| Comment number | Do you have any comments about this proposal? | What is your interest or status? |
| 1. | There is an increasing need for extra places for children with special needs requirements that would benefit form a place at Springwater. | Teacher |
| 2. | An excellent idea - more places are needed to relieve pressure on both the special and mainstream school allocations. Hope the school is being resourced appropriately for this change. | Teacher |
| 3. | I fully support this proposal. | Teacher |
| 4. | Much needed to ensure provision meets needs. SEND children, by rights, should have access to the provision they need to thrive. Needs to happen yesterday at the earliest. | Governor |
| 5. | I think it will be a good change. We were lucky for our child to have a place in the school and I think others should be allowed the opportunity too. It is a fantastic school. | Parent |
| 6. | I am a member of staff at the school and I fully support the expansion of places. It is certainly needed, there is a great demand. I would urge the council though to look at wider implications of this expansion, namely parking facilities and transport facilities for incoming pupils. There should be a car park or adequate parking provided for the amount of staff/parents dropping off around the building to ensure staff and pupils transferring are safe entering their school or place of work. At the moment, I'm not aware that parking or bus drop offs have been thought about in any great detail. It is already a huge challenge and many staff have had near misses or their cars bumped into by other motorists due to the very limited parking available around the site. Others have had tickets for parking on lines they weren't supposed to, yet this wasn't made clear by any signage and due to the limited space, staff are left with no choice. Additional office spaces are also needed. Currently, senior leaders at the school all share one small office which is not conducive for private meetings or conversations. Teachers have no space to have their PPA time and are often not encouraged to work from home. Safe spaces, break-out spaces and additional/spare classrooms must also be included within the plans as we currently cannot meet the needs of some of our young people due to the lack of these spaces. | Teacher |
| 7. | Increasing the number of places available at Springwater will be very beneficial to children and parents within the area. There is currently pressure on Early Years settings to continue supporting with children with SEN when mainstream education is not an option and there are no places available at Springwater or other specialised schools. | Early Years Professional |
| 8. | As long as the children and young adults are safe while this work is been done. | Parent |
| 9. |
1. I am extremely concerned that this expansion with somehow make North Yorkshire Council think it is no longer necessary to develop the old Woodfield School in Bilton into a new neurodiverse school in Harrogate as this is urgently needed for pupils in the wider surrounding district as Springwater is not an appropriate school for children capable of obtaining academic success. 2. Parking is appalling at Springwater School, the proposed drop off/pick up site won't be big enough to account for the time required to either cajole reluctant pupils or pupils having a crisis moment into and out of cars, or the time needed for wheelchairs from WAVs. 3. Staffing has been a massive issue at Springwater for the past few years. Current pupils' EHCP 1:1 requirements and sometimes 2:1 requirements have not been met and it has been extremely problematic for families whose children are struggling, for classroom disruption and for staffing morale. If you can't meet staffing levels on the numbers attending the school as it is, how on earth will you meet staffing levels for increased numbers. 4. Joint secondary and sixth form assemblies and events will be incredibly difficult to arrange as the enlarged number of pupils literally won't be able to fit into the school hall with number of appropriate staff needed and room for required equipment. But these are incredibly important to encourage a sense of belonging for the pupils and pride for pupils going into the sixth form. Sixth formers need to be seen around across the school and away from the main building. The secondary classes are multi-yeared and as such, a young person in a class with younger peers would never see their friends again if they are separated away and have a designated sixth form play area once they transition into sixth form. 5. Springwater School is already a hotch-potch school with bits here and there, next to no storage in classrooms for equipment which needs to be easily accessible throughout the school day for pupils. North Yorkshire Council should be looking at creating a whole new building for all the students instead of treating them as second class citizens with make do facilities because they don't perform academically so don't figure on North Yorkshire Councils achievement lists. A new build could house as many pupils as North Yorkshire Council need in an appropriate environment that cherishes our youngsters and not be a load of meeting rooms stuck together to make do. |
Parent |
| 10. | I'm in support of increasing facilities for local SEND pupils. | Community |
| 11. | The proposal will have an impact on the special school nursing provision provided to the school from health as the service will have to meet the needs of a larger cohort within its current means. There is currently no additional funding to support this expansion so inclusion criteria for the service may need to be revised if there is an increased demand. NHS, Humber and North Yorkshire ICB, Childrens Community Health. | |
| 12. | Approve of the plans so long as the building works does not take over or disrupt the park either side of the school location and building work does not spill over onto the high street too much. | Community |
| 13. | I feel as a parent I would like more information about going happen to the school and local area. I went to the school tonight but didn't feel I learnt anymore than I all ready know. | Parent |
| 14. | I feel that the expansion of places within Springwater is a good plan in terms of reducing out of authority placements and educating children locally. The availability of buildings on or near the site make this a possibility and keeps the young people within the same area. The planned space internally and externally feel fit for purpose whilst not taking away from existing outdoor space. If the new area is to be used for young people with PMLD, the provision of storage areas for wheelchairs, standing frames and other large equipment must be provided as this is a current problem within the school. It would be good to ensure that existing provision is upgraded to match the quality of the new provision as some of the classrooms currently do not have sufficient space or storage space for equipment. There are also a number of temporary buildings on the site that are of different ages and bring additional, but limited capacity. | Ascent Academies Trust |
| 15. | The increase in children will have a significant impact on the capacity of the Special School nursing team as they will have more children to see within their current already stretched resource. There will also be a significant impact on the therapy services who deliver care in these schools- there will most likely need to be waiting lists for therapy/ assessment support within school if there is no additional funding attached as there is no give in the system to allocate more. If the places are to be offered to families in the area who would have been supported by our teams anyway the impact will be less than if children are coming who would have been supported by their local therapy teams elsewhere. Would we be able to recharge for OOA children? | NHS Service Provider |
| 16. |
Paediatric Physiotherapy team comments
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NHS Physiotherapy Team |
| 17. | I think it is a positive step to offer more places if these children can be supported at the correct level. The increase in numbers could mean the equivalent of 1 whole time equivalent therapist to support these children who will have an EHCP. We do not currently have capacity to increase the therapy establishment and so I have concerns about meeting EHCP requirements. It is good to see a sensory room added or improved on the current one. I would be interested to know what aspects of sensory provision would be given in this space and how safety would be overseen. I would like to see sensory needs met from an environmental perspective, not only in a specialist room but within the whole building. If changes are being made to the fabric of the building, it would be good to be consulted and offer specialist advice on how to improve sensory aspects of the physical building eg window coverings to manage light, sound proofing areas to manage noise levels, dining room options to help manage smell and noise. Equipment storage is an important aspect of any environment for children with complex needs. Currently, the long term storage options for equipment is not providing a place for accessible storage for staff to retrieve equipment and re-use it and does not meet health and safety at work needs for employees. The equipment storage for essential equipment in use, which needs to be rotated is also insufficient. If building works are being considered, it would be great to see space in every classroom, for quick and easy retrieval of equipment, so that children's programs are easier to follow. I hope that these comments assist in providing a great new facility for students. | Staff member |
An additional three respondents did not leave any comments at all on their online form so their views are not known.