
Our School Story:
CEREDIGION PUPIL REFERRAL UNIT
Ceredigion PRU is a small 2-site Pupil Referral Unit in rural Mid-West Wales. Young people that attend the provision have often experienced significant trauma and require a safe and supportive environment with plenty of opportunity. The school’s vision is about preparing young people for whatever is next in their life- a return to mainstream education, college, work, or an apprenticeship.
At Ceredigion PRU they had been incorporating elements from reading ‘When The Adults Change, Everything Changes’ into their practice for some time. However, since joining the When The Adults Change Behaviour Change Programme in September 2024 the process has been more strategic and manageable and they have found themselves better able to implement the core principles of relational practice. They have found that the drip-feeding, little and often format has really helped them. Fortnightly team meetings can focus on one area at a time and concepts can be dropped into bulletins.
Day to day they are seeing more consistency in approaches used, staff more able to lead by example and maintain high expectations, and staff with increased confidence to challenge things. Embedding rules has been key to this. ‘Safe, Ready and Respectful’ has been adopted and everything hangs off them, with desired behaviours attached to each.
Ceredigion PRU have increased the focus on reward but work hard to ensure that this isn’t tokenistic. Rewards and incentives exist at a classroom level linked to individual
classroom codes of conduct, in the form of verbal praise, daily rewards, phone
calls home, texts and emails. At a whole school level, reward can be in the form of trips,
phone calls home from the Headteacher and inviting parents in to celebrate
successes of individual achievements.
A recent pupil survey, where learners answered anonymously, found that pupils feel safer, happier and more secure. This shows that the approach is really helping to wrap learners in relational practice. Whilst incidents still happen, they are less frequent, e.g. at the end of term rather than throughout the term. Attendance is also improving.
They have worked hard to make the PRU feel like a home. It’s decorated warmly and learners are trusted and encouraged to use expensive specialist equipment. They start from a position of trust with each learner. Hope is also being built through a new ‘Hope Wall’ page on the school website, where previous pupils share their stories and their life since leaving the school.
Processes and rules have been simplified and they have found that this reduces anxiety. Consequences are often informal, e.g. sitting out for a chat and a reflection. Some quick wins include postcards home and positive phone-calls. The children love them and the parents do too. Often the parents have only ever received a negative phone call about their child, so having a positive one goes very far in building relationships. Meet and greet always took place to some extent but they have increased the significance of them, and this has been well received.
The change in approach has had a positive impact on staff as well as pupils. PRUs can be stressful places to work. Scripting, having clear expectations and being consistent has led to increased confidence amongst staff. This has more recently developed into using ‘Safe, Ready and Respectful’ to manage young people in crisis. Ensuring ‘safety’, re-establishing ‘respect’ and discussing being ‘ready’ for learning again offers a scaffold for staff to manage difficult situations.
Ceredigion PRU has been on the Parent Coach Course since September. A member of SLT first learned about the course in April 2024, and then began training through the Summer Term. It was formally introduced to families from September 2024, and there have been 6 sessions to date and they have had a 100% attendance rate from parents and carers. The families were able to really engage with the sessions and have subsequently developed an informal support network amongst themselves. They have seen a 10% improvement in student attendance from some of the families attending.
We are delighted to make Ceredigion PRU a Partner School of ours and look forward to continuing to work with them and share in their successes!


