Orchard SEN unit

All places are funded and allocated by Slough Borough council. 

Orchard

Orchard is our specialist SEN unit for children in Reception to Year 6, offering 50 places for children with complex needs, predominantly around communication and interaction difficulties. It is a warm, purposeful and highly nurturing environment, designed around the children who learn here and staffed by a team with specialist training and experience.

Children in Orchard are taught mainly within the unit, in small classes where the environment, teaching and support are closely tailored to them. Working in smaller groups allows our staff to know each child extremely well, their strengths, their interests, the things that motivate them and the approaches that help them feel calm, confident and ready to learn. From there, we build a curriculum and a school day that meets each child where they are and moves them forward.

Being part of Orchard does not mean being apart from the rest of the school. Our children are Priory children first, and they join mainstream classes, activities, playtimes, assemblies, trips and events whenever this is right for them. This means they benefit both from specialist teaching within the unit and from friendships, role models and shared experiences across the wider Priory community. We think carefully about when and how each child spends time in mainstream, so that it is always meaningful and successful for them.

We hold high expectations for every child in Orchard. We believe that complex needs are a reason to adapt how we teach, never a reason to expect less, and we work in close partnership with families and with specialists such as speech and language therapists and occupational therapists to make sure the support around each child is joined up and effective. Our aim is simple: for every child in Orchard to be happy, safe, known and proud of what they can do, and to leave us more independent, more confident and better able to communicate than when they arrived.

Joining Orchard

Places in Orchard are for children with an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) and are allocated through the local authority. A place is arranged through the local authority's consultation process, when Orchard SEN unit is named as the provision in a child's EHCP, it is not part of the usual school application route.

If you feel Orchard might be right for your child, the first step is to speak to your local authority's SEND team, and you are also very welcome to contact us to find out more or to arrange a visit.