As World Autism Acceptance Week continues, we spoke with Hannah Stroud. Hannah is the current headteacher at Fernways School in Windlesham, Surrey, which supports children and young people with an autism spectrum condition. She is soon to become headteacher at a new Kedleston provision, Hawley Woods School, near Camberley.

“Schools such as Fernways can make such a difference in helping a young person who is autistic feel that they are understood and that they are accepted for who they are. Smaller schools such as ours can offer a more supportive, nurturing environment – a place where a young person can be their true selves.

“Often young people come to our school having had their self-esteem and confidence badly impacted by trying to ‘fit in’ at a mainstream provision or other educational environment where they have struggled. They might have struggled with the physical environment, with their peers, with the curriculum.

“With a small, specially-created school such as ours, those aspects are more supportive of their needs. Their peers have similar experiences. The physical environment is deliberately designed to be less stimulating from a noise or visual perspective. And the curriculum is more accessible for children with additional needs.

“Our curriculum, and our main focus when a young person joins us, is on building the confidence and self-esteem of our pupils. Many have come from places where they simply felt they couldn’t be their authentic selves and that they didn’t fit into that school community.

“What we do well is make sure they feel part of the community and feel included again. In general, we do whatever we can to make pupils feel part of the ‘crowd’ and we do that with parents and carers too – we try to make sure the child’s wider network is included in different aspects of school life wherever we can.

“With enhanced confidence comes the foundation to learn more successfully. We are always looking to build up the foundations upon which the young person can have the stability they need to be able to learn effectively. It’s essentially the hierarchy of needs – until the child’s basic needs are met, then we can’t expect them to move forward. We have to make sure that they as individuals are able to cope with the day-to-day before adding anything additional on top.

“The way we approach the curriculum does help with that. We incorporate a lot of outdoor activities such as Forest School and horse riding as well as elements such as adventure story time. These are more relaxed ways of learning and it supports young people to keep learning while they build their confidence. 

“For our older pupils who may join us further along in their learning journey, the curriculum has more of a focus on building independence. That’s done through simple things such as moving from classroom to classroom for lessons, but manageable for them because we’re a smaller school. But also, there’s life skills lessons which support them in independence development. They still have high staff ratios around them supporting them, but they have more of that chance to be independent.

“What I actually think we do best is respect everyone’s individuality. That’s not about developing individual or bespoke lesson plans and curriculum for each pupil, but understanding that everyone has their own needs and experiences and we respect those. We accept people for who they are – and what they want to achieve.”