For over 200 years Catch22 has designed and delivered services that build resilience and aspiration in people and communities. Our approach is based on the 3Ps. We believe people can thrive when they have good people, a purpose, and a safe place to live.
Catch22 provides alternative and special full-time and part-time education for young people displaying a wide range of complex barriers to education, including those who are excluded or at risk of exclusion and those with Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) needs or Special Educational Needs (SEN).
With an emphasis on transition and re-engagement back into mainstream education or employment, our four independent schools support vulnerable young people with challenging behaviours to realise their full potential, achieve academic and vocational targets, and progress into education, training and employment.
“I’m proud to be the Strategic Director for Justice & Education and lead on Catch22’s Education offer. Catch22 provides public services right across the welfare cycle, from child exploitation to employment programmes and youth justice to care leavers. Our vast expertise therefore perfectly positions us to deliver Special and Alternative Education to children and young people for whom mainstream education is not suitable.
“We believe that all young people deserve a high-quality and supportive education that is specific to their needs. Our Include schools are inclusive at their very core. They move away from the traditional mainstream model of learning and, instead, deliver teaching via a small and supportive environment designed to meet the needs of individual pupils and encourage learners to re-engage with education. Our staff teams, equipped with specialist skills, knowledge and understanding, support pupils to feel safe, stay healthy, enjoy learning and, ultimately, progress into sustained positive destinations. Whether pupils transition back into a mainstream school, further education, employment or training, our schools give students the tools they need to positively contribute to society and lead a happy and fulfilling life.”
– Lisa Smitherman, Strategic Director (Justice & Education)
Include Norfolk
“At Include Norfolk, we believe that every young person deserves the right education. We offer the right place for our pupils to access meaningful qualifications and life skills. We are here to ensure that our pupils can access positive outcomes and lead full and happy lives when they leave us.”
– Include Norfolk team
Include Norfolk is an independent school located across two sites in Norwich and King’s Lynn which caters for year 9, 10 and 11 pupils who have had difficulties learning within a mainstream school setting. Include Norfolk also offers a remote provision, Cloud22, to students for whom education is better delivered online.
The majority of our pupils have Social, Emotional, and/or Mental Health (SEMH) needs, and some may also require specialist support with Special Educational Needs such as Attention Deficit (ADHD) or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), whether they are diagnosed or not.
Include Norfolk aims to support pupils to leave with five or more Level 2 qualifications so that they can achieve in a post-16 placement. Many leavers progress on to City College Norwich (CCN) and the College of West Anglia (CoWA). Include Norfolk also offers vocational placements for its young people who wish to acquire meaningful skills.
Staff at Include Norfolk are skilled in building and maintaining positive relationships. In doing so, they support pupils in raising their self-esteem, aspiration and confidence. The staff teams take a trauma-informed and attachment-aware approach, working to understand each individual pupil and cater to their specific needs. Include Norfolk also has a full-time counsellor and dedicated pastoral staff so that pupils always have the right help and support, both in and out of the classroom.
“As parents, we have noticed a huge improvement thanks to you guys. After years of no education, our daughter now has a purpose to get up and is focused and engaged. Before, she had self-harmed for years and had no self-worth or self-confidence. I’m most thankful and grateful for all the staff at Catch22. You guys are bringing our daughter back to life.”
“We believe every child at our school deserves the best: people supporting them, a safe, stimulating and inclusive place to learn, and our purpose is to re-ignite their love of learning and help them become the very best version of themselves.”
– Include Suffolk team
Include Suffolk is an independent school located across three sites in Ipswich, Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds. The school provides a temporary full-time, specialist education for children aged 5-11 years old whose needs cannot be met by their mainstream setting.
Some students may struggle with anxiety, low self-esteem and confidence; others may have learning difficulties such as ASD, ADHD or attachment disorders.
Include Suffolk’s mission, over 2-3 terms, is to support them to increase their capacity and passion for learning, enabling them to return to a stable mainstream or specialist placement. Include Suffolk celebrates the uniqueness and individuality of its students, and its passion and commitment in fostering each pupil’s love for learning is reflected in everything it does.
Each school site has up to three classrooms, all consisting of a maximum of eight pupils in each class, facilitated by a teacher and two Teaching Assistants. This enables students to receive personalised one-to-one support from staff. Include Suffolk offers the full National Curriculum alongside nurture sessions and extra therapeutic interventions, bespoke to the specific needs of individual students.
In this way, the school’s timetable is designed to help children not only with their academic progress but also to address their social and emotional needs. Teachers and Advocates at Include Suffolk specialise in understanding and addressing the cause behind challenging behaviours and advocates work with children on their emotional development using the Boxall Profile. Advocates will also provide additional support and guidance for families.
“My child was not coping with mainstream and the size of the school. The three months he’s now been at Include Suffolk we have seen such a difference in his behaviour and learning.”
“All schools will always say that they provide ‘that family feeling’. At Include London, we truly do. Our young people often come to us and with a negative experience of education. They have low self-esteem, struggle with a fear of failing and have been let down by the system around them. However, they leave us with a sense of achievement and self-belief, as active citizens that can and will have a significant positive impact on the world around them.”
– Include London team
Include London is an independent school located across two sites in West London: Ladbroke Grove and Southall. Include London provides full-time, alternative, secondary education to learners in years 9, 10, 11 and 12 who are unable to access mainstream secondary education.
Include London works with students who have complex high needs and for whom mainstream school has not been successful. Pupils who attend Include London have a range of social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs, as well as those who have been, or are at risk of becoming, excluded. The school takes a young person-centred, holistic approach to education, with a focus on unblocking students’ barriers to learning and releasing their potential, such that they can progress to and succeed in further education, employment or training.
Include London offers small class sizes of no more than six students. Its timetable, in which young people study the core curriculum of English, Maths, Science, ICT, Personal and Social Education, PE, Citizenship, and Music, is supplemented with the option to study additional vocational or creative subjects. The curriculum is delivered by qualified teachers, with support from teaching assistants, to ensure every young person can access its broad and balanced timetable.
In delivering its formal education offer, Include London also fosters a trauma-informed, resolution-focused, and restorative learning environment in which students are valued, supported, listened to, and understood. This is enhanced by a variety of therapies onside, delivered in groups or one-to-one by specialist therapists.
“By working together, we ensure that our pupils exhibit our ethos, based on the 3Ps model: people, place and purpose. The result is that our young people enjoy their time at school, make excellent progress, and leave us with the necessary skills and attitudes to lead successful and fulfilling lives.”
– Include Wales team
Include Wales is a Independent School registered with the Welsh Assembly Government, located across two sites in Newport and Newtown. It provides full-time, alternative education for young people, most of whom have Social, Emotional, and/or Mental Health Needs (SEMH). Include Wales is registered for 30 places at Early Years, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2.
Include Wales’ mission is for every child to become the very best version of themselves that they can be. Whilst the pupils who attend Include Wales initially on admission may present with behavioural issues, the school aims to support students to return to a stable mainstream or specialist placement. Include Wales fosters in its students a renewed confidence in their ability, which acts as a stepping stone to a permanent school placement and fulfilling academic career.
Include Wales offers the Curriculum for Wales, alongside nurture sessions and extra academic interventions provided by our staff team trained in both behavioural and additional learning needs teaching. The school’s timetable is designed to help children not only with their academic progress but also to address their social and emotional needs.
Include Wales prides itself on its excellent communication with pupils, parents/carers and partnerships, to ensure that its students receive the very best support, both inside and outside of the classroom.
“I am so grateful for everything you have done over the years. My son came to you as an angry 4 year old. He was aggressive and violent. I am proud to say that he is now a completely different child thanks to the time and effort you have given him.”
