SENAD Group – Special Needs Schools

The SENAD Group is an independent operator of specialist schools, adult homes and community support for children, young people and adults with learning disabilities, autism and other complex needs. Set up in 2003 and run from a central office in Derby, it works with people whose needs have gone beyond what many local settings can meet — often a learning disability alongside autism, communication differences, or distressed behaviour that other provision has found hard to support. Pupils come from across the UK and overseas, and the group is a member of NASS, the National Association of Special Schools.

Its eight schools sit across the East Midlands, West Midlands and North Wales: Hope House (Nottinghamshire, ages 5–19, day only, for autistic pupils), Alderwasley Hall School and Sixth Form (Derbyshire, 5–19), Maple View (Derbyshire, 6–16), Pegasus (Derbyshire, 7–19), Bladon House (Staffordshire, 5–19), Edgewood (Northamptonshire, 7–16), Rowden House (Herefordshire, 11–19) and Aran Hall (Gwynedd, 11–19). All are mixed, and every school except Hope House offers residential placements of 38 to 52 weeks a year alongside day places. Each combines academic and vocational programmes with therapy and care; the mix of needs differs by school, with some centred on autism and communication and others on moderate to severe learning disabilities.

For adults, SENAD runs seven small homes in Herefordshire, Derbyshire and on the Shropshire border, most for between six and fifteen people — Winslow Court, for instance, supports 15 adults aged 18 to 65, and Park House includes a self-contained flat for someone moving towards more independence. SENAD Community provides one-to-one support at home, in education and out in the community, from 30 hours a week up to round-the-clock packages, with staff matched on shared interests, plus help finding housing and securing a tenancy. The group's own language leans on terms such as challenging behaviour; families weighing a placement will want to visit and ask each setting how it reads distress, sensory needs and communication.