Schools to get share of £430,000 funding
MORE than £430,000 is to be invested in four Oldham primary schools – one in Royton – to improve provision for youngsters with disabilities and special needs.
Oldham council has been allocated £500,000 from the Department for Education to support the creation of new school places and improve existing facilities for young people aged up to 25 who have an education, health and care plan, or a disability.
The town hall has decided to invest £102,500 from this fund in three of its schools in order to extend the educational offer and provide ‘sensory and immersive’ learning experiences.
St Anne’s CE and Holy Cross CE school will both receive £20,000, while Oasis Academy ●●St Anne’s CE Primary School in Royton will get Department of Education money to go towards building their new sensory environment Limeside will be allocated £63,000.
Ten education providers had put in bids to the local authority to get a share of funding from the government grant, but only four were successful.
At St Anne’s, in Royton, there will be additional infrastructure built to accommodate the new sensory environment, which includes soundproofing, ventilation and blackout blinds.
Holy Cross school will use a proportion of its funding to build an outdoor sensory learning area, with a covered teaching space, planter and adjustments for electrical and water supplies.
And Oasis Academy Limeside will also invest the cash from their successful bid in a new sensory and immersive room, and corresponding sensory garden, which will see the redevelopment of currently ‘underused’ parts of the school.
They say that the rooms will provide an ‘adaptable and inspiring space in a completely controlled environment to benefit the learning and emotional wellbeing of all children at Oasis Limeside and from other schools in the Oldham area’.
Their bid added that the sensory environment can also allow greater opportunities to help children with their mental health and emotional wellbeing, reducing stress and anxiety and helping children to ‘manage their emotions more easily’.
It is hoped that the use of the new facilities will reduce ‘behaviour incidents’ and the exclusions among pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, and improve the level of academic attainment.
A project at Kingfisher Special School has also been recommended to be allocated a total of £330,000, but details are yet to be publicly released.
The government is providing £215m of special provision funding for local authorities across the financial years 20182020.
This funding allocation is in addition to the basic need capital funding that Oldham has received to support the requirement for providing new pupil places.