Melton's special school set to benefit from joining an education trust
Melton’s Birch Wood Area Special School is now part of a family of 20 local schools after today (Monday) officially joining an education trust for the first time.
Representatives of Discovery Trust visited the Grange Drive school this afternoon to welcome students, staff and parents to the organisation, which has three other special schools, 15 primary schools and a secondary school.
One of the main messages which come out of the new link-up is being able to share resources and best practice with a much bigger entity.
Phil Leaney, who has been executive head at Birch Wood for almost a year after teaching there for four years, told the Melton Times: “We took this decision very seriously.
“I have a responsibility to parents and pupils to keep the school moving forward.
“Being part of Discovery Trust offers us that. Our teaching and learning will get better through joining the trust.”
Birch Wood now has 250 students, aged from four to 19, with 10 new pupils set to join in February. It also has around 200 members of staff, including office and HR employees as well as teachers.
Discovery Trust submitted an application to Loughborough College Group to take over the Melton college campus to set up a post 16 special educational needs needs (SEN) centre.
It was rejected but Phil said there was a definite need for such a facility and for more SEN schools in the county.
“The demand for places at Birch Wood far outstrips the capacity we have unfortunately,“ he commented.
Ros Hopkins, who was executive head at Birch Wood for eight years before leaving a year ago to become director of specialist provision at Discovery Trust, told the Melton Times at today’s launch that Birch Wood’s new management status would give lots of benefits to both the school and the trust.
"Birch Wood is the fourth special school to join Discovery, it is now part of a wider network of 20 schools and it will help support other schools in our trust in being more inclusive,” said Ros.
Mike Sanderson, Discovery’s chief technical officer, said the trust’s schools were digitally advanced and Birch Wood students would benefit from having far greater access to new technology in their learning.