A warm welcome from
Our Principal
At Southway, our approach is not to say ‘these are the expectations, you need to meet them’ so much as it is to say ‘we will meet you where you are at, no matter how ‘far away’ you feel, how hopeless and helpless it seems, and we will bring you with us towards these higher expectations. Step-by-step.’
Southway is an organisation that is committed to two key principles above all else: 'give hope' and 'build healthy relationships'. These are our core values. We expect to see our staff relentlessly adopt this approach and we also endeavour to foster these qualities in the young people we serve.
Our Core Values
Resilience
Our resilience curriculum is designed to unpick and challenge the misunderstanding students feel when joining Southway; many students joining us have already learnt to think of themselves as having not succeeded by one measure or another; their very attendance at Southway represents, they think, a failure to get ‘it’ right, whatever ‘it’ may be. Our aim is to either restore or develop and then to imbue a fundamental and crucial feeling of self-worth. We do this not by encouraging students to ignore or make light of their mistakes, of the times they ‘fall short’; Resilience is about seeing these experiences for what they are: life-learning, not life-defining.
Parental Support
At Southway, we adopt a trauma-informed approach to our support and intervention work. Students that join us typically have ‘Social, Emotional and Mental Health’ SEND. Many students have other complexities, are involved with one or more agency, or have missed significant portions of their Primary or Secondary education. The structure of our pastoral system has been developed so that we have teams of professionals who are able to address these areas of need and provide appropriate, targeted support.
Curriculum
Southway is a unique setting by many different measures and as such, requires a distinctive and creative approach to its curriculum design. One facet of our vision for Southway is to take the best, most successful features of a traditional ‘Alternative Provision’ and blend them with the best features of a high-performing Independent School. We don’t hide from the fact that our Independent School status, places us at the same table as some of the country’s most salubrious, esteemed, and long-established schools.
