Creating a gateway to a better future

Welcome to Ridings Farm

We are HALO a Holistic Alternative Learning Organisation providing a nurturing model for young people who:

Are at risk of becoming disengaged with learning and who are registered with a mainstream school or PRU.
Need an alternative curriculum or learning environment.
Are permanently excluded or not yet assigned to a new school, but are receiving an education provision.
Vulnerable pupils who may have experienced abuse or neglect at home and or have mental health difficulties. This may include pupils who have experienced periods out of formal education and are being reintegration into school based education.

Children and young people attend for a varying period of time and commit to differing numbers of days.

We work with both Primary and Secondary ages.

HALO: For young people

How we work

We aim to achieve our objectives through a number of methods which include:
1. Embodying our key values
2. Creating a place of physical and psychological safety
3. Working inside a proven framework called PACE (Dan Hughes, 2003) which underpins all interactions
4. Having an awareness of attachment behaviours
5. Occupying focused learning domains
6. Providing an emotionally available adult to each child
7. Through the concept of Mentalization (Fonagy, 2001).
Our core values underpin our unconditional acceptance of each child or young person who comes into our care. This is essential to a child’s sense of safety.
There is a wide age range of children attending HALO and the curriculum is delivered to meet the level at which each child is performing, rather than the chronological level which the child should have reached.
Each child has an individual learning plan and activities are designed to cover a range of subjects and levels.
Children who have attended our Provision have successfully moved to full time education or have been able to sustain a place in mainstream education with our support.
They have learnt to regulate themselves and develop relationships which are satisfying and meaningful and which will sustain them throughout their lives.
They leave our provision with a better prospect of a healthy mental and physical life ahead of them.
They leave with a better relationship with themselves and deeper self esteem.
They leave with a confidence in themselves as learners and a thirst for knowledge.

At HALO, we focus on the whole child, not just the behaviour.

We offer a context for children to “repair” or ameliorate challenging past experiences through positive experiences with staff, ponies and the natural environment.

Several strategies and techniques are woven into a consistent way of being by staff throughout every interaction and provision. This enables the children to be able to access our well designed, effective and strong hidden curriculum and re-integrate them back into education.

For more detailed information on how we do this, please read our Underlying Principles.