Consultation
The SABDEN Multi Academy Trust has launched a consultation relating to significant changes for its three special schools. The aim of the proposed changes is to enable the schools to support a wider range of children and young people in East Sussex. This includes younger children, girls and those with a primary need of Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) within their Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP). ESCC has forecast the steady growth of EHCP’s with a primary need of ASD over the next five years:
EHCPs by primary need group (school aged children) from 2016/17 to 2027/28
Legend:
| ASD - Autistic spectrum disorder | MSI - Multi-Sensory Impairment | SLD - Severe learning difficulties |
| HI - Hearing impairment | PD - Physical disability | SEMH – Social emotional and mental health |
| MLD - Moderate learning difficulties | PMLD - Profound and multiple learning difficulties | SpLD - Specific learning difficulties |
| VI - Visual impairment | SLCN - Speech, Language & Communication Needs |
A public consultation is running between Friday 6 June and Friday 27 of June 2025 to seek the views of the wider school community- early responses are encouraged. A summary of changes per school and a link to the survey are as follows:
Cuckmere House School
- Adding Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to the school designation in addition to Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH)
- Increasing the Pupil Admission Number (PAN) to 97 – this will include 8 additional KS1 places after the transfer of College Central, creating additional capacity within the East Sussex maintained SEN sector
- Reducing the minimum age range from 6 to 5 to enable us to work with year 1 pupils under our funding agreement
- Changing gender composition to all genders (which will be staggered from KS1 upwards over time) to widen opportunity for children with SEMH and ASD to be educated within the maintained sector as Cuckmere House is currently a boys only school.
To submit a response relating to Cuckmere House School please follow this link to the survey (the survey should take around 2 minutes to complete:
We will be holding an in-person consultation event at Cuckmere House on Thursday the 12th of June between 4.00pm and 5.00pm if you would like to find out more or discuss these changes in more detail.
New Horizons School
- Adding Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to the school designation in addition to Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH)
- Increasing the Pupil Admission Number (PAN) to 98 – this will include 8 additional KS1 places after the transfer of College Central, creating additional capacity within the East Sussex maintained SEN sector
- Reducing the minimum age range from 7 to 5 (Year 1) to enable us to work with year 1 pupils under our funding agreement
To submit a response relating to New Horizons School please follow this link to the survey (the survey should take around 2 minutes to complete:
We will be holding an in-person consultation event at New Horizons on Wednesday the 18th of June between 2.30pm and 4pm if you would like to find out more or discuss these changes in more detail.
St Mary’s School
- Adding Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to the school designation in addition to Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH)
- Reducing the minimum age range from 9 to 7 (Year 3) to enable us to work with year 3 pupils under our funding agreement
- Formally increasing the Pupil Admission Number (PAN) to 94 – the school currently offers 94 places to this is retrospective and will ensure the schools funding agreement is up to date
To submit a response relating to St Mary’s School please follow this link to the survey (the survey should take around 2 minutes to complete:
We will be holding an in-person consultation event at St Mary’s on Thursday the 19th of June between 3.30pm and 4.30pm if you would like to find out more or discuss these changes in more detail.
Any questions relating to this consultation should be sent to enquiries@sabden.org.uk
