ASD/HFA schools or special units in Bucks or RBWM

[Ormb]

Hi - seeking recos for year 8 Sept 2019 entry ... waiting to hear back from Sendia team. IEP in place, albeit from current school in USA ...

Hi, we're in RBWM but DS still in primary so we don't know a huge amount about secondaries yet. There's a page on the RBWM website about specialist provision (if you're lucky enough to find it ).

Furze Platt is a mainstream school with a specialist autism unit led by The Shine Team who are wonderful (they also provide outreach services to autistic children across the borough - the lady we have met and who has observed DS is wonderful). It's in Maidenhead. There is an ABA school called Forest Bridge (also Maidenhead) but I don't know what ages that caters for. And Manor Green is a specialist school that has children with all sorts of SEN - also in Maidenhead. There's a separate autism school called Heathermount in Sunningdale (nearer Windsor / Ascot) but it's not a borough school so apparently almost impossible to get into (costs a lot more than eg Manor Green) - but it sounds lovely and apparently children who have HFA and can cope with some mainstream school / GCSEs can go between Heathermount and the local mainstream secondary (Charters School) which is right next door.

The Salesian School in Chertsey (mainstream school, Catholic) now has an autism unit too, the school as a whole is apparently very good so that may also be worth looking at. And apparently there are other good special schools around Bracknell and Wokingham depending how wide you're able to look.

I would just say that RBWM has a reputation for being particularly tight and stubborn on SEN (we've already had one bad experience, about to go into battle again - and have heard of many other similar stories) so if you have the choice of living in the borough or somewhere else it would be worth doing some research.

Forest Bridge in Maidenhead seems to me a very forward thinking autism school for two reasons: 1) it uses ABA, which is evidence based and I've found has really helped my own boy and 2) it covers both severe and higher functioning ends of the spectrum, whereas so many schools seem to be either/or

Anyone have direct experience of Forest Bridge ?

My daughter goes to Forest Bridge x