By Jerry Giles, Principal of St Joseph’s Catholic College, Swindon, in the Diocese of Clifton
Just over seven years ago Swindon Borough Council realised their SEND provision had far more applications than places. All 12 secondary schools in Swindon were approached to see if they would bid to take in children with EHCPs who would ordinarily go to one of the specialist SEND schools, but which didn't have enough places.
We thought we should do this, as a fully comprehensive Catholic school, and took the first intake of 12, converting a classroom for them. Then the local authority asked about us writing another bid to take in a second group for the year after. Instead of a year-by-year bid approach our proposal was to set up a permanent SEND unit with guaranteed revenue. They agreed and provided the capital investment for us to convert some existing classrooms from existing capacity within the school building.
The unit has five classrooms and a central resource area plus some offices, and is named the St Aquinas Centre after St Thomas Aquinas, patron saint of Catholic schools and universities. It’s absolutely an integral part of our school, which for context is a secondary with 1,400 students.
There are 60 places and 12 in each year group, which have their own teachers, and there are 14 teaching assistants. For more specialist support we work with an educational psychologist, a nurse, a speech and language therapist and others as necessary.
The timetabling is different but the main school curriculum is used to indicate topics covered. If the St Aquinas students in Year 8 are doing geography, for instance, the school’s Year 8 geography curriculum will be differentiated and replanned to match their needs. They've always done PE with the rest of the school, as well as going to assemblies, Mass and whole school events.
Until this year the students had the same break times and lunch times as the rest of the school. The needs have grown in the past six years and increasing numbers are sensitive to lots of noise. Break times and lunch times don't align perfectly now, though we’re flexible so those who've made friends in the main school continue to have their break times with them.
A particular highlight this year was in February when we were delighted to receive a visit from the Rt Rev Bosco MacDonald, Bishop of Clifton. He came and blessed every room of the centre during a ceremony also attended by the Mayor of Swindon, Councillor Imtiyaz Shaikh.
As with all SEND provision the St Aquinas Centre is greatly oversubscribed. On average, we receive between 40 and 50 EHCPs from which the local authority proposes 12 for our intake. We’re now considering an expansion to the unit to provide some dedicated outdoor space funded through the school’s capital programme of works.
Serving all of Swindon there’s a Church of England academy which opened its own unit this year but the majority of provision comes from the Brunel Academies Trust, which is a specialist SEND academy trust.
Funding for EHCPs doesn’t cover the cost of the mandated support, of course, with schools expected to find the rest from within budgets. With numbers of EHCPs and costs rising the system is being reviewed by the government.
Elsewhere in Swindon there are those whose EHCPs name profit-making private providers which are quite a long way away and obviously the transport comes out of the local authority’s high needs budget.
A more sustainable solution might be if a local state provider in Swindon takes on those students with the highest level of need on a not-for-profit basis. This would enable a greater equity of distribution for the SEND funding for the area.
Find out more about Catholic education in the Diocese of Clifton
Image by Swindon Borough Council
