How many special schools have specialist status?
There are currently 131 special schools with specialist status in England and Wales. Seventy of these have opted to concentrate on SEN itself, whereas the others focus on a particular dimension of the curriculum. SEN is the newest specialism and only came into being two years ago when the first 12 trailblazer schools were awarded this status. Any special school meeting the DCSF criteria can apply for specialist status and there are now also four high-performing mainstream schools that have taken on SEN as a second specialism. These are Madeley High School in Crewe, the Lakelands School and Sports College in Shropshire, Thomas Hardye School in Dorset and the Kings School in Devon. What do special schools with an SEN specialism specialise in? There are four possible areas within the SEN code of practice and a school chooses one of these as its main focus, depending usually on the specific needs of their students and of those in the immediate locality. This can be cognition and learning,
