Special needs

A school is being built for autistic children on the site of the former Chineham Park Primary School in Basingstoke.

Hampshire County Council is going to invest more than £10m pounds of government funding to build the school.

The new facility, due to open in spring 2021, will have places for 125 pupils with special educational needs and aged between 5 and 16.

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Health and education officials, who were given until August to say how they would address Cumbria-wide failings in services for special needs children, say they are are on track to meet their first deadline.

A joint report by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission found the agencies involved had been "too slow" to introduce government reforms and gave them until 21 August to produce a Written Statement of Action setting out how they propose to respond to the weaknesses identified.

BBC

Speaking at a meeting of Cumbria’s Health and Wellbeing Board, Dan Barton, assistant director of education and skills, said the team was “up against it in terms of time” but added: “I think we will be in a place where I think we will be on schedule.”

Anne Burns, cabinet member for children’s services, said: “It is going to be very difficult to try to move it forward because parents are still suspicious about them and their children not receiving the right sort of support."

It is going to be hard to try and get them onside because there is a mind-set there ‘You lot don’t care'.”