Meeting growing demand for ALN schools in Wales

There can be few greater challenges for local authorities than ensuring that ALN provision meets the necessary requirements, and with the challenges posed by increasingly high demand, constrained budgets, and an ageing building stock, it is no surprise that some have been struggling to keep up with what is needed.

All of this has unfortunately led to a shortfall of suitable places which has an impact on learners across the Wales. Examples of pupils having to travel up to two hours each way to a suitable school have become commonplace, which puts increasing pressure on both families and teachers, in addition to financial strain on the local authority to cover the travel costs.

This can take its toll on the child, both in terms of the additional travel, and the knock-on effect of a lack of local community involvement, local friendship groups etc. Parents also miss out on vital support from other parents in similar situations due to proximity.

Alongside this, the increasing demand for suitable school spaces for ALN pupils puts extra pressure on an already creaking system. Improvements in the early diagnosis of additional needs mean that more children require specialist spaces within a local school.

It is worth noting that the Estyn ‘Thematic Report– The additional learning needs system’ (December 2024) made the recommendation that “Welsh Government should evaluate the impact of implementation and the demand for additional and specialist provision for pupils with ALN; this evaluation should guide future funding arrangements, ensuring that resources meet identified needs.”

Welsh Government accepted these recommendations.

Recognising the issue

One way of doing this is an ‘all-needs, all-through’ approach, which I have seen in practice through our work with various local authorities in both Wales and the South West of England. Over the past few years, we’ve been trusted to deliver five new SEND projects in the South West, establishing ourselves as a leading contractor for specialised education facilities. This achievement is mirrored in our consistently high customer satisfaction scores, with an average of 9/10 across these schemes.

We recently completed Trinity Fields School and Resource Centre which provides specialised education for pupils aged 3 to 19 with a diverse range of additional learning needs.
This was an £18 million SEN Primary School project for Caerphilly County Council. A Net Zero Carbon project, it was our fourth project for this customer, and the effort and coordination from everyone involved was outstanding.

The benefits of an ‘all-needs, all-through’ approach this are numerous. It minimises transitions so that the pupil becomes more engaged with their community, parents don’t feel the pressure of sending their child to another area for their education, and local authorities are able to reduce transportation costs at a time when councils across the country are feeling the squeeze.
Pupils are also able to mix with other children with different needs, which provides a wider perspective to learning and forming additional friendship groups. This provides a more rounded approach to a child’s educational journey, much more akin to a traditional educational route.
Our projects create spaces where educators can thrive. A great example is Baytree School, where our work contributed to a jump in their Ofsted rating – from “Good” to Outstanding. It is now one of only four schools in North Somerset to hold this distinction.

By taking this approach, local authorities can rise to the challenges that they currently face with ALN provision, but the key to doing this successfully is by getting the right team together as early as possible and working collaboratively towards a common goal.

From a broader perspective, the growing number of children with Additional Learning Needs could have a significant impact on unemployment rates. Data from The Children’s Commissioner shows children with SEN are far less likely to secure employment and earn substantially less, on average, 15 years after Key Stage 4.

We’re addressing this issue by embedding social value initiatives into our projects. At Sky College, Somerset Council praised the project for aligning with its vision of providing equal opportunities.
The team from Somerset Council commented, “This project has demonstrated our commitment to ensuring all pupils have the chance to learn new skills for future employment.

During the Sky College expansion, Willmott Dixon engaged with students to teach construction skills like bricklaying. One of the participating students performed so well they were offered an apprenticeship on another local project—the Digital Innovation Centre in Taunton. This is a testament to how vital these projects are in not just education, but also equipping young people in Somerset with opportunities for growth.”

Early does it

In terms of early engagement, speaking with the key figures at the schools is absolutely vital. When we work on ALN projects, our first port of call is always the head teacher and the business manager of each school, supported by their FM team, to establish what their greatest needs are in order to best cater for their pupils.

Once the initial requirements have been established, we look to wider engagement – from study tours of similar-sized facilities, to interviews and discussions with schools that have already been through the process.

This provides us with actionable insight, as it gives us and the customer an opportunity to speak to people who have first-hand experience and identify any key learnings. These lessons are applied on the project and the 360-degree improvement process continues throughout the programme.

While most design and build processes will have some element of this early engagement, it is essential, particularly with ALN schools, that this continues throughout the project. The lead teachers from the school need to be fully integrated in the meetings when we discuss design so that they can act as a conduit for input from the wider school community. It is also equally as important to engage with the pupils themselves as well.

On our Baytree School project in Somerset, the early engagement of stakeholders was crucial to the implementation of the design aspects that were required. This was key to ensuring the very bespoke requirements of the school and Local Authorities were identified and agreed. Our experiences from past ALN projects enabled us to provide successful examples of robustness, and specific requirements such as hoists, pools, sensory rooms etc.

This early engagement also applies to our supply chain partners and consultants. The design team need to have a view of how the children are taught and the obstacles they face day to day in order to gain a true appreciation of who they are designing for and how they use the space.
Tackling the common ALN challenges

Whilst every school has its own challenges, there is an element of commonality across ALN schools, which means we can apply lessons from previous projects to future ones. With the huge amount of equipment required to serve the varied needs of the pupils, storage is a major issue for ALN settings and is something we try and address as early in the process as possible, to ensure we are delivering a result that is fit for purpose.

Transportation is another recurring issue for ALN projects. Because of the need for one-to-one support, the staff-to-pupil ratio is significantly higher than in mainstream schools, so this has a significant impact on parking provision. Similarly, many pupils will be dropped off and picked up from the school with specially adapted vehicles, so the approach to traffic flow needs to be more rigorous than it may be at a school where the majority of pupils arrive by public transport.

Access by the wider support teams is vital. Consideration for the access of physiotherapists, speech and language experts, medical professionals, nursing teams, wider educational teams and the like must be taken into account, including the potential for out-of-hours use of the specialist spaces to allow a deeper offering of service to the local community.

At Trinity Fields School and Resource Centre in Caerphilly, transportation was one of the key factors we collaborated on with our customer very early on in the project. Recognition of the positive impact this had on the school and its pupils was highlighted in feedback from the Deputy Headteacher:

“As a school we have been extremely impressed by the support we have had from the very start that Wilmott Dixon were commissioned to build the project. They have look at how we manage our transport system when getting pupils in and out of school and have worked with us to mapped out how we would safely achieve this during the build.

“They have supported us when children have struggled with noise as they are coming into school by pausing work and have co-ordinated significant building traffic outside of our school transport hours.

The weekly meetings that we have to look at what is coming up and to problem solve any operational aspects is always very helpful. They are willing to be flexible around planning to ensure we can operate safely e.g. finding space for the dental van, ensuring our Christmas Fayre day doesn’t have huge transport / lorries on that day.

The central team are very approachable and willing to listen. One of them is always able to answers any queries and offer support if issues arise. I believe the smooth running at the start of this project has been down to the planning and excellent communication from the team.

We are excited to develop our links with them further and as they become involved in the school BIG Build project next term I know they will provide a valuable source of learning for our pupils. The start of term and start of the project has been very smooth and I feel confident that this will continue as they do truly work as partners in ensuring we can operate the school safely.”

It is so important to invest time at the start of the process into speaking to the end users – in this case, children’s services, the teachers, support teams and the pupils. The more you do this, the more likely you are to get it right first time.

Tackling the common ALN challenges

Whilst every school has its own challenges, there is an element of commonality across ALN schools, which means we can apply lessons from previous projects to future ones. With the huge amount of equipment required to serve the varied needs of the pupils, storage is a major issue for ALN settings and is something we try and address as early in the process as possible, to ensure we are delivering a result that is fit for purpose.

Transportation is another recurring issue for ALN projects. Because of the need for one-to-one support, the staff-to-pupil ratio is significantly higher than in mainstream schools, so this has a significant impact on parking provision. Similarly, many pupils will be dropped off and picked up from the school with specially adapted vehicles, so the approach to traffic flow needs to be more rigorous than it may be at a school where the majority of pupils arrive by public transport.

Access by the wider support teams is vital. Consideration for the access of physiotherapists, speech and language experts, medical professionals, nursing teams, wider educational teams and the like must be taken into account, including the potential for out-of-hours use of the specialist spaces to allow a deeper offering of service to the local community.

For all the technical and practical necessities, one key message that has shone through across many of our ALN projects is the need to move away from the more clinical feel that these schools have had in the past. Some of the pupils may have spent significant amounts of their lives in hospitals, and they don’t want to be reminded of that when they are at school.

It is so important to invest time at the start of the process into speaking to the end users – in this case, children’s services, the teachers, support teams and the pupils. The more you do this, the more likely you are to get it right first time.

The elegant solution

Conversations with parents, teachers and local authorities have proven that the ‘all-needs, all-through’ approach to ALN education is the one that delivers the best results for all involved.
Doing this well, however, can prove a challenge if you don’t approach the project with an open mind for collaboration with all elements of the supply chain.

What has proven key from our experience is that the earlier this engagement and collaboration happens, the better the chance of delivering a successful scheme that gives the desired outcomes for the customer.

The most successful ALN development projects we have been involved in have been ones where we’ve worked together with the customer and the architect from RIBA Stage 1.

By being involved from the start of the journey, contractors can contribute their knowledge to the design process, meaning that budgets can be much better controlled than when they become involved at RIBA Stage 3 and have to value engineer their way back to making the project cost-efficient.

A question of cost

While this approach is the ideal solution, local authorities’ budgets are stretched and this financial question is going to remain one that is tricky to address.

The reality is that the economic equation of cost per pupil is significantly higher for ALN schools and that isn’t likely to change any time soon. Delivering true value for money by addressing the needs within a region and ensuring that the end users are getting the best possible facility for the local authority’s outlay is key.

Whatever the approach, the passion for getting it right first time is critical. When we see the difficulties that some of the children in ALN schools face, and the challenges that are posed to the staff in delivering the best education possible, it provides a real sense of purpose to our approach to the projects.

By working with local authorities to create an educational setting that meets the needs of as many of those children with special educational needs and disabilities as possible, the construction industry can be truly proud of making a tangible difference to the lives of children, parents, and teachers alike.