(UK) Chichester: $5.4M to expand special school; ‘significant growth’\10,000 SPED plans
- The end of childhood
- Oct 4
- 2 min read
Sept 29, 2025, Sussex World: Special school to move into vacant site after £4m [$5.4M] expansion
West Sussex County Council is to set aside more than £4m to expand a Chichester special school.
The plan is for St Anthony’s, in Woodlands Lane, to take over the buildings left vacant after Jessie Younghusband Primary School, which shared the site, moved to Drovers Lane.
On Friday (September 26), Jacquie Russell, cabinet member for children, young people & learning, approved the publication of a statutory notice with the aim of expanding the school from 248 places to 298.
If the scheme goes ahead, the money for its design and delivery, totalling £4.138m, will be taken from the Special Educational Needs & Disabilities (SEND) capital budget. . . .
A report from Claire Hayes, assistant director for education & skills, said there had been a ‘significant growth’ in the number of children with Education Health & Care Plans, which detail the support needed by each child with special needs.
West Sussex now maintains 10,000 of the Plans, which is higher than the national average and that of other local authorities across the south-east.
The report added: “In response to the increased demand for specialist provision, the approved place numbers of all the council’s maintained special schools have been exceeded.
“This has led to children and young people with SEND moving from maintained schools and academies into more expensive education provision in the Independent and Non-Maintained Special School sector, sometimes at schools situated in other counties.
“This sector is creating more placements each year to meet demand at a quicker rate than the county council is able to meet increasing demand. Therefore, there is a need to increase provision for children and young people with SEND through the creation of additional places in the county council’s special schools to assist the aim of enabling children to attend school locally.”
If all goes as planned, remodelling work will be carried out during the 2026/27 academic year.
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