Umbrella Outreach

Umbrella Outreach Support

'Building Collaboration for the
SEN Community'

Our Purpose

Umbrella Outreach Support Service seeks to bring an enriched understanding to challenging behaviour, through trauma-informed perspectives and recognition of troubled life experiences. Our intervention work is aimed at benefitting the whole school community; supporting school staff, pupils and their families.

This is an innovative team who offer bespoke responses to the individual pupils’ needs within a school context. The diverse skills of the team mean that they can offer enhanced Individualised support for pupils in Years 7+ with SEMH need.

Umbrella is a school to school led initiative - referrals are made by schools or Local Authorities.

Collaborative Partnerships

Through collaborative partnerships with other schools we aim to support professionals in transforming teaching and learning together. We look to to build positive and open relationships with other educators to promote lives of meaning, purpose and success for all students.

Regardless of judgements and ratings, all schools have strengths and areas for improvement. Not one school has the monopoly on challenge. At Oak Bank School, we have been recognised to have strengths and expertise in our approaches to behaviour management.

Working with complex and diverse young people we believe our success can be found in our;

strategic thinking
Strategic Capacity
Collaboration
System Capability
Development of leadership and succession planning

These elements and more have enabled us to build a positive culture, raise aspirations and have positive impact to young people, families and communities.

It is by providing behaviour focused collaborative partnerships that we feel best suited to support the improvement of education.

"The Standards you walk past are the standards you accept"

Lieutenant General David Morrison

Successful collaborations are based on trust, support and solidarity. We help to develop the use of good data, good judgement, thoughtful feedback and respectful professional dialogue.

Our experience has shown that improved psychological safety and raising collective responsibility can lead to candid conversations, courageous engagement and bolder visions of education (Edmondson, 2018)

We are keen to work whole school or with those in leadership roles. We believe emotional intelligence to be important and can provide coaching and mentoring to suit all needs.

Growth mindset (Dweck 2017) has become more widely familiar in education. However, few have had the opportunity to work within an establishment and appraisal process that sees the imperfections as opportunity and space in which to grow.

As a Behaviour hub, we provide the guidance, reflections and support that is refreshing, creative and inspiring.

Change is a journey that takes time and investment of energy. Allow us to help with the direction.

Keeping the pupil at the heart of what we do

Further Intent :

At Oak Bank School we believe;

that no school has all the answers and that we can only improve education if we work together.
No single school has the capacity to solve all of it's educational challenges on it's own.
No single school should be content if they see another school facing challenge.

Umbrella's Outreach Offer

Our Aims

To provide tailored support that enables staff to meet the individual needs of pupils effectively.

To improve outcomes for children and young people with SEND, helping them to thrive in mainstream education wherever appropriate.

To foster early intervention and strengthen the confidence of school communities, including families, in supporting pupils’ diverse needs.

To help track and support pupils’ social, emotional, and academic progress, creating opportunities for individual success.

To build strong foundations for adulthood by developing life skills, confidence, and independence.

To equip staff with the training and expertise needed to respond to pupils’ evolving needs, including specialist therapy support where required.

To share our expertise with other schools and partners, contributing to wider improvement and community support.

Our Approach

We are objective and solution focused in our approach. We rely on experience, examples of good practice and the underpinning of pedagogy in current research and literature from education, business and beyond.

Initial discussions with partnered professional are based on clarity relating to the following statements;

i. Collaboration works best with a clear and intended PURPOSE

ii. Collaborative partnership is based on giving and receiving MUTUALITY

iii. An agreed timescale is necessary for the collaboration to deliver it's objectives PACE

Our input is structured around an Improvement Cycle approach. This is based on educational and business strategy models and allows us to leave school leaders with a format to continue their own development direction beyond our focussed support.

(D. Carter, 2019)

Improvement Cycle

Our improvement cycle selects the most appropriate support methods at each stage to maximise potentials for success. We know that schools will not be identical to our own. For example, schools may have a differing demographic or varying levels of stakeholder engagement. It is therefore important to have a variety of exercises and tools upon which to call.

We are experienced with using recognised approaches such as Horizon scanning exercises, PESTLE analysis, Kotter's 8 step model, Dimensions of Change, stakeholder engagement strategies, strategic work force planning, succession planning and generational audits. In addition to known methods, we have bespoke tracking and assessment tools that are flexible and adaptable to other educational settings.

When looking at changing and embedding positive behavioural cultures. It is our willingness to adapt, evolve and create that inspires our leaders to take our journey.

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