centre academy
A leading educator has called the Centre Academy Schools (London and East
Anglia) “the most successful special needs schools in the UK and, indeed, the
most unique.” Here’s why: We accept a broad range of ages, boys and girls, from
7-19 (9-19 in London). This eliminates the anxiety, common to SEN students, of
having to move from school to school to school. Research has repeatedly shown
that for an SEN student, moving school is a tremendously daunting experience. We
address an equally broad range of learning challenges on a case-by-case basis:
ASD, AD/HD, Dyslexia, Speech and Language needs, Anxiety to name but a few. Such
breadth and versatility is essential, as most SEN students face more than one
learning challenge—and Anxiety is common to almost all. We group not by age or
by year group but rather by ability and level of preparedness. Research
repeatedly shows that SEN students accomplish best when they work with peers who
are working at approximately the same level. We keep our schools small,
approximately 50 at London and 60 at East Anglia. This ensures that our class
sizes are small (usually between 4-8 students) and that learning will be
individualised. At the CA schools, one size does not fit all. All our teachers
are highly experienced and all have significant expertise in teaching SEN
students. We do not increase our student to staff ratio through use of learning
support assistants. When our children leave Centre Academy, the do so with
Outcomes: they have earned appropriate qualifications and they know exactly
