SEMH Alternative Provision (The POD)

Alternative Provision for children with SEMH needs (The POD)

The Alternative Provision, known as the POD, was established in 2019 and links with Manchester City Council’s Bridgelea Primary School, a specialist provision for social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) difficulties. Places are allocated within the provision via Bridgelea for children who have an Education, Health and Care plan (EHCP), who need an assessment placement while an application for an EHCP is processed, or who need respite from their current school setting.

Children who attend the POD are often at risk of permanent exclusion from the placing school.  The children benefit from working in small groups of up to 6, with adults attuned to the needs of pupils with SEMH. There are two classrooms, Class VA (YR-Y3) and Class JS (Y3-6), with up to 6 children in each room.  The school day runs from 9am-2pm,  with the consistency of the same staff working with the children throughout unstructured parts of the day. In line with our holistic approach to supporting children with SEMH, we work within a multidisciplinary team with access to speech and language therapy, pupil counselling and educational psychology as required. 

Children who attend the POD have a personalised curriculum that meets their SEMH needs.  We aim to teach the children at “stage not age”, as many demonstrate difficulties in learning due to their SEMH needs. We aim to develop key skills and through providing a safe, inclusive learning environment, and breakdown some of the barriers to learning that the children may have which will enable the children to move on to a specialist setting or back to their mainstream school with strategies to support make progress with their learning and the ability to regulate their emotions.