Admission arrangements.

Taunton Deane Partnership College (TDPC) is a Pupil Referral Unit (PRU) for 5-16 year olds.  Students come to us through 3 routes.  Either as statutory cases or through partnership work with the local schools.

Statutory cases.

Students who are permanently excluded will be allocated a place with us by the LA.

Medical

Students may be referred due to medical reasons, in which case specialist medical/consultant input is needed to support the referral.

Some students may be placed here through the EHCP process similar to a specialist provision.

(The aim with all the above students is to support them into a new school or college)

Partnership cases

Partnership referral work is currently being further developed by the LA, PRU and schools.  The aim is for TDPC to support local schools with a view to as many young people as possible in the local area being able to remain in mainstream school.

Partnership work may consist of advice and training, or it may be about 1:1 or small group work with the student, either in school or in one of our centres.   All partnership work is monitored and reviewed regularly.  The mechanism for referral is below:

Outreach - schools can contact the outreach team by phone to ask for advice, this may involve a school visit.  The outreach team may also contact schools if exclusions or attendance data lead to concerns.

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Partnership work - schools are expected to follow the graduated response in terms of support for those struggling to manage.  If further external support is needed, this will be identified through the Early Help Assessment (EHA) process and a referral to Team Around the School (TAS).  Often at this stage SEN assessments and referrals would be in place, if the young person needs to be out of school or needs a significant amount of support to manage.  The partnership lead would respond to TAS referrals and partnership work could start.  This might be support in school, for the young person or staff.  It may be training or it may be a short term place.

Places at PRU – If the student is not managing, even with the level of support offered by the school and external agencies, then it may be that it is felt a place at the PRU needs to be pursued.  This may be short term or it may be for those in year 11 longer term.  The mechanism for referral is through the newly formed Headteachers Board.