The Chronicle, Spring 2019

15 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

Shared Endeavour We caught up with Raul Corrales, Behaviour, Safeguarding and Wellbeing Lead at Endeavour Academy, a specialist school and children’s home in Oxford. Endeavour educates young people aged between eight and 19 with autism and severe learning difficulties who benefit from an autism specific environment.

young people become adults and take their places in society, they will take this mutual understanding with them. Do you have other similar partnerships with the local community? Endeavour is a relatively new school so we’re still building our network, but interaction with the city and our neighbours is really important to us. The more external partners we have, the more opportunities there are for our pupils to develop crucial social skills, like shopping and travelling, and to get training and work experience, all of which will be vital for them when they leave school. On a broader level, it is all too easy for autistic people to feel isolated. If you think about it, for most young people, contact with neighbouring schools is a regular part of school life - so it’s just wonderful for us to have these links with Teddies.

For about a year, Fourth Form pupils from St Edward’s have been visiting Endeavour several times a month to help with an after school arts and crafts club. Tell us a bit about the club. It’s a fantastic opportunity for our pupils to hang out with neurotypical young people their own age. The Teddies pupils bring cakes and snacks every week, always a great ice-breaker with young people, and they all spend a lovely hour or so doing different arts and crafts activities together. Do they all get along? It sometimes takes time for the pupils from different schools to get used to each other. Some Endeavour pupils are not always comfortable in social situations and some of them may need time to get used to having people they don’t know very well around them – and it can be intimidating for the St Edward’s pupils to encounter young people with a condition like autism, which probably they don’t know much about, but may have heard of. Most often, however, the teenagers get to a point where they’re just a group of young people having fun – which is the whole point of the exercise. What are the benefits? There are so many misconceptions about autism. It is widely believed that autistic people are lost in their own worlds with no interest in others, but this isn’t always the case. Autistic people are extremely social. Many of our pupils really love being with other young people and they so rarely get the chance; the after school club is a fantastic opportunity for them. At the same time, it’s great to see the Teddies pupils getting beyond autism to see a young person with whom they can share a happy afternoon. It gives them the opportunity to know and celebrate the concept of neurodiversity. When all these

Raul Corrales

How will the partnership develop? We’d like to take it further by getting our pupils involved in activities beyond school – so we’re hoping to organise an art session in the Teddies Art Department or a day on the water at the Boat Club. We are also looking into work experience opportunities for our pupils. There are endless opportunities, we can do so much together.

Oscar Clark, Ecehan Bagis and Charlie Scales with Benny, Mishan and Kieran from Endeavour Academy