THREE schools in the Wokingham borough are boosting SEND education provision for the next academic year.

Wokingham Borough Council has announced that Radstock and Loddon Primary Schools, as well as Addington Early years centre, will all welcome children with special educational needs and disabilities in September.

Six children with autism at associated additional needs will attend Radstock Primary, while eight children will attend Loddon Primary for speech, language, and communication support.

Addington Early Years centre has expanded to double the number of children attending, and will welcome 16 new children aged three to eight years old.

The executive member for children’s services, Cllr Prue Bray, said at a recent full council meeting that the additional sites are ‘really good developments’ after Wokingham has gone ‘so many years without enough local provision’.

The centre opened in Autumn 2023 following the completion of 'phase one' in the old Farley Hill Primary School site for 17 children.

Addington offers a ‘bespoke learning environment’ in spaces designed to cater for the children’s specific needs.

As well as expanding spaces, 'phase two' of the project has delivered two new classrooms, a soft playroom, splash and sand room, and a larger playground.

Work has also started on a final new classroom, set to be opened in September 2025.

The surrounding woodland will also be developed, with plans to run a forest school in years to come.

At the council meeting on July 25, Cllr Bray said: “It is very sad that we have not had Special Educational Needs provision, specialist provision, for children who are only three or four years old.”

She added that some children experienced difficulties due to being born due during the Covid-19 pandemic, meaning they had 'in some ways suffered the most' due to their parents not getting usual support following their birth.

Sara Attra, headteacher of Addington School, said: “The Addington Early Years Centre has transformed the education we can offer our youngest pupils due to the specially designed spaces it provides.

“We have worked in collaboration with Wokingham Borough Council and it is wonderful that the project has finished on time.”

There was an official opening of the new centre in July, attended by council representatives, staff members and those that worked on the site.

Leader of the council Stephen Conway said it had been a ‘privilege’ to create the new centre in Wokingham given that ‘specialist spaces are at a premium nationally for children with SEND’.