Case Study: Student 1

At Launch 2 Learning, we empower, educate, inspire and engage the students we work with. We adopt an individualised approach where we put the needs of the child at the centre of all we do. This has positive results where those we work with are able to lead a more successful life and are able to actively utilise the progress they have made.

One particular success story is of a student who had experienced difficulties at the end of one stage of school and found the transition to the next stage too much. The change in environment alongside  other factors meant that the struggled to communicate how they were feeling and was angry a lot of the time. The student’s behaviour was aggressive, threatening and destructive. Eventually, their school felt there was a real risk of permanent exclusion and was guided to us for support.

When the student first came to L2L, they displayed some of these behaviours. Within a short period of time however, the calm environment and working 1:1 with teachers meant that they were able to start articulating thoughts and feelings in a safe environment with people they had built a rapport with. Teachers were able to explore with this young person their feelings, responses to those feelings and worked with the student to find strategies that helped them.

This young person attended L2L consistently and it wasn’t long before they were completing academic work every day, enjoying the success of learning and wanting to build on these newly acquired skills. Alongside this, behaviour improved and they were able to discuss thoughts effectively.

After a period of intervention, the student was able to integrate back into mainstream education after a relatively short time and this has been hugely positive for both the student and their family. Now, over a year later, this student continues to access the curriculum at a mainstream school, enjoys school and is finding success in life. They will progress into the next stage of education with their peers and has a bright future ahead.

‘Odd School’

The taxi pulls up and she sits, staring ahead with a knot beginning to tighten in her stomach. They are parked outside a building which looks like a school, it is a school of some sort, but odd in some way. She can see another girl getting out of a car, waving back at the driver and walking in – smiling. That looks odd as well.

She is greeted in reception by a beaming woman who compliments her new haircut and asks what she did at the weekend. She signs in and is shown to a desk to meet her tutor, Jan, who asks her again about what she’s been doing and seems very interested in finding out about her life. All very odd.

Now the lesson. It’s down as English but, again, rather odd. Jan explains what she has planned but keeps asking her what she thinks, what she would like to do and where she thinks she wants to improve.

She looks around at the other tutors and students, they are chatting to each other and smiling. One rather scary-looking boy seems to be in a mood, staring determinedly at the floor – then his tutor says something, and he, too, starts to smile. Later she sees him playing table tennis, laughing loudly as he sends a shot past his tutor’s outstretched bat.

As she relaxes into the session, feeling the knot in her stomach begin to loosen, Jan nudges her along gently, making suggestions for improvements and taking time to explain a few things she has never fully understood.

‘Fancy a break?’ Jan asks and she is surprised to realise that they have been working for over an hour. Very odd.

And so, the time ebbs away in this school that isn’t a school. A bit later, she and Jan are challenged to a game of Scrabble by another student and his tutor and later still she finds herself making biscuits with a girl she realises she vaguely knows from infant school. They have a lovely chat.

Then it’s more English – this time some reading from a book which Jan has brought along. She even finds herself reading aloud for the first time in many years. The book is so good that she asks if she can borrow it to read at home.

Before she knows it, her taxi is back and she says her goodbyes to the smiling people around her.

As she sits back in the taxi, she has a strange feeling – a feeling she used to have when she was much younger. She is looking forward to coming back to this place again.

Very odd.