Who We Support - School2U Virtual Academy

Who we help

We work with young people from Upper Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 5 who cannot currently access school in the usual way. We are a hybrid service. We deliver online, face to face, or a mix of both, and we change the mix as the young person changes. A mentor is in place within 48 hours of agreement, while we prepare the young person for the full programme. Parents are supported too, including counselling from an experienced parent counsellor. If a young person needs a formal assessment, we arrange it. We have an educational psychologist and a SEND specialist on the team.

Emotionally based school avoidance (EBSA)

The young person is not refusing school. They are managing anxiety in the only way available to them. Attendance drops, then stops. We start where they are, which is often at home and in person. The same adults every session. Nothing unplanned. A return plan the young person helps to write.

Medical needs and long term health conditions

Illness, hospital admission, chronic fatigue or a long recovery. Education should continue throughout. Often it stops. We work alongside any tutors already in place so nobody is teaching in the dark. Sessions are timed around energy rather than a timetable.

At home with no provision in place

Nothing arranged, sometimes for months. Often a family that has stopped answering the phone to professionals. We start with the household. We ask to be useful before we ask for access.

Where alternative provision has not held

A placement was made and the young person stopped attending. Or they never engaged with it at all. We do not ask a young person to be ready before we start. We start, and we build readiness from there.

SEND and needs that have never been assessed

Needs that are visible to everyone around the young person but have never been formally identified. We have an educational psychologist and a SEND specialist qualified to Level 7 on the team. If a young person needs a formal assessment, we arrange it. It is commissioned separately and costed alongside the placement.

Young carers and pupils with responsibilities at home

Mornings are unpredictable. They are needed at home before anything else can happen. Work is available for later in the day. Nothing is recorded as a failure and nothing has to be explained twice.

Waiting for a place, a managed move, or a route back after exclusion

Weeks or months where nothing is in place and learning stops. We keep education going through the gap, so the young person does not arrive at their next setting further behind than when they left the last one.

“My daughter does not trust many people. She trusted them completely.”

── PARENT

A maths lesson does not have to look like a maths lesson

One of our young people would not sit at a desk. So we taught ratio, proportion, conversion and measurement in a kitchen, over a mixing bowl. The maths was the same maths. The exam board does not care where it was learned.

An English lesson that started with football

He would not open a book. He would read anything about football. So that is where we started. Match reports for structure. Player interviews for register and tone. Then persuasive writing, then analysis, then the assessment itself. The English was the same English. We just found the door he was willing to walk through.

Every lesson and every scheme of work is checked by a qualified subject teacher before it reaches a young person.

Every plan builds toward a sustainable return. Not indefinite containment.