Admissions

Paces School provides education for children whose motor disorder is originated from the damage of the central nervous system, such as Cerebral Palsy.

There are no criteria as to intellectual ability or skills attainment, although the school as a whole is less likely to be appropriate for children whose primary difficulties is not that of a physical one. The school does not require a formal referral from any agencies. Anybody can contact and discuss assessment options with the relevant school staff.

Our full Admissions Policy can be found on our website and in the Policy folder in reception.

Our Admissions Stage-by-Stage:

1. Once an enquiry is received either via email or a telephone call, arrangements are made for an assessment with the Headteacher.
2. An initial assessment will then be carried out by either the Headteacher or the Deputy Headteacher who are both qualified Conductor Teachers.  They will assess the suitability of the programme for the child and complete the ‘Assessment Sheet’
3. Following the assessment, the Conductor- Teacher will recommend whether Conductive Education might benefit the child/young person. Based on this recommendation then the School Management Team will decide what placement will be offered. NB There may be a waiting list if the age appropriate group/In-Reach (for pre-school aged children) has already reached its full capacity.

Almost half of our pupils are from outside of Sheffield, our Family Services Team can work with families to assist with all aspects of admissions, offering advice and support at every step.

Following assessment, if the Conductor-Teacher and the School Management Team decides that our programme is not appropriate for a child, then parents/carers will be offered advice and support about other services which may be available to them from our dedicated Family Services Team.

Once the first appointment has been made to visit the Nursery or School you will be involved in speaking to our practitioners who will carry out an assessment of your child’s needs.  We use the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) International Classification of Function (ICF) Core sets to identify what your child is able to do. This gives us a good base line from which to work if your child is offered a placement. This information will be used to create a personalised programme to meet your child’s needs.

The information is also used to feed into the Education Health & Care plan process, which is a statutory document that will detail all of your child’s needs; how to meet them and what provision is appropriate.  A written application has to be made for an EHC plan to the Local Authority.