TreeHouseopensdoors

Expert staffing and a tailored curriculum allows Treehouse pupils to remain in education and prepare for adult life

KERRY STERNSTEIN is sitting in her bright, spacious office at TreeHouse School. As the n e w h e a d t e a c h e r, the youthful-looking grandmother and member of Belmont Synagogue is full of enthusiasm for her new role. TreeHouse School, in Muswell Hill, north London, is run by Ambitious about Autism, a national charity. It is a non-maintained special school for pupils aged three to 19. Local education authorities fund pupils to attend and parents do not have to pay. TreeHouse School opened in 2008 with support from the Pears Foundation and is based at the Pears National Centre for Autism Education, on the same site as the charity.

For many, the word “autistic” conjures up images of Dustin Hoffman in an autistic savant who is socially inept but brilliant, or Mark Haddon’s novel told from the viewpoint of an autistic boy. The reality is rarely like that.

“All the young people here not only have a ut i s m, t hey have severe learning needs and often other complex conditions,” says Sternstein, who spent the past 20 years at Shaftesbury School, a special school in Harrow, Middlesex. “Many have been excluded from two or three schools because they need a specific type of management which, in a class of 30, they would struggle to get. So many young autistic people are not in employment or college — they are just sitting at home.”

At first glance TreeHouse looks like any other modern school. Classrooms are light and airy but there are some additions you would not find in the average primary or secondary school: a dental surgery and a shop.

For a child with autism, the sights, sounds and smells of the dentist could unleash all sorts of anxieties. Having a surgery on site means pupils can familiarise themselves with the dental surroundings. The shop gives them the opportunity to experience buying, selling, dealing with money and interacting with others.

The school has a huge staff of 140. “Every young person here has one-toone support — some will have more than that,” says Sternstein. Along with class leaders and tutors, there are vocational specialists and speech and occupational therapists, working together to create a bespoke programme for each pupil. “That’s what makes this place unique,” says Sternstein. “Young people access the learning but they are not having the meltdowns they would be having elsewhere. A big interest of mine is making sure that young teachers get an opportunity to work with people with special needs, so when they go into their mainstream schools and they are faced with that child having a meltdown, they will understand and know how to manage it.”

Boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed (85 per cent of the pupils at TreeHouse are boys) but girls with autism are slipping through the net.

“Girls are massively under-diagnosed,” says Sternstein “They hide it. What that has led to is massive emotional needs, mental health issues, anorexia and drugs, because young women don’t understand what’s wrong with them.”

Awareness of autism is improving but there is still much to be done. Theatres and cinemas now provide autismfriendly performances. Asda in Manchester recently introduced a “quiet hour” for autistic shoppers and other stores are following suit.

The school’s motto is “Making the ordinary possible” — the phrase which attracted Sternstein to the job. “Ordinary” is something most of us take for granted. Shopping, dressing, catching a bus, going to the cinema — all can strike terror into someone with autism. Staff at TreeHouse School do their utmost to help the students meet these challenges. And in making the ordinary possible, they are doing something extraordinary.

The school’s motto is: making the ordinary possible’