The launch of a new special free school on the Isle of Wight has been delayed indefinitely as there is a struggle to find someone to run it. More than a year ago, parents, carers and pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) were given the good news the Isle of Wight would be getting a new specialist school. It was planned to open, next to Carisbrooke College, in time for September 2025 and would gradually provide places for 75 children, aged 9 to 16 with autism or social, emotional and mental health conditions. There has been an ‘at least year delay’, however, the Isle of Wight Council has confirmed, that no one has come forward to run it. Speaking at a meeting earlier this month, Naomi Carter, the council’s new education access and inclusion director, said any new school now has to be an academy, but the problem was no sponsor was willing to come to the Island. An Isle of Wight Council spokesperson has said although the initial timeline has been affected, it was actively exploring alternative solutions to ensure the successful establishment of the new SEND free school. They said:
“Our commitment to addressing the educational needs of SEND students remains unwavering and we remain dedicated to delivering a high-quality educational facility that caters to those. “While we cannot provide an exact opening date, we assure the community that we are expediting the process.”
The council said it is in regular discussions with the Department for Education — which is the authority responsible for making the decisions regarding academy sponsors and most of the free school process. Updates will be shared with parents, educators and the public as the council makes progress, it confirmed. As the search to find an academy sponsor continues, the authority is looking to expand the current SEND provision on the Island, by increasing places in special schools. The 2 specialist schools on the Island are currently full, the council said, and the number of pupils needing education, health and care plans has more than doubled in the last 9 years. The specialist school would ‘significantly increase’ the availability of ‘much-needed places’, which currently results in the need to send young people off the Island, the council said.
What about the council running it they have a 100% success rate for failure
And where’s Pop Up Bob now ? Surely get your best pen out a write a strongly worded letter.
Hardly surprising, whilst many schools pretend to welcome these unfortunate children into their schools for normal children, as they only do so as the school gets far more funding for taking in problematic children.
Face it, it doesn’t take too much effort to teach these simple children. Music lessons consist of taped music of ‘The wheels of the bus’ with triangles and recorder played by over enthusiastic students.
Art is just smearing hands or feet with blobs of colour and walking over paper.
And soon, with hi tech developments such as AI that will make it easy for those parents who have created these problems for society, far easier to then teach the basic three R’s at home hopefully cutting our c.tax bills.
Will you please stop using my name. Once more and I’ll get you banned permanently.
It happens all the time on here. Someone was posting under my name yesterday and the day before. Pick another name if it bothers you.
I did wonder about you. I did pick another name…he then changed his to that too. Really wouldn’t surprise me if yours was him too. It comes under defamation law, by purporting to be someone else and committing a crime (hate speech). The onus is then on the defendant (him) when prosecuted to try to argue that it did not cause damage to business, reputation etc. I do not have to prove it did. Then will come the matter of original crime, all documented, all saved.
I am glad that no one has bothered to rise to such obvious baiting. It is not the troll’s fault, they simply have nothing better to do with their life. However, this post has been up for 14 hours at the time of writing; how have the Echo not spotted it? Wake up, chaps!
It has been flagged, screenshotted and IE are on it. He’s already had his IP address blocked so is now on mobile. He’s on some very dangerous ground and it IS being escalated. IE are being run ragged by this, and it’s in danger of damaging his business, and our community news. The best thing to do is flag every comment we see and drive it back underground where it belongs. No place for discrimination to hide; it affects us all in the end.
liar – you have referenced the other individual as “He” – as posts are anonymous, you have no idea who was using the name karen. This means you are making it all up.
This is the most bizarre squabble I have ever seen on IE. Is it possible to defame someone who is using a false identity? Who is who? Given that anyone can pick any name on here regardless of whether it is already in use, how do we know who anyone is? Are any of us even real or are all of these comments being generated by AI? Am I AI? Would that be a good thing or a bad thing? I am having an existential crisis … does not compute … does not compute …