Surrey County Council is pleased to have opened around 260 new specialist school places for September 2024 for Surrey’s children with additional needs and disabilities.
The creation of additional school places has been achieved through the successful completion of construction projects across the county, delivered by Surrey’s Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Capital Programme.
These additional places are part of the Council’s committed remaining investment of £189m between 2024/25 – 2027/28 to increase the availability of mainstream school Special Educational Needs (SEN) Units and Resourced Provision (‘Centres’), and to create additional places in specialist school provision and Alternative Provision (AP) schools within Surrey. To provide local children with the most complex needs the best opportunities for improved outcomes.
Surrey’s state-maintained specialist education estate has been increased by 35% from around 3,320 places in 2019 – when the capital programmes started – to around 4,500 places now.
The following five construction projects were completed this summer: The Abbey School in Farnham, Stepgates Community School in Chertsey, St Matthews Church of England Primary School in Redhill, Epsom and Ewell High School in Epsom, and Freemantles School satellite site in Ripley.
These projects are a part of Surrey County Council’s overall investment of £260m between 2019/20 and 2027/28 in the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Capital Programmes. The programmes are part of wider transformation plans across Surrey’s Inclusion and Additional Needs Partnership to improve inclusivity, expertise and capacity locally to enable Surrey children to feel more included, to transition successfully to adulthood, and to access high-quality maintained education closer to home.
Clare Curran, Cabinet Member for Children, Families and Lifelong Learning said: “Having these additional places for the 2024/25 academic year means that high quality specialist school places are available for more Surrey young people closer to home. This helps children and young people with additional needs and disabilities to be able to achieve healthy, independent and fulfilling lives.
“We are committed to continuing to increase sufficiency of specialist school provision in Surrey. The capital programmes remain on track with ten further construction projects already in contract, of which five are due to complete before Christmas 2024.”
Along with the phasing in of additional places from projects delivered in previous years, and planned delivery in 2024/25, the programme will create more than 250 further additional specialist school places for September 2025.
