Type of service: Day schools, Schools

Website: http://www.spa.southwark.sch.uk

Spa School is a special school for students with autism, aged 11-19 years. We offer the National Curriculum and a range of accredited courses in Key Stages 4 (KS4) and 5. The school has specialist rooms for drama, food technology, music and art. It also has a lovely garden and greenhouse, a soft-play room, sensory room, fitness suite and sports hall. All staff are trained in autism understanding, and the school is geared strongly to providing a structured and safe environment. We believe that pupils should really enjoy school and provide a range of opportunities for pupils to try different activities. Spa has links with a lot of arts organisations. We have speech and language therapy support and a family centre coordinator who offers support to parents. Spa is over-subscribed so mainly takes pupils from the London Borough of Southwark, although it occasionally has places for pupils from other boroughs. We offer an autism-specific approach to education with lots of structure. We support communication visually where-ever possible and use Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), Makaton or other communicative approaches with pupils where appropriate. There is a mixture of whole-class, small group and 1:1 teaching. Pupils are in classes of 8 with an average of 2:1 staffing across the school.

Aimed at: Adolescent , Child , Young person

Gender: All genders

Specialisms: Exclusively autism specific