Valence School
Kent, United Kingdom
About Valence School
We are proud to share with you the excellent work we do with children and young people who have physical disabilities and complex medical needs. Our school is unique within the maintained sector in the whole of southern England. We cater for students aged 4 to 19 and have both day and boarding places. We have a large site with high quality teaching, social care and health care facilities. A staff team of over 200 people provides specialist teaching, social care, therapies and nursing care to an exceptionally high standard.
Our overall aim is to enable every child and young person to achieve meaningful independence. Students flourish in a supportive but challenging environment, making good educational progress and achieving a range of accreditation as they get older. There is excellent support to enable students to achieve functional communication, mobility and skills for daily living.
We are a Foundation Special School and are part of the Kent SEN Trust, a cooperative trust of ten schools working together to improve outcomes for all the children and young people attending the schools. In 2008 Valence became a specialist Sports College and this status plays a significant role in raising students’ achievements and their participation in high quality physical education and sport.
The School works proactively with parents and external professionals to provide holistic support for every child and young person. It is also developing high quality outreach support services to local schools and more widely for children and young people in Kent who have physical disabilities who are attending mainstream schools.
The School always places children and young people at the centre of all decisions it takes and it has a relentless focus on achieving the best possible outcomes for every student
Location
This is a friendly, welcoming school. Smiles and positive attitudes can be seen everywhere at Valence. Staff know pupils incredibly well. Pupils are safe, very well cared for and treated with the utmost respect. Pupils’ behaviour is exemplary and bullying extremely rare. Pupils get precisely the right support to develop their communication and independence. As a result, pupils of all ages are extremely confident. A pupil expressed the views of many, explaining: ‘This school is amazing!’
- Ofsted December 2019PE and sport observed was solidly good with much of it being judged outstanding. This strength of the School was recognised by the wider impact that PE and sport has in the School. The report says that ‘extensive opportunities to participate in a wide range of sporting and competitive events promote exceptionally well pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.’ Local, regional and national competitions all form part of what students are involved in and they achieve an exceptionally high standard.
- Ofsted 2014