South Island School strives to help all students realise their full potential and provides an inclusive education for students who have a wide range of abilities. We use an inclusive model in which students are primarily supported within the classroom to access a broad and balanced curriculum. Our teachers and staff at South Island School will work with students and parents to ensure each student can access our curriculum according to their needs.
Learning Diversity
Learning Diversity Teachers support an assigned year group and provide tiered levels of support for students identified as Levels of Adjustment 1, 2, 3 and 4. Our inclusive model primarily includes supporting students within the classroom through a Universal Design of Learning and tiered levels of support and adjustments. The department also benefits from a team of Educational Assistants who assist in educating and supervising students with Levels of Adjustment 3 and 4. Under certain circumstances, South Island School may request parents to employ an Educational Assistant to support their child for reasons such as health and personal care, the safety of students and staff, and curriculum access.
Exam Access Arrangements
Access arrangements provide a range of accommodations to ensure that students with learning/physical/psychological difficulties are not disadvantaged in an exam or timed assessment by being unable to show what they know or can do due to their difficulties. There are strict criteria that students need to meet, as outlined by the governing body.
For Years 7-9, access arrangements will be given by subject teachers should a student be unable to show their understanding in an assessment under ‘typical’ conditions. The arrangements will be recorded as evidence of the history of needs, history of provision and normal way of working.
For Years 10-13, access arrangements are available for GCSEs and IB programs. Access arrangements are applied for through the Learning Diversity Department and the Examination Office. Assessments to determine eligibility are carried out by Individual Needs Specialists (RQTU) or a qualified educational/clinical psychologist or a psychiatrist, depending on the student’s needs.
Learning Support Centre
Students who require greater levels of support or adaptations follow a bespoke curriculum. Depending on the individual student’s strengths, interests, aptitude and learning needs, it is also possible for students to follow a ‘mixed’ timetable of mainstream and LSC subjects/courses. Throughout Years 7 to 13, students complete a range of units or courses that may include AQA Unit Award Scheme, ASDAN and TQUK courses. In Year 10, students taking a full timetable of Learning Support Classes (LSC) begin working on their SIS Diploma, which is designed to prepare students with complex learning needs for work, education and life after Year 13. It is structured to develop self-confidence, life and independence skills, as well as offering work related learning courses.
Y12 & 13 students only - Structured Work Placement
This is organised and led by the ESF Career Development Service and aims to provide vocational training opportunities for Year 12 and 13 students with complex learning needs in ESF schools. It plays an important role in providing work placement or work experience opportunities for students to access the work environment, to use and apply classroom-based training and knowledge in real-life job situations in settings such as business, administration, retail, hospitality and catering, etc. One day per week, students attend a Structured Work Placement (SWP) where they work in a supervised capacity. The placements are varied and designed to introduce students to the rigours of the workplace and for them to develop work skills in an authentic setting. The placement is supported and accredited by following the ASDAN Workright programme, which provides students with information about work skills before starting their placement.
English for Academic Purposes
At South Island School, we are committed to giving every student the best opportunities to succeed. Many students who come to our school do not have English as their first and primary language-their mother tongue. Some of these students – known as ‘BMLs’ – Bilingual or Multilingual Learners – need extra help to improve and extend their English in order to achieve their potential in all their subjects.
The EAP department offers a range of English enrichment classes and activities to help these students. Alongside this extra help, all teachers at SIS receive regular training in techniques and strategies for teaching bilingual and multilingual students in their classes.
Year 7-9
Year 7 students are assessed to determine whether they need extra help with reading, writing or speaking English. Small groups of students are then given Intensive English classes in place of either Chinese or World Language classes. Other students are withdrawn to a small group during fortnightly library reading lessons and given extra English help, which focuses primarily on boosting their reading and grammar skills and practice with writing different types of text.
Year 8 and 9 students continue these classes. New students are assessed when joining the school and placed in Intensive English and/or reading withdrawal as appropriate.
Year 10-11
Year 10 and Year 11 students needing extra English support are placed in English Enrichment classes. These run fortnightly for two hours. Students revise the reading skills and writing styles they need to master for the English Language IGCSE. They also focus on improving their grammar and building their vocabulary.
Year 12-13
In Years 12 and 13, students attend one-to-one sessions in their study periods to receive individual or small-group support.
English as Additional Language (EAL)
Students from all linguistic backgrounds are considered for admission to the school. The admissions process seeks to determine whether applicants are sufficiently proficient in English to successfully access the school's curriculum. The school is committed to offering an inclusive support system to Bilingual-Multilingual Learners. While providing a curriculum with English as the medium of instruction, the school values supports and recognises the importance of each Bilingual-Multilingual Learner’s native language or mother tongue.
Learning Technology
Digital Literacy
As a progressive Learning Community, South Island School embraces technology as we develop and empower our community to become media-literate Digital Citizens who can Make a Difference in an increasingly complex and interconnected global society.
What do we mean by Digital Literacy?
Digital literacy is an important entitlement for all of our students at South Island School in an increasingly digital culture. It furnishes them with the skills, knowledge and understanding that enable critical, creative, discerning and safe practices when engaging with digital technologies in all areas of life.
To be digitally literate is to have access to a broad range of practices and cultural resources that you are able to apply to digital tools. It is the ability to make and share meaning in different modes and formats; to create, collaborate and communicate effectively and to understand how and when digital technologies can best be used to support these processes.
Some people associate digital literacy simply with the functional skills of being able to use a computer or particular software package effectively. But at South Island School digital literacy is about much more than having access to or being able to use a computer. It’s about collaborating, staying safe and communicating effectively. It’s about cultural and social awareness and understanding, and it’s about being creative.
Being digitally literate is about knowing when and why digital technologies are appropriate and helpful to the task at hand and when they are not. It’s about thinking critically about all the opportunities and challenges digital technologies present, whether these are, for example, Web 2.0 tools such as social networking sites and Wikis or animation and editing software or digital cameras. It can be helpful to think of digital literacy as made up of a number of interrelated components or strands.
South Island has adopted two important documents created by the English Schools Foundation (ESF) with the input of Educational Technology coordinators from across the foundation. The Digital Citizenship Framework is embedded into our Pastoral Learning Curriculum whilst students and staff from the Digital Leadership Council (DLC) advocate for safe use of digital technologies in our Laptop Induction events for students and staff as well as our annual Digital Safety Week. In 2024, the ESF released the Educational Technologies Framework which focused on four key sections: critical thinking and problem solving; communication and collaboration; technology operations and concepts; creativity and innovation.
From August 2024, the school has introduced new guidelines for the use of digital technologies. This involves the application of current research, which suggests that smartphones are increasingly a hindrance to teaching and learning in schools. Subsequently, South Island is a phone free school between the times of 7:50 am and 3:15pm from Monday to Thursday and 7:50 am until 12:55 pm each Friday. We will continue to review this strategy in light of newly published research on this subject.
South Island School 1:1 Laptop Programme
South Island School is committed to a 1-student-to-1-laptop initiative with the goal of enhancing and expanding the learning opportunities for all students. SIS opted for Apple computers after careful analysis of a variety of computing products, services and pedagogical needs. The School ICT infrastructure and e-resources are set up for the Mac platform.
All students at SIS must have a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro Laptop. A MacBook is an essential piece of equipment for day-to-day learning and communications in school. Future students may purchase a MacBook for their studies through the school or provide their own school approved MacBook after enrollment. The school’s ICT Centre cannot provide support to other brand-name laptops except MacBook.