Welcome from our Head Teacher
Mr D. N Lennon B Ed (hons) QTS PGCE Award for SENDCo, NPQEL
Hello and welcome to The Linden Centre.
As an aspirational group of provisions, we create the environment to enable each of our young people to lead an enriched, successful and happy life. Together, we focus on developing the skills, attitudes and qualities for each individual young person to move successfully along to the next stage of their life journey. This includes a fundamental commitment to accelerating academic outcomes that reflect the best of each student's ability but with the holistic focus on enabling sustained healthy relationships. We believe that these are essential for success, future employment and maintaining strong resilient mental wellbeing. We encourage and value healthy attitudes to keeping themselves and others safe and well. The wellbeing of everyone is an equal priority, as we model our provision around the highest principles to #NurtureDevelopEmpower.
Our aim is to reduce the numbers of pupils who are Permanently Excluded from school by offering mainstream schools an alternative provision as an assessment and intervention. We offer a range of interventions so pupils can be supported, either within their mainstream school or at one of our provisions.
We follow a reflective and restorative approach with the highest aspiration for everyone. Parents/carers, staff and our students work collaboratively in a solution focused, growth mindset, can-do approach. We love enabling our young people to achieve their very best and we are proud of their success.
We work in partnership with Telford and Wrekin Local Authority and with schools to make sure that all children, regardless of their background, have access to a great education and real choices in life here in our locality and beyond.
We believe that, with the right approach, every child has the potential to succeed - even those in the most challenging circumstances. Nothing should be a barrier to children achieving. The Linden Centre has grown into a group of 4 small provisions under the PRU umberella both serving the local needs of young people in Telford and Wrekin who need access to the tailored personalised educational provision we offer and also providing the earlier intervention to prevent children accessing our PRU as an excluded child.
All of our provisions are tailored to suit individual needs and we continually strive to support aspiration in every child who joins our family. We’re extremely proud of what they can and have achieved as typically our pupils perform in line with similar pupils nationally. The Linden Centre group of provisions is firmly committed to #NurutreDevelopEmpower and we aspire for achievement for all.
We innovate, learn and adapt - and then we share it
Things can only be changed through tailored education, hard work, high expectations and evidence-driven approaches. In some cases, it could be about tweaking the way a lesson is taught; in others, it's changing the way we think about training and developing teachers. We believe in a coaching model of success and that a constant cycle of self-reflection, coupled with high aspirations for all, promotes success. When finding the right pathway to transform our children's lives, we work alongside other mainstream schools to ensure high levels of transition and success for next steps.
Working in partnership is key to everything we do, locally and nationally
We can have an increased impact when we work with others, such as governments and educational organisations, as well as people at a local level too. From having key members of the community as management committee members, to engaging parents and taking part in local events, our schools work with others to create happy, safe communities.
Working together is key to everything we do: whether that’s teachers sharing resources across provisions, or children from different schools engaged in joint community projects. Our work has greater impact when we share knowledge and expertise so we have an open door policy and welcome practitioners and colleagues who visit from other schools nationally to collaborate together to find better ways to engage and produce cost effective high outcomes and progress for key groups.
We are driven by the belief that every child can succeed if they have the right opportunities
Over recent years, we have seen some life-changing results for children who attend our provisions. However it is only the beginning. We're committed to transforming even more lives through our holistic education and to continuously strive with others aiming to make Education in Telford and Wrekin truly transformational for everyone.
Mr Darren Lennon
Headteacher & Behaviour Support Advisory Team Leader
