Last week I was invited to visit Oak Field School and Sports College in Nottingham to meet some of the parents at one of their regular coffee mornings.
I have visited a lot of schools over the past seven years and am always struck by the very unique atmosphere of our special schools and colledges.
Oak Field is a beautiful brand new purpose built college, full of space and light with music and laughter ringing around the corridors. I have also visited some of the older schools with children squashed in older totally unsuitable buildings with clumsy adaptations to cope with their needs.
In all the schools you still get that unique vibrant atmosphere but it has been wonderful to witness so much investment in the children and their surroundings.
The subject of main stream verses special schooling will always raise a lively debate and much passion both ways, but whatever you feel it is great to see new purpose build schools and colleges being built all around the country. I was very upset to hear about Marland Special school in Devon, that had just missed out on the opportunity to get their new school due to Government cuts.
It was great to chat with the parents and find out what they thought about the new developments we are working on right now, we depend totally on our families to tell us what to do next at Rackety's, and I consider myself very fortunate to be involved with the community who live with disability.
