Bure Park Specialist Academy caters for children with a range of emotional, behavioural and associated learning difficulties of a degree which frustrates or seriously impedes progress in mainstream education. Many pupils have also experienced long-term difficulties in their lives outside school.

A large number of children admitted to the Academy exhibit behaviour characteristic of younger pupils (e.g. lack of self-discipline, temper tantrums, an inability to delay gratification, a deficit in skill areas necessary to functioning as part of a group).  Others display more introverted behaviour (e.g. anxiety, over-sensitivity, solitariness, lethargy, unresponsiveness, obsessiveness).

In requiring a positive behaviour change to develop pupils’ full potential and capitalise on the range of opportunities made available to them, the achievement of ‘normalisation’ is equally as important as the need for therapeutic intervention.

As such the pattern of education at Bure Park Specialist Academy is not fundamentally different from that of good mainstream schools.  Education is based upon the best practices of normal schools that the constraints and opportunities that a smaller staff permit, coupled with that which is significantly special in the delivery of the curriculum for pupils with particular and specific special needs.  The educational process itself, both within and without the classroom, is central to children overcoming their difficulties.  The entitlement to the National Curriculum for our pupils is seen as positive in this regard.