The school caters for students who may be experiencing problems due to physical, psychological, emotional and/or familial reasons. They may also have
learning difficulties and/or disorders. Their placement at Berne could be short term, where the aim is to work on the student's behavioural or emotional issues in order to reintegrate them back into their mainstream school, or long term, where the aim is to continue to educate them through to the School Certificate. The school's culture has been designed to defuse a lot of the behavioural triggers the students were experiencing in mainstream schools. For example, there is no uniform and there is no set homework. The student-teacher relationship is unusual compared to mainstream schools. Students address staff by their first name, and even eat meals together. All staff are expected to get involved in all school activities, such as camps, excursions and personal development activities. There is a strong focus on reducing the derailing effects of learning difficulties and disorders by having small class sizes (of about five or six students per class), and by streaming students based on ability. The lower ability classes are purposefully even smaller, usually having only two or three students per teacher. ==Special features==