At North Hill House School we always strive for excellence and progress. This is apparent when someone visits our school, experiencing and observing a number of welcoming aspects, such as positive attitude, inclusion, understanding and, above all, attainment for the students.
Whilst we can celebrate all these achievements, seeing the fruits of our hard work, it is important to reflect on how and what we have sown in order to harvest these outcomes.
Environmentally, we have not settled for anything less than stunning, comfortable, unique and bespoke. It is always interesting to monitor services that initially fulfil the aforementioned; however, when it comes to transforming an environment into a living setting, providers often struggle to convert an area into a homely, welcoming place where students do add their own uniqueness and personality to it.
Furthermore, by not undertaking this process, students tend not to see the comforts and calmness that a welcoming living area could provide, leading to it shortly become unsuitable. We have tackled this during the summer 2016 when refurbishments and renewals took place, which was followed by students contributing with their own art work to the residential areas, adding personality and uniqueness to the living spaces.
Another concept that follows our positive curiosity and search to continuously improve is the welcoming of inspections, different views, opinions and criticism. In a number of services, transparency and the ability to listen to a number of different stakeholders are frequently diminished, because there are fears of failure and anxiety related to accountability.
At North Hill House, we see this attitude as a failure in itself. We have always been open and eager to know from different stakeholders what we do well, however, we are also very committed to identify, analyse and rectify what we may not be doing really well. We do not allow weaknesses to hold us back, we improve upon these and aim to respond to them, confidently surprising stakeholders in how competent we have become in whatever aspect it was. We grow in our weaknesses.
Lastly, we have been effective in understanding and applying outcomes driven work. It is somehow easy to become distracted or even apply resources in elements that do not provide an impact or do not lead students to achieve realistic outcomes. We have observed that tasks become burdensome and difficult when one mistakenly adds resources or erratically fulfils goals that may not bring clear outcomes. This notion led the team to think how we could define and identify where to concentrate efforts, but the question was how and where? The answer had always been within our sights: the students need to lead the way and show us.
It has been clear that outcomes led by the students are effective and rewarding at short, mid and long term, making the use of resources clear, effective and focused. This has been recently demonstrated when some internal transitions took place, as these were instigated, designed and undertaken by the students with our support. Almost a reverse in roles from a conventional model!
We are excited about our school and these are just small, but powerful concepts that we have mastered whilst we support our students to attain and achieve. These are seeds that we sow in order make a difference for everyone in our service and to harvest the ultimate goal, which are complete individuals who will become fulfilled people in their adult lives.
Get in touch
North Hill House School provides specialist education and care to young people aged 6 to 19 years with high-functioning autism, who exhibit deficits in areas of communication and social interaction which may also include ADHD and dyslexia.
If you would like to place a young person into North Hill House School or would like more information on the services we provide, please call our dedicated referral line today on 0808 159 9400.