The family of five schools that collectively make up Snowdon Village have been working hard over the past three years to achieve something that no other school in Bristol has ever achieved before.
Trauma Informed Schools UK, an approved provider in mental health training, awarded Snowdon Village with ‘Trauma Informed Status’ in 2021 after an extensive assessment process.
The Alternative Provision (AP) schools - The Nest, Engage, Bristol Futures Academy, City School HQ and City School Kingswood - which are part of the Cabot Learning Federation (CLF), provide education to children who are referred through the Bristol Inclusion panel.
READ MORE: How caring for others has given excluded Bristol pupils a sense of belonging
Children who attend the schools have either been excluded from or find it difficult to cope in a mainstream setting and often arrive with a distrust in schools, professionals and with complex needs.
Many of the staff who work in Snowdon Village have chosen to work in that setting due to having previous understanding of trauma through work or personal experience.
Trauma is an emotional response to an event or a series of experiences that are highly distressing and shocking to the extent that it changes the individual's brain chemistry and can lead to mental health problems.
Trauma-informed practice in education allows teachers and support staff to heal a traumatised brain by using a therapeutic approach, similar to those adopted by counsellors.
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In schools this means supporting the emotional needs and development of each individual by building positive relationships with pupils and their families.
Trauma Informed Schools UK said: ”Snowdon Village provides a warm, caring and compassionate environment in which vulnerable children from across the city and surrounding areas are supported by empathetic staff to flourish.
“The students form lasting and trusting connections with the staff from their school and return to seek out those trusting adults who supported and helped them."
In the award ceremony that took place on Monday (January 31), Snowdon school staff were joined by senior management from CLF and Director of Education at Bristol City Council, Alison Hurley.
Sally Apps, the Executive Principal at CLF; a multi-Academy Trust which manages over 20 schools across Bristol, praised Snowdon Village for what they had achieved at the award ceremony and said that other schools across the Academy Trust will now be “challenged to learn” more about trauma informed practice in education.
Sally compared the process the schools, pupils and staff of Snowdon Village had gone through with that of the Japanese art and philosophy; Kintsugi.
An art form that takes broken pottery and seals the cracks with gold, silver or platinum, giving the piece a greater value than it had before it was broken, the philosophy behind the art is not about hiding the broken parts but embracing what is flawed and imperfect.
"The Japanese art; kintsugi is the image I think of when I think of Snowdon Village, the fact that there have been lots of broken pieces and broken people, broken children, people who have had life breaking experiences have come together and through the work that you do, are able to create something that is much more beautiful."
Thrive Practitioner, Angela Hart who also spoke at the awards event was given huge praise for her role in making trauma informed practice possible and achievable in the first place, she was praised by the principle as someone who was talking about trauma before many even knew what the word meant.
Miss Hart said: “Healing a traumatised brain takes understanding, knowledge, repetition, effort and patience.
“We’ve learned that the people who need the most support can often present as very demanding, that is because of a deep rooted process that has come from a place of survival.
“We’re dealing with children with acute, complex and chronic trauma, the work we do is not only life changing but it is life saving.
“We are all engineers, changing someone’s brain.”
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Not long after Snowdon Village formed, three years ago, Miss Hart did a diploma in trauma informed practice and took her knowledge back to the school, training them in what she had learned.
She was also responsible for setting up a Taskforce at the school, making them one of 22 AP schools across the country, participating in a programme funded by the DfE which aims to provide intensive support to children with the aim of reducing their risk of exploitation or entering a life of crime.
The school was also praised for exceeding expected academic expectations and for their ability to raise attendance levels.
The school has family support officers who build relationships with parents rather than using punitive measures to tackle attendance issues.
Family support workers Miss Sandy Pocket and her colleague Ms Rosy Armstrong travel all over Bristol in their outreach work with the parents of the children who attend the school.
Miss Pocket said: “During lockdown when we were providing care packages, the parents saw us as somebody they could trust and rely on because we weren’t just there nagging them about attendance, we were supporting their welfare and they were really on board with it.
“Instead of us sending out fines we work with the family to try and improve attendance rather than punish them because there is a struggle.
“It’s very individualised, we get to know as much nitty-gritty about the child as we possibly can, encourage them in their likes and dislikes to try and mould them into realising they have got so much potential which has always been pushed away or ignored.
“They’ve been excluded, excluded, excluded and they feel like they're worthless so then when they come to us we have to try and rebuild that trust and confidence.
“I’ve been in education for 25 years but it’s not just qualifications but life experience and life skills.”
The principle Alex Davis who described the award as "a way of being", is extremely proud of what the staff have achieved and is looking forward to supporting other schools within the city to create that sense of being in their schools which she hopes will help prevent exclusion and create a sense of belonging.
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