More House, Northease, Frewen, Slindon time again!

[Gillway]

More House, Northease, Frewen, Slindon: anyone got any recent experience of any of them? I'm a parent of a Dyspraxic, Dyslexic kid with sensory, anxiety, auditory, visual and social communication issues floundering at mainstream secondary. Been under a threat of prosecution for non attendance for a while. Bloody awful time. Ehcp process on its way. Son is sociable with no behavioural issues and has an extremely high IQ.

Can anyone please tell me about schools that might work for us within reasonable distance of Brighton? More House actively wants high IQ non behaviourally challenged kids, but is an onerous 1.5 hours away. I've heard kids do this but I've often wondered how they could be Sen because mine wouldn't be great with 3 hours travel per day.

We would however consider moving. Frewen is also distant and not sure if it is for children with challenging behaviours or just spld kids. Northease is close but has it recovered from its recent issues and is it academic enough for a child with high potential and who needs to learn the skills to pass GCSEs with dyspraxia? Slindon is also a knackering journey away but maybe it's good? My son could also manage a mainstream school with trained spld teachers, but a specialist school with in house salt, OT and all day long Specialist teaching, good facilities and a non disruptive cohort would be the best. After reading umpteen threads with some
Posts going back to 2004, I'm appalled that finding a school for a bright SEN kid is still a complete forking nightmare!

thats good feedback luxury thanks - reading the SOS!SEN report into parental experiences of tribunal has not helped matters.....

OP I did read the East Sussex iSEND newsletter with a mix of amusement and horror - exposes the dreadful culture in LA's and i'd like to say i was surprised but so not.....

@emaboo

Apologies for taking several days to reply to you re Northease. For some reason I didn't get any notifications that there were new responses on this thread (and then I received about ten notifications at once!).

My response to the OP was simply that, to me, her description of her DS indicated that More House would be a better fit for him than Northease. My DS is at Northease; I have not visited More House but have spoken to the admissions people multiple times and looked at their website in great depth. My perception was that More House is a wonderfully supportive environment but really not that much different to the mainstream prep that DS was at (small classes, excellent therapies, very understanding staff and amazing SEN support - but high standards of academia still largely expected). DS needed a lot more than his prep could provide so we looked at Northease.

Emaboo I would definitely look round Northease for your DD, as it really is a wonderful place and is turning out to be the holy grail for my DS. What you were told about meeting and catering for each pupil's individual needs is absolutely correct. I believe most do vocational qualifications instead of A levels (my DS is younger so I may simply be out of the loop on this one) but I do know that if there's an academic need it will be met. DS is not remotely academic but his two best friends are. I would say that the school as a whole isn't an obviously academic environment because the majority of the pupils have pretty significant needs, and this can affect behaviour. They don't take pupils with significant behaviour issues but many of the pupils do still have issues that wouldn't sit well in mainstream education, my DS included.

I hope this helps a bit....happy to talk via pm if you'd like to hear anything more.

Hi @catkinToadflax

Thank you for the reply. I probably will PM you, as have lots of questions.
My DD is very clever so I am very worried that a specialist setting might not suit (she is ambitious too). But she has struggled in larger settings, especially with numerous teachers who don't understand her 'quirks'
I know she wouldn't do very well in a setting where behaviour was poor - as that is likely to make her act up, or a setting where she feels 'talked down to' or treated differently.
I really am agonising over it but I guess I'll know more after her trial days x

Hi. Not about the schools but to those discussing OT we got a really good private OT report from a south east company called the OT practice. They have a Brighton based OT who saw my daughter. She has dyspraxia and processing issues but I think his specialism is ASD OT.