Catch-Up Base (CUB)
For most pupils who have additional educational needs, receiving high-quality teaching with appropriate adaptations to help support their learning is the most important way to make good progress, and this ‘Quality First Teaching’ approach is central to the provision we make for DSEN pupils at King’s Lynn Academy. In addition to this, for a small number who start secondary school needing significant support to overcome more significant barriers to learning and to help close the gap between them and their peers, we have created a specialist, intensive provision (called the Catch-Up Base – or CUB for short) which supports these students for a significant proportion of their timetable in years 7 and 8, reducing for supported reintegration in Year 9.
Students spend 18 out of 25 lessons learning in a small group in the Catch-Up Base (CUB) with a significant focus on literacy and numeracy, following an adapted curriculum based on that of the rest of the year group. Students are supported to improve their reading, writing and numeracy skills with a view to closing previously existing learning gaps so that those pupils can eventually be reintegrated back into larger classes with their peers, able to follow a full GCSE curriculum across a range of subjects. Pupils attending CUB still attend lessons in PE, Art, Design & Technology and PHSE with their classmates throughout their time in CUB.