Welcome to Elms School!  I hope you enjoy your tour of our website. 

Elms School is a Foundation Special School and a member of the Ksent Cooperative Trust. We have high expectations of all pupils and aim to support them with their social and emotional development as well as their learning needs. We want them to enjoy learning, thrive and become happy, productive members of an evolving British society.

Our broad and balanced curriculum is relevant, engaging and provides opportunities to achieve academic success as well as equipping them with skills for life. Our highly trained staff provide bespoke therapeutic interventions, such as Thrive, to target developmental gaps and enable pupils to manage their behaviour and regulate their emotions so that they can form meaningful relationships throughout their lives. We also use Restorative Approaches to build and maintain a sense of community and to provide our pupils with the ability and attitude to respect the viewpoints of others and, when necessary, take responsibility for resolving conflict and putting things right.  

We cater for pupils aged 6 – 16, all of whom have and Education and Health Care Plan.  Pupils have Social, Emotional and Mental Health Needs as their prime area of need.  Some of our pupils have Autism and other conditions such as ADHD, attachment difficulties, ODD, PTSD and FASD.  Most of our pupils have some form of learning difficulty as well. The Local Authority determines our admissions and requests places on behalf of pupils, parents and carers.

We offer a holistic approach to meeting the needs of our young people, having high expectations of all pupils.  We support them with their social and emotional development as well as their learning needs. We want them to enjoy learning, thrive and become happy, productive members of an evolving British society.  

We offer a range of qualifications, including Entry Level exams, Functional Skills, some GCSEs and some BTec qualifications.  Our school is organised into three phases:  Lower School (Years 1 – 4), Middle School (Years 5 – 8) and Upper School (Years 9 – 11).  In the Lower and Middle Schools, pupils stay with their class teacher throughout the day alongside one or two Teaching Assistants, depending upon the class size.  We introduce some subject specialist teaching as pupils progress  throughout the school and in the Upper School we focus on working towards exams, with specialist teaching in all subjects.  We have found that this approach enables pupils to develop their self-esteem and to become well settled at school before introducing the rigours of exam coursework.