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Monday 8:30am - 5pm Tuesday 8:30am - 5pm Wednesday 8:30am - 5pm Thursday 8:30am - 5pm Friday 8:30am - 4pm

Progressive Strides at Thurleigh Equestrian Centre

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Progressive Strides at Thurleigh Equestrian Centre

We are passionate about providing Alternative Education Provision for those who need a different approach to their education.

With highly qualified staff with SEND and SEMH experience and excellent equestrian facilities, we offer you a unique experience.

04/10/2026

🧠💙 October is ADHD Awareness Month 💙🧠

At Progressive Strides, we know that understanding neurodivergence isn’t just about reading the right information or attending the right training. Sometimes, it comes from lived experience. 💙

We are proud to have a wonderfully neurodivergent team, including several members of staff with a formal diagnosis of ADHD. 🌟

That personal experience helps us to understand that there is so much more behind the behaviours and challenges we see in our students. It gives us a deeper understanding of things like overwhelm, executive functioning, emotional regulation, sensory needs, communication and the many different ways ADHD can present. 🧠💭

And so, to mark ADHD Awareness Month, Lis Cooper, our Head of Alternative Provision and SEND, is sharing a little about her own experiences and personal ADHD diagnosis. 🎥💙

🐴💙🧠

02/10/2026

💚 Supporting attendance at Progressive Strides 💚

We know that for young people with SEMH and/or SEND, mental health and wellbeing can fluctuate. In Alternative Provision, this can sometimes lead to periods where attendance becomes a real challenge.

It can be very easy for attendance to become a battle — the setting on one side and the young person and their family on the other. But the individual caught in the middle is the young person themselves.

At Progressive Strides, we take a different approach. 🌱

We work closely with families, often through daily communication, sharing ideas, adapting approaches and trying different strategies. Sometimes that means a gentle, gradual reintegration — perhaps an hour one day, two hours the next and gradually building back up. Other students may be ready to return immediately.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach.

Our experience has shown us that when young people and their families feel supported rather than pressured, we can make much greater progress with attendance.

The majority of our students who initially struggled with attendance, including young people with EBSA in their former settings, gradually increased their attendance to 90% or above (many starting from 0%).

That comes from remaining flexible, creative and genuinely listening to what each young person needs. 💚

For some students with SEMH and SEND, communicating those needs is itself a skill that takes time to develop. Learning to recognise when they need to express that they are having problems, explain what they need and ask for support is a life skill, and one that we actively help them to develop over time.

So supporting attendance isn’t simply about getting a student through the door.

It’s about understanding why attendance is difficult, working alongside the young person and their family, and finding a sustainable way forward.

Because sometimes, improving attendance isn’t about pushing harder.

It’s about encouraging students to communicate their needs. 💚

🐴

30/09/2026

🐴🤍 The ponies have been immortalised… in clay!

One of our students has taken their creativity to the next level and has been making little clay models of the ponies here at Progressive Strides.

And when we say little models, we mean tiny, incredibly characterful versions of the real ponies! 😍

They seem to arrive with a new one pretty much every day, and they are beautifully executed — somehow managing to capture the individual personality of each pony. 🥰

It’s been lovely watching their creativity develop, and seeing how they have taken something so familiar from their environment and turned it into their own creative project.

We think the yard might need its own clay pony collection soon! 🐴🐴🐴🤍

28/09/2026

❤️ FINE MOTOR CONTROL

🤚🏻 Fine motor skills refer to precision, finger dexterity, and coordination of the hands.

👌 These are the skills that allow us to use our hands to manipulate materials like pencils, containers, clothing fasteners, and little objects. There is so much more to it, though!

🫰🏼 Areas of fine motor development like bilateral coordination, pinch and grip strength, finger isolation, thumb web space, and opposition all play a role in refined use of the fingers and hands. These fine motor milestones are the basis for everything our hands can do.

🫳🏻 Fine motor skills involve the coordination of small muscles in the hands and fingers to perform tasks that require precision and dexterity. These skills are essential for various daily activities, including writing, feeding oneself, buttoning clothing, using utensils, and manipulating small objects.

🖐🏼 We will work on fine motor skills because they are crucial for achieving independence and participating in activities of daily living. Fine motor skills contribute to a person’s ability to engage in self-care, school, work, and leisure activities. When individuals have difficulties with fine motor skills, they may struggle to perform tasks independently, leading to frustration, decreased self-esteem, and limitations in participation.

25/09/2026

🐴🔨 Real-life learning in action!

Yesterday we had an unexpected visit from the farrier after one of our horses lost a shoe. Once we’d managed to find the missing shoe, the farrier came out to put it back on — and, of course, this turned into a great learning opportunity for our students!

A large proportion of the students chose to watch what was happening, asking questions and finding out more about what being a farrier actually involves.

We have several students who are interested in farriery as a possible career in the future, so being able to see the job happening for real, ask questions and hear about how you start that journey was particularly valuable.

This is what vocational learning can look like at Progressive Strides — real situations, real professionals, real questions and real insight into possible careers. 🌱🐎

23/09/2026

❤️🐴 What did our STUDENTS at Progressive Strides think in 2025-2026? Take a look at their feedback:

21/09/2026

🕊️ Today is International Peace Day

😌 “…Peace is more than the absence of war; it is the foundation necessary to collectively tackle humanity’s challenges. It is the lived experience of safety, dignity, opportunities and cooperation in our daily lives.” - United Nations.

❤️ This year’s theme:
Invest in Peace: For Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day.

🙌 This year’s International Day of Peace honours the 'everyday architects of peace'—people driving local action, laying the groundwork for stability, and building a lasting peace from the ground up.

🕊️Remember, peace isn’t just built in conference rooms—it is shaped by everyone, everywhere, every day.

Everyone, everywhere can do their part for peace. Take one small step for peace every day:

🐴 Give your time to help someone else.

🐴Lend your voice to drive positive change.

🐴Use your platform to promote a cause or tell a story of peace and hope

🐴Show us how you're building the architecture of peace and justice

🕊️ ❤️ 🕊️

18/09/2026

📦 SPECIAL DELIVERY! 📦

Can you guess what’s inside? 🤔😂

Okay… it might be slightly obvious. 🐴🤣

Our students recently had the very important job of unwrapping our brand-new, life-size model horse!

But this isn’t just a very large present…

It’s a brilliant practical learning tool, giving our students the opportunity to practise and develop horse-care skills such as:

🩹 Bandaging legs
🐴 Tacking up
🤎 Putting on a bridle — including practising putting the bit into the mouth, because the mouth is hinged!
🧣 Putting rugs on and taking rugs off
🩹 Bandaging the tail
…and lots more.

The really useful thing about having a model is that students can practise a skill as many times as they need to — take it off, have another go, make adjustments and try again.

Our real horses are an incredibly important part of learning at Progressive Strides, but the model gives students another opportunity to build confidence and develop practical skills before putting them into practice with our horses. ❤️🐴

And, perhaps most importantly…

This horse has an unlimited supply of patience. 😂

So yes… we unwrapped a horse.

Just another day in Alternative Provision! 🐴📦🤣

16/09/2026

National Inclusion Week 🫶

Inclusion isn’t about making people fit into a mould.

It’s about making space for people to be themselves, recognising that everyone is different, and adapting our environments so that everyone has the opportunity to belong, participate and succeed.

At Progressive Strides, inclusion is part of what we do every day. 🐴💚

Inclusion isn’t about changing people. It’s about changing the way we support them.

14/09/2026

Two of our wonderful mini's Pie and Charlie doing really well at the Emberton and District Riding Club sponsored show on Sunday, along with our teaching assistant Sarah, who was showing her own mini's too.

Address

Thurleigh Equestrian Centre, Redgate Cottage, Mill Road, Thurleigh
Bedford
MK442DP

Opening Hours

Monday	8:30am - 5pm
Tuesday	8:30am - 5pm
Wednesday	8:30am - 5pm
Thursday	8:30am - 5pm
Friday	8:30am - 4pm

Website

http://www.thurleighequestriancentre.co.uk/

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