The Willows School is proposing to offer 30 more school places permanently to pupils across the borough. The school is having a review to extend its capacity to 150 pupils following a recent building extension and adaptations.
Willows take pupils aged 7 to 19 with a wide range of moderate learning difficulties; some with additional needs such as speech and language difficulties, children on the autistic spectrum and children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. It is a well known and much-loved school in Thurcroft that many local pupils have benefited from.
In the report submitted to council regarding the proposal it is vital that we support this increase in capacity to ensure children due to start in September 2021 can secure a place. Under current capacity ruling they would have to turn pupils away as they have been running oversubscribed for the past 12 months.
Prescribed alterations are required when the number of pupils in a special school has increased by 10% or 20 pupils, whichever is the lower and this is expected to be in place for more than 2 years which is the case when considering a permanent increase.
This proposal has entered a pre-statutory consultation for the next 4 weeks, where views can be submitted on the increase to capacity. Please do feed in your thoughts via email alexander.stafford.mp@parliament.uk.
