The Launch Pad was set up by Kent Safe Schools in partnership with and funded by Thanet Excellence Cluster in 2005 as an educational unit for primary aged children who have been excluded from their primary school for a fixed amount of days. This provision has now been extended to other primary schools in Thanet. Prior to this, excluded pupils would simply stay at home and discontinue their education for the duration of the exclusion.

The aim is to provide continued education for pupils for the duration of their exclusion, as well as offering an array of alternative curriculum activities covering issues such as anger management, low self esteem, bullying, behaviour strategies, social skills and emotional literacy development.

At the Launch Pad, we recognise that emotional intelligence (EQ) is as important as IQ. Emotional literacy development is about helping children to recognise and understand their own feelings as well as the feelings of others and to respond accordingly. A happy, confident learner will be a more successful learner academically.

The main drive of the project is to successfully reintegrate pupils back to their primary school following the period of exclusion. Restorative Justice practices are routinely used to give the child an opportunity to reflect on negative behaviour; to consider who has been affected by it and to look towards making some reparation for it. Restorative justice is about repairing harm caused to relationships and finding a way for all parties to move forward. It has been proven to be more successful in changing behaviour patterns, than the alternative approach of using traditional punitive methods.

Staff at the Launch Pad are committed to supporting both child and parents/guardians in their endeavours to change behaviour patterns. Strategies are introduced to promote and maintain positive behaviour both at school and at home.

The unit is based at the Concorde Youth Centre in Ramsgate where there is a self-contained classroom and use of the rest of the centre's facilities.

 Download Launch Pad information pack

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