Admissions
Parents, families and professionals are welcome to visit the school. To arrange a visit please contact us on 01256 884600 or email [email protected].
Pupil referrals are made by local authorities. They will send all the relevant information such as EHCP, recent review reports to us for consideration. This is then submitted to our admissions panel to make sure the ‘essential criteria for admission’ (please see below) are met.
If these criteria are met, and we have a vacancy, we will then arrange to do an assessment. The assessments will be face-to-face (an offer cannot be made without a face-to-face assessment). If your child is based overseas, we would expect that they will be brought to the UK for the assessment.
If we believe we can meet your child’s educational, social, medical, and therapeutic needs, we will make an informal offer. If you and your local authority wish to accept this informal offer then we will send a formal contractual letter to the referring officer. This will outline costs and the level of provision. Once the offer is accepted in writing we will agree a start date and arrange transition visits.
Essential Criteria
All, or the majority of the criteria must be applicable:
- EHCP – the child must already have a plan
- Severe learning difficulties
- Communication disorder or delay in development of communication skills (generally our students join the school non-verbal)
- Autistic tendencies/traits or a diagnosis of Autism
- Severely challenging behaviour including self-injurious behaviour and/or violence towards other people and/or property destruction
- Exclusion or threat of exclusion from school or residential care
- Inability to be cared for full time at home because of the need for 24-hour support
- Additional medical needs e.g. epilepsy
The Loddon School Local Offer
The school is an established first-class provider of fully integrated education and care for young people with Autism, severe and complex learning difficulties, communication and sensory needs, and highly challenging behaviour. We have 30 places for young people to be enrolled at the school aged 8-19 years old, for a 52-week placement, who live and learn in seven houses.
We offer a unique environment for the student who finds the hectic pace of life challenging and yet might find the curriculum offered by other special school too narrow or too limiting. Our special PLLUSS Curriculum® provides learning across all subject but delivered in a unique way providing the skills the young person requires for life alongside immense fun, learning through play and new challenging activities.
The Loddon School is in Sherfield on Loddon, Hook in Hampshire. The school is situated in a rural environment giving the students daily access to over ten acres of outdoor space. The school has students from over 30 local authorities and borough councils, mainly from the south, and south east of England. We are open to students across the country but are aware of the need for strong family links to be maintained.
Anyone interested in applying to the school is encouraged to come and visit us to learn more about what we do. Visits to the school usually take place Monday through to Friday, although weekends can be arranged. Initially, we encourage just the parents to visit, enabling the Principal to get a better understanding of the needs of the child through talking to the parents first-hand.
The Loddon School is a small residential school based on one main site with a 1:1 student/staff ratio. Students are taught in small friendly houses of 4-5 students with experienced teachers, teaching assistants and Learning and Care assistants. The teaching staff work closely with our therapists and can tailor the students’ curriculum to their individual needs.
Due to the challenging behaviours of the young people we do not cater for non-ambient students or those who are vulnerable physically.
We provide Speech and Language Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Educational Psychology, music therapy, play therapy, animal assisted therapy, aromatherapy, osteopathy, Lego therapy and rebound therapy. We have a team of ten full and part time therapists working with the young people and staff at the school. This team ensures that therapies are fully integrated into the curriculum.
All our staff are highly qualified firstly in their specialist area and hold degrees, higher degrees, and other professional qualifications. All care staff train within their first two years of working with children for their NVQ level 3 Diploma in Residential Child Care. We also have a wealth of in-service training ensuring that all aspects of our knowledge and skills we continually developed.
If you are interested in the school and visiting us, please contact [email protected] or call 01256 884600.
