The children and young people that we work with at Spaghetti Bridge are between the ages of 6-19, they have Special Educational Needs and/or a Disability (SEND) and have an Education, Health, and Care Plan (EHCP).

Spaghetti Bridge schools support children and young people with a variety of needs such as, but not exclusively:

• Children and young people with neurodiversity such as Autism and ADHD.
• Speech language and communication needs.
• Social and emotional, mental health needs.
• Trauma and attachment needs.
• Mild/moderate learning difficulties.

We understand that children and young people’s needs are often complex and do not neatly fall into primary and secondary areas of needs, so we consider each and every referral to ensure that we are the right group for the child or young person and that we are sure our schools will be able to meet their needs.

The children and young people that are placed with Spaghetti Bridge are supported by the Local Authority to attend. If you feel that a Spaghetti Bridge School in your area is the right place for your child or young person to attend a School, communicate with your Local Authority about the possibility of placement at Spaghetti Bridge and contact the school to learn more about the Spaghetti Bridge approach and whether we feel that we can meet the needs of your child or young person.

To attend a Spaghetti Bridge school, your Local Authority would need to agree to a legal consultation with the school about whether and how the school could meet the needs of your child or young person. The Local Authority will often consult with multiple schools to see who can best meet the needs of your child as outlined in their EHCP.

This would need to be communicated at the end of a 20-week EHCP assessment or following an Annual Review in which you are asking for an amendment of the EHCP as the school your child or young person is attending is no longer meeting their needs and there is a significant change to their needs.

If you have a Final EHCP in place:

If you are in the EHCP 20 week process:

You can also ask for a consultation with our schools through parental preference so that you can see if the school can meet your child or young person’s needs.

In order to ensure that we can meet the needs of all of our students, Spaghetti Bridge schools assess each consultation thoroughly to ensure that we can meet the needs of the children and young people to whom we offer placement and that potential placements at our schools are compatible with our other students.

If you are in dispute about the right placement (Section I of the EHCP) for your child, then you can liaise with your Local Authority and there are legal avenues for this through mediation and appeals to the Tribunal.

Every Local Authority has an Independent Advice and Support Service (IASS) for SEND, and they will be able to support you with information about working with EHCPs and any other worries or concerns you may have. If you google your area IASS services for SEND, you will find their information.

Alternatively, you can find information and support through IPSEA.

https://www.ipsea.org.uk/news/mediation-for-placement-appeals

Parents and carers can call any of our schools for further information and to arrange tours and we hold many open days which are a great way of seeing what we do, with or without your young people. This can be a really important step in getting a sense of what we offer and a feel for our school environment and approach.

A visit to our school and a conversation with our team will also help you to understand our offer so that you can be explicit about how our school could uniquely meet your child or young person’s needs.

• The age of the learner is not in our designation (6-19)
• Children and young people who have Severe and Profound and Multiple Learning difficulties (SLD or PMLD) or Global Developmental Delay which relates to a delay of 2 years by age 5 or 4 Years by age 10.
• Children and young people with profound physical needs which cannot be met by adaptations of the environment. 
• Children and young people for whom the current assessed risk (to themselves or to others) would implicate the other students in the school