Jan 12, 2024, Kent Online: Springfield House in Sandling Road, Maidstone to be converted into new school after plans approved for 19th century site https://www.kentonline.co.uk/maidstone/news/new-school-to-open-in-19th-century-mansion-299999/
SE England
A 19th-century mansion is to be converted into a new school for more than 100 children with special needs and disabilities.
Plans have been approved to turn existing offices at Springfield House, in Sandling Road, Maidstone, into a new education hub....
Catering for 150 children between the ages of five and 18, it will also have 60 full-time staff.
It comes just four months after more than a hundred parents and teachers took part in a protest demanding changes to special education needs provision in schools.
Members of SEND Reform England met outside County Hall in Maidstone in September to fight against what they said was a lack of provision for their children, including insufficient spaces in special needs schools….
"The provision of the school will meet the specific educational needs of children within the borough that are presently not being met locally, and for which children are having to travel to sites well outside of the borough to attain….
"The school is proposed to meet the significant local demand for the specialist education needs of children within the borough, which is currently being met by schools outside of the area.
"There is clearly a genuine demand for SEND school places [here] that this proposal will address."
The school is to be operated by Serenity Schools Maidstone Ltd.
The company is a specialist education needs provider which follows "a holistic approach to education and childhood development”….
