The Kingsbrook School

"For the pupils that we are actively trying to reintegrate we need to remove as many barriers as possible which is where the AV1 system comes in."

Context

I had previously used AV1 in my specialist setting for a young person who was unable to access school. I knew it worked which is why I was very keen to have a go. When Buckinghamshire Council offered us the chance to trial one, it was the perfect opportunity to see whether it worked with our students or not. 

As a school, we are currently spending a lot of money on alternative tuition and have a large number of SEN pupils (about 30%). 10% of those are EHCP pupils, some of whom are not in school. Therefore we are funding in person tuition and in some cases 8 hours of tuition a week which is costing us huge amounts of money. 

Whilst I do feel that in person tuition can be beneficial for some children, having another person come into their safe space is quite difficult. With other online AP,  which we do use for some pupils, they also don’t always follow where we are in the curriculum which can create another barrier as to why that child can not come back into school. For the pupils that we are actively trying to reintegrate we need to remove as many barriers as possible which is where the AV1 system comes in. We need something that enables that interaction, movement and allows the pupil to take control. The AV1 gives the pupil the chance to opt in or out of interaction, meaning we can use it for both engaged and non-engaged pupils. 

Planning

We are very much a research driven school and therefore sold AV1 to teachers just like any other technology we have trialed i.e. for the benefit of our pupils, so I had very little backlash. I had some staff who said they were a bit worried about not recognising the signals on the AV1 or worried about putting the AV1 user on the spot. I ensured that all staff were sent the necessary information and advised them to teach the class as they usually would. I don’t think there was a fear of being observed or watched, it was more about not wanting to get it wrong.  

With regards to parents, we only sent the letter to the parents of the classes it applied to and sent information for all staff (plus additional info for the classrooms it applied to). We also have SEN coffee mornings; I raised the AV1 there and we didn’t receive any negative feedback.

AV1 users

We used two AV1s to support a year 7 and year 8 pupil. The year 7 was suffering from chronic fatigue and was only accessing school for an hour a day, every other day. This is one child we expected to reintegrate. It’s going to be a long process but she has a peer group that she misses and is familiar with the staff and the way we teach. The AV1 was a really good option for her.

The year 8 pupil was out of school due to EBSNA, so circumstances were slightly more complicated. We have a section of the school where pupils who are dysregulated or feeling highly anxious can come to. This young person had, up until fairly recently, been coming into school and was accessing that space but not the classroom. They developed a really strong relationship with a member of staff. However, when that member of staff left that had a negative impact on their attendance and he was also missing key aspects of the curriculum by not being in mainstream lessons. 

The intention was he would operate the robot from the inclusion space. We had to think more carefully about which class group it was going into as we deemed his original tutor group as not the right fit. There was a lot of thought that went into that. The pupil had some anxiety around being asked questions and feeling pressured to talk. We reiterated that the different functions on the robot meant that he could observe and log off if it became too much.

Impact

With the pupil with chronic fatigue, initially she would be on the AV1 4-5 hours a day  interacting. She and her parents were loving it. Her friends also started to take it out at lunchtimes. When she was accessing the AV1 full time there was a slight dip in physical attendance (she would usually come in for in person sessions 3 days a week) which shows us she might have overdone it initially. That made us realise that we needed to focus more on the social aspect than trying to get her to attend all lessons a day via the AV1.

Academically she is still maintaining her maths grade and whilst you can’t capture the emotional wellbeing aspect as easily, her attitude to learning scores are all really high. I think for her it’s been a real success and if all it ever did was allow her to have that social interaction I think that’s incredible in itself.

For the EBSNA pupil the outcome has been both positive and negative. Initially, the pupil came into school to see the AV1. However, whilst our plan was always for the pupil to use the AV1 from our inclusion space, the first time he logged on properly was from home. He started logging on to Maths and History which was really promising. Unfortunately, allowing him the ability to log on from home has resulted in him now refusing to come into school in person. 

However, if I focus on the positive he is now interacting in some lessons which he has never done before. According to parents, he is now himself, his mood has lifted and his self esteem has improved. He is also now sleeping better because he is more actively engaged in learning. 

It hasn’t worked the way we wanted it to work in terms of physical reintegration but we are working towards that. We are reiterating and reinforcing that. Previously the young person wanted to remain at our school but it is hard to say where we will be this time next year. 

Reflections

We had to be cautious with who was taking the AV1 around school. When it went wrong it was either because it dropped signal or when it was left in a classroom and not brought back to charge. Since then we have built up a better routine of a member of staff being assigned to pick them up at the end of the day but we still rely on pupils to take them between lessons. 

We would like to use AV1 for multiple pupils. I have about 10 children who access the inclusion space who we could use it with. When we get to the point that those pupils need to access their GCSEs we can’t afford to have a teacher who is separately teaching two pupils in our inclusion room. Equally they are not going to be able to access a class of 25. So our plan is to use AV1 robots for those pupils so they can still access that face to face teaching.

Just because the AV1 didn’t result in physical reintegration of this specific EBSNA pupil does not mean that it wouldn’t work with another pupil in a similar situation. I think we will continue using it that way but we might be more robust in planning and insist that it is accessed from somewhere on school site for a pupil in a similar situation. We have now bought two of our own AV1s and are looking to invest in more as we know that down the line two will not be enough!