Parents Journey through Admission
Most referrals come from your local authority, but sometimes parents contact us directly. All referrals must be submitted to [email protected]. This simply starts the conversation about whether The Loddon School might be the right place for your child.
To understand your child’s needs, we ask for:
- Their current Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP)
- Recent review reports, Positive Behaviour Support Plans and/or any Risk Assessments in place
- Any other helpful documents or professional reports (OT/SALT)
These help us build a clear picture of your child.
Our team carefully reads all the documents to see whether your child may meet our essential criteria. Many referrals don’t meet these criteria, this stage is about making sure we can genuinely meet a child’s needs and are the right place for them. Only referrals that meet the essential criteria move forward.
If your child appears to meet our criteria and we have an appropriate vacancy, we move forward. If there is no space at the time but vacancy might become available in near future your child may be added to waiting to be assessed list.
We will arrange an in‑person assessment is arranged for the child. At this stage we will
- Spend time with your child while completing face to face assessment
- Parents are invited to visit the school, ask questions, and share further insights into their child’s needs.
- This stage is essential: no placement offer is made without an in‑person assessment.
After the assessment, our leadership team meets to consider:
- Whether we can meet your child’s educational, social, and therapeutic needs
- Whether they would be a good fit with our current group of children.
If we believe we can meet your child’s needs and they would thrive here, we move to the final stage. If not, we will let you and the local authority know.
A formal offer is sent to your local authority. In tribunal situations, the offer may go directly to parents or solicitors.
We require all consent forms to be singed at the start of transition to The Loddon School. Transition period usually takes 6 to 8 weeks depending on young person needs, ability to cope with change and includes us visiting young person at current placement or home and visits to our School.
The whole process usually takes a few months, depending on availability, paperwork, and scheduling.
Important to note:
- This is an incremental process: each stage must be passed before moving to the next.
- The full process typically spans several weeks to several months, depending on, documentation, scheduling, and vacancy and assessment availability.
- We are a joint registered school and children’s home which admits children only on a 52-week residential basis.
- Our students typically remain at Loddon until the age of 18 or 19, rather than leaving during traditional academic times.
- We are typically jointly or tripart funded by home local authority Special Educational Needs (SEN) and social care departments.
- Due to ongoing challenges faced by local authorities in securing suitable onward placements, some young people remain with us for longer than expected. As such, transition planning for children starting at The Loddon School is often beyond our control, challenging and frequently open to short notice change.
- Despite receiving placement referrals on a daily basis, Loddon can only accommodate 30 children at any one time. So, on average, only three or four children start at Loddon each year.
- Potential start dates for other in-process children can be open to change by several months when the offer of a place for another child is accepted. While we attempt to provide realistic estimated timeframes, due to the school’s small size, we must accept children on a first come, first served basis.
- Loddon School’s in-person assessments and the assessment report must be no older than six months at the point of admission of a child. As a result, we typically do not complete in-person assessments until 6 months prior to a potential vacancy becoming available.