mainstreams schools. For some Calder House can make a real difference.

At Calder House everything we do stems from the needs of the individual child. We believe the most effective way to meet these needs is to create a personalised learning program around each pupil. This is why at Calder House every child follows a timetable designed around his or her individual strengths and weaknesses.

We believe in order for children with specific learning difficulties to succeed in school:

There must be a close match between teaching skills and pupil needs
Teaching should be informed by specialist training
One to one support should be given by specialists
The role of teaching assistants is to support the teacher – not to do the work for the child
There should be no withdrawal from core lessons and fun activities
Full access to the National Curriculum should prepare the child to return to mainstream schooling
Speech and language therapists and physiotherapists should support teaching staff to promote the development of the mental and physical skills which underpin learning skills.
Teachers should help pupils overcome their fear of failure. In order to succeed pupils need to be confident enough to try and make mistakes.

Calder House gives children the opportunity to succeed in a friendly learning environment. We are non-competitive. We celebrate success and achievement – but without putting others down

Most of all we have fun: our aim is to ensure that our pupils enjoy school, achieve the success of which each is capable and return within a short time frame (in most cases under three years) to mainstream education.