Admissions into The Garden School

Information for parents, carers and professionals

The Garden school is suitable for robust and mobile children and young people with a diagnosis of Autism who have severe learning difficulties.

These pupils are able to benefit from the highly specialist nature of the provision which includes:

• A bespoke curriculum which addresses the core challenges of students who have Autism i.e. difficulty with social communication, flexible thinking and understanding and regulating emotions.
• Specialist pedagogical and asessement strategies  which address the learning and communication needs of this group of students eg TEACCH, PECS, SCERTS, Attention Autism and Intensive Interaction.
• A tailored learning environment which includes highly structured and low arousal classroom spaces and a total communication approach.

The attainment of both primary pupils and those on entry is assessed as being between P4 and P8 on the P scales. Secondary pupils include those assessed as higher ability.

The school is unlikely to be suitable for students:

• who have a meaningful use of spoken language
• who have profound learning difficulties and require a more sensory based curriculum and teaching approaches to support their learning and communication needs
• who require a language rich setting in which there are many opportunities for social interaction with peers
• who have other special educational needs e.g. physical disability, medical needs, or sensory impairment

Admission to the school is through the statutory assessment process whereby The Garden school is named on a child’s education, health and care (EHC) plan (previously Statement of Special Educational Needs). Please contact your local authority for more information.