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Consultation

The SABDEN Multi Academy Trust undertook a consultation relating to significant changes for its three special schools in June 2025 and has submitted significant change requests to the Department for Education (DfE). 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:

 

Consultation escc send forecasting model

EHCPs by primary need group (school aged children) from 2016/17 to 2027/28

Consultation ehcp plans graph stats forecasts

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 ran between Friday 6 June and Friday 27 of June 2025 and sought the views of the wider school community.  A summary of changes per school and a copy of the consultation report is 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.

A copy of the Cuckmere House Consultation report is as follows:

Cuckmere House Consultations report

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

A copy of the New Horizons Consultation report is as follows:

New Horizons Consultations report

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

A copy of the St Mary’s Consultation report is as follows:

St Mary’s Consultation report

Any questions relating to this consultation should be sent to enquiries@sabden.org.uk