Project to improve Wollaston School's special educational needs facilities given planning permission

A £561,000 project to provide improved special educational needs facilities at a secondary school has been given planning permission, weeks after senior councillors approved it. Wollaston School’s former caretaker’s house will be converted and a new modular building will be built as part of the improvements.

North Northamptonshire Council’s (NNC) executive approved the provisional plan at a meeting in March. It heard the school’s provision was “limited and stretched”. Several students at the school have significant high-level needs which the school is currently “struggling to meet”, it was told.

The number of pupils with special needs that need to be met by the school has “grown rapidly” over recent years, NNC’s planning documents state. It currently has 21 pupils from three counties with an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP). A further six children are being assessed and another two are going to be assessed later to see if they need one.

The school had seven pupils with EHCPs in 2020. NNC said improving the facilities showed “proactive leadership in securing support for students with special needs alongside the growing identification and allocation of special needs provisions to young people”.

The project will be managed by the Nene Valley Partnership, which runs the school, and NNC will only act to secure the cash from the Department for Education’s higher needs funding.

The partnership also runs Irchester Community Primary School, Bozeat Community Primary School and its nursery and Cogenhoe Primary School. It was set up in 2019.