Partners and Community

The community in which we live and work is very important to us. 

Our school community is extremely broad and varied. It includes our students, staff, parents and carers, passenger escorts and drivers as well as onsite professionals employed by the NHS such as the community nurse, the speech and language therapists, physiotherapists and occupational therapists. We also have regular visits from teachers for pupils with Visual and Hearing impairments. We work very closely with other agencies such as social services and with organisations such as Mencap. The Castle Gate facility is situated on our site and we have a good working relationship with them regarding the pupils who use this facility.

We work closely with both primary and secondary schools within West Berkshire to help support our young people and also in order to help mainstream schools support their young people with learning difficulties more effectively.

We offer support for pupils with learning difficulties in mainstream schools (secondary and primary) with advice and curriculum differentiation through the Specialist Inclusion Support Service (SISS), as well as providing training opportunities for the staff from these schools.

Some of our pupils have opportunities to attend mainstream schools for part of the week – either for academic opportunities (e.g. Park House for construction lessons and Kennet School for DT) or for social inclusion at their local primary schools.

Our older pupils have opportunities to experience work placements at many organisations within Newbury including Waitrose, Sainsburys, Tesco, Northcroft Leisure Centre, Kennet Leisure Centre, Wolverton Plants, Budgens, Pets at Home, Costa Coffee and Boots to name but a few.

We have a very experienced pastoral team who provide specific support for young people and their families. They also organise events which are advertised regularly.

Our community is linked to organisations such as Reading University whose initial teacher training students come to us on placement. Nationally we work with organisations such as The Foundation for People With Learning Disabilities, British Association of Supported Employment and have international links with schools as far away as Poland, India and Australia.