New school to transform special needs education

Co-founders Ali Durban and Sarah Sultman said that "we will work together to give children the access to a wider learning landscape, while providing a unique educational environment for these children to flourish."

Around one in 100 UK children is on the autism spectrum

For 30 years or so, educational policy has been to try to integrate children with special needs in mainstream schools rather than separate special schools.

But Mrs Sultman explained "research has shown it hasn't always worked. The gold standard is to have a school within a school, a safe space to accommodate the children's needs with an individual learning plan while they have access to mainstream children through the host site."

The two mothers, who each have a son with additional learning needs, have raised a substantial sum to launch the project since they first met in the playground of another Jewish primary school three years ago.

Mrs Durban said, "If we can set up the model successfully, this can be replicated on other sites. People will see that it works.

"If you look at the landscape of Jewish primary schools, it is fine if you can put a round peg into a round hole - but these children need an environment that is more flexible."

Gesher was inspired by the belief that a Jewish child with special learning needs should not be deprived of a Jewish school education.

Lee Glassar, Sinai's chairman of governors, said that "although we are pleased that the new school has decided to make its home at Sinai, our partnership is very much more than a matter of simply providing space.

"From having access to our top-class facilities to being able to draw on the expertise of a shared pool of staff, this is a genuine partnership that is very much to the benefit of pupils from both Sinai and Gesher."

Gesher plans to open with two classes of eight children. It will teach the national curriculum while offering a range of specialist therapies for children with anxiety, sensory processing disorders, verbal delay and communication challenges.

A team of 30 to 40 people have laid the educational groundwork for it, including Cambridge University autism expert Professor Simon Baron Cohen. Interviews for headteacher are currently taking place.

Its ethos will be modern Orthodox but will be open to Jewish children from across the community.

While its fees will be around £25,000 a year, some special schools charge more than double that, its founders pointed out. But they expect the fees of most pupils will be covered by local authorities for children with an Education and Health Care Plan' or EHCP (which has replaced statements for special needs).

Mrs Sultman said that "we're intending to set up an endowment fund".

She said that Gesher had to start as an independent school because the free school route was not open to it. "There is a glitch in the system because we can't apply to be a free faith school for special needs from scratch," she said.

Around one in 100 children in the UK is on the autism spectrum, while the figure for the United States is one in 75.

Children with such conditions are more likely to be bullied or excluded from mainstream schools.

But the belief is that with the right support at primary age, many will go on to mainstream secondary schools.