SCHOOLS in Warwickshire will be better equipped for children with special educational needs after the county council announced a £1.66million funding programme.
The funding will be used to deliver improvements to safeguarding, accessibility, and Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) provision, with a focus on reducing travel times for vulnerable students.
They include a £400,000 project towards hygiene facilities, outdoor ramping and widened thresholds for pupils with disabilities, and another £400,000 towards perimeter fencing upgrades across the school estate maintained by Warwickshire County Council.
Three schools in Rugby will also benefit from specific projects.
At Brooke School, £525,000 will be invested into the remodelling of an under-used building to create 34 additional specialist places for young people with learning and cognition difficulties.
A £234,000 redesign and expansion of ground-floor washroom facilities will take place at Bilton School.
At Ashlawn School, £77,000 will be invested to create a new specialist resourced provision for up to 45 pupils with Communication and Interaction (C&I) needs, repurposing existing spaces to include calm rooms and dedicated classrooms.
Another £26,000 project at Burton Green CofE Academy in Kenilworth will reconfigure access routes and facilities to support the establishment of a new preschool comprising 13 early years childcare places.
By increasing SEND capacity in Rugby and Kenilworth, the Council aims to reduce the distance pupils need to travel.
The council’s education spokesman Coun Wayne Briggs said: “We are seeing an increasing and evolving need for specialist education provision across the county.
“Through investment in dedicated resourced provisions within our mainstream schools and expanding our specialist settings, we are ensuring that children with special educational needs can learn closer to home and that our schools are fit for the future.”
