Visit to Bidwell Brook School Dartington
This was an opportunity to visit the inspirational Bidwell Brook School in Dartington, and to hear about issues facing special educational needs teaching from newly appointed head, Martin Dean.
There are currently 85 children between the ages of 4 and 19, with diverse special needs, attending the school and each child will have an individually designed curriculum. Costs are always an issue, with the salary bill increasing significantly since the pay re-banding exercise. Highly specialised and experienced teaching staff are important for schools such as Bidwell Brook but again in a small school add disproportionately to the wage bill, as do specialist faclities like the hydrotherapy pool. Bidwell brook benefits from close links to other schools in the Totnes Learning Community and also from strong parental links. Services like speech and language therapy, occupational health, physiotherapy and visiting paediatric consultants are also valued.
Issues of concern are ambulance waiting times, which can be up to 30 minutes, and unnecessary red tape within the education system, such as having to annually dis-apply children from SATs and the cost to schools of CRB checks.
Bidwell Brook's pupil have recently raised £400 for the Haiti Appeal.
Conservative policy is to stop further closures of special needs schools like Bidwell Brook, which are so valued by their pupils and parents.
