Five Acre Wood School

Five Acre Wood is situated in Maidstone, the County town of Kent. The school is on the south side of the town, just a few minutes from the centre. We share a campus with an Academy secondary school, a private nursery, a local church, a professional development centre and a gym. Before locating to the present site, we were based a Boughton Mount, a short distance from our current site. We relocated to this site in the 1980's, moving into a building that was previously occupied by the secondary school. We have carried out extensive refurbishment to the classrooms and to provide special facilities within the building. In order to facilitate our expansion, the school will be relocating to a new building. In September 2009, our post 16 unit relocated to Aylesford School, Sports College. We use a suite of rooms which include 3 classrooms, sensory room, small work rooms, office and specialist primary care area. A fourth classroom within the department is the inclusion base for our secondary students. We have a primary inclusion base at Oaks Academy in Maidstone. Recently, Kent had a special school review, following which we changed our designation to Profound, Severe and Complex Needs. This has meant that our numbers have increased from 119 in January 2009 to 203 in September 2012. Our pupils and students represent a wide range of additional educational needs within the profound and multiple learning difficulties, severe learning difficulties, complex needs, challenging behaviour, sensory impairments and autistic spectrum. We cover an age range of 4 - 19 years and the school is currently organised in three departments - lower, upper and post 16. Our staffing compliment is approximately 145. We are supported by a school nurse and have our own therapy team. We also work with consultant paediatricians, teachers from the sensory service, educational psychologists, specialist community nurses, disabled children's team and respite services. Parents/ carers and families are very important partners in our school and we have daily contact plus a range of events and meetings throughout the year. We are a lively school with a friendly and supportive staff and we are constantly seeking to continue to develop the school for the benefit of our pupils and students.