• School/College/Business: The Bridge School, Ipswich and Suffolk County Council
• Topic: SEND pupils send a day working with Suffolk County Council
• Gatsby Benchmark(s): 6
The Bridge School is a Special Educational Needs and Disability school.
Due to the nature of the learners, finding work placements and
experiences had been proving a difficulty for the school.
Josie Finch, Enterprise Coordinator, working with the Skills team at Suffolk County Council put
together a morning’s worth of activities and interactions with various staff and departments to
create a placement where the needs of these complex learners could be met. This way they could
create a bespoke offer for the school to start to widen the learners’ experiences of workplaces.
The first task for the students, after a quick photo, was how to navigate the revolving doors at
Endeavour House. Students were then met by Karen Cross, the new Enterprise Adviser for the
school, Jasmin Joolia and Beverley Ives from the Skills team, who along with Josie were their guides
and support for the visit.
The rest of the day consisted of various activities and experiences including signing in at reception,
meeting a local councillor, reading the canteen menu, travelling in the lift to various floors, talking
with over 10 different staff members, taking over the desks in the open plan office, seeing Ipswich
Town Football Club from above, discovering what happens to the confidential paperwork, talking to
HR and a special visit to the IT help desk. What proved most difficult was gaging interest and
understanding the feedback from the nonverbal learners.
