The consultation for Duke of Lancaster School, the new Special School in Fakenham, opens on February 22nd

There will be a live Virtual Open Consultation Event on Thursday 25th February. 10.00-12.oo held through Teams, led by the CEO of SENDAT Lawrence Chapman. Key Norfolk County Council representatives will speak. See link below to register

There will be a chance to ask questions.

The consultation has now finished

Consultation meeting

The recording of the consultation meeting held 25-02-21 is viewable below.

Frequently Asked Questions........

In January 2022 the school will have 48 student places for Ages 5 to 14 (year groups 1 to 9). Further information on the admissions page click here

We have already appointed the Head of School. Rob Speck starts at Easter 2021. We expect to be advertising other roles from Easter 2021 through to Autumn 2021. It might be worth watching our video about recruitment click here.

If you don’t have access to a computer with internet access we can make the recording of the meeting and the consultation survey available to you in other ways.

  • USB drive can be posted to you if you have a computer but no internet.
  • A DVD can be posted to you, if you have a DVD player.
  • A paper copy of the survey can be posted to you.

Please contact Hannah.cushney@sendat.academy, or tel: 01284 717872 to ask for a copy to be sent to you.

We are quite happy to post you a hard copy of the feedback questionnaire.

Please contact Hannah Cushney at our Bury office.

Hannah.cushney@sendat.academy, or tel:  01284 717872

We have a separate page on admissions.

Norfolk County Council have responded with:

“Hello my name is Kim Breen and I am the Senior Advisor for Send Provision and Funding in Norfolk. The admissions for Duke of Lancaster will follow the process we have for admitting to all our maintained and special school academies.

If your child has, or is about to have, a final Education Health and Care Plan you can request that the Local Authority consults the school on your behalf.

Following the drafting stage of an EHCP or an annual review you will have discussed with your current school and your EHCP coordinator where best your child’s needs would be met.

Duke of Lancaster will be a school for children agreed between 5 and 16 with a diagnosis of ASD or have complex communication and interaction difficulties. They will be broadly average in their learning.

If you feel that the Duke of Lancaster may be the right school for your child the coordinator will submit all the information about your child and school will consider it.

An admissions panel is then held- usually once a term but this will be more frequent to begin with- where representatives from the LA meet with school leaders to discuss the suitability of the children and agree who should receive an offer.

Your coordinator will keep you informed and if an offer is made you will receive this in writing.

The school will grow steadily in numbers over the first three years so that children can be well supported and the school develop into an outstanding provision.

To begin with mainly primary aged children will be admitted and we will begin gathering requests for consultations over the next few weeks with an anticipated first admissions meeting at the start of next term.

The school of course will open in January 2022. We would hope to identify first admissions by the end of the academic year.

If you feel your child would benefit from a place at the Duke of Lancaster or have any other questions please do not hesitate to contact your EHCP coordinator.

Thank you for your interest