Woodpecker Court is an alternative education provider with specialist post 16 status. We are set in a rural location. We believe that every student is different and treated as an individual and therefore vary our practices to support them holistically. We aim to improve outcomes by providing all of our students with the necessary skills to equip them to sustain their onward destination after leaving us. We have a calm, safe and friendly environment that all of our students together as a community maintain.

We offer our post 16 courses in land based studies, animal care, catering, or occupational studies, alongside functional skills English, Maths and Digital Skills. Many post 16 vulnerable learner programmes fail because the delivery is formal in a classroom. This has not worked for the previous eleven years, so why repeat the process? Block by block, we will enable a young person to tolerate then work with others, show resilience to failure and bad weather. They can have the time and space to express their frustrations in the outdoors. They can fail safely, then learn to succeed. They can develop good peer and staff relationships, and maintain them over time. Then, and only then, do we deliver the formal learning because then students are ready to achieve. Our outdoor experiences are explicitly linked to formal learning objectives. For example, quantities of animal feed are linked to profit margins, having an impact upon Maths.

We provide engagement programmes for learners aged 11-16 by working collaboratively with local schools. Our programmes are run in the great outdoors from our 15 acre site that encompasses woodland, paddocks, classrooms, workshops and at the heart of our community our parachuted fire circles. These engagement programmes offer the chance for schools to prevent exclusion and promote re-engagement by changing the environment completely around the young person. We develop resilience, self-esteem and positivity through introducing routines.