About The School

Please click here to read our latest Ofsted report.

Please click here to read a letter from our Chair of Governors.

Elms is a special school for pupils with social, emotional, mental health and learning needs.  Most pupils display associated challenging behaviours resulting from a variety of difficulties and needs, including PTSD, attachment difficulties, ODD, ADHD, ASD and FASD.  All pupils start their school career in mainstream schools and come to us with a history of low self-esteem and a sense of failure.  

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.   

Our Ofsted inspection in October 2017 was rated ‘Good’ and we have continued to make improvements to the quality of education and our holistic provision since that date.

We operate a three-phase model:  lower school (three classes, years 1 – 4); middle school (eight classes, years 5 – 8, following a predominantly Primary curriculum); and the upper school (six classes, years 9 – 11, studying for Entry level/Functional Skills/ BTEC and some GCSE exams).  We have a growing roll of 156 which is predicted to rise to 165 over the next academic year.  We have a large team, including our transport team who bring the pupils to and from school in our fleet of MPVs.