Admission to Grove Park is like the other maintained specialist settings in East Sussex. Admission is subject to the school being named by the Local Authority in the child’s Education Health and Care Plan.

We are sorry that we cannot accept direct requests for placement from parents or carers.

Grove Park is an over-subscribed local authority maintained special school for pupils with complex needs and communication.  We offer provision from ages 4 -19. Children who attend our school mainly live in East Sussex. 

Grove Park is an extremely popular school, and we receive a very high number of requests for placement each year.

All children who attend Grove Park will need to have a final Education Health and Care Plan which names Grove Park as the school placement.  This EHC plan will either be:

• following an initial first EHC needs assessment and issuing of a first final EHC plan.
• following a reassessment of an existing EHC plan
• or from an amended EHC plan, following an annual review of your child or young person’s existing EHC plan.

This is a statutory legal process with set timeframes which must be followed. The Local Authority will have a responsible team in place to oversee this. In East Sussex, this team is The Assessment and Planning Team.

The Local Authority has several statutory responsibilities, which include, completing EHC assessments, maintaining EHC plans and ensuring schools hold annual reviews.

It is East Sussex County Council that determines the final decision on school placements.  This legal process must be completed in partnership with families and schools.

As part of the statutory process, parents/carers have the right to request a school to be named in the EHC plan. You will have the opportunity to let the Local Authority know this.

If you request Grove Park, Assessment and Planning must send us a draft EHC plan for your child or young person and Grove Park must follow the legal statutory framework.    When making a decision on placement, Grove Park will consider whether:

• the placement would be unsuitable for the age, ability, aptitude or SEN of the child or young person, or
• the attendance of the child or young person there would be incompatible with the efficient education of others, or the efficient use of resources.

We must do this within 15 days of receiving the consultation.

Phase Transfers

Every year the LA has a duty to amend and finalise the EHC plans and confirm the school placement for children and young people who are changing phases of Education, for example, Nursery 2 to Reception and Year 6 to Year 7. This deadline is February 15^th each year.

For pupils in in Year 11 and Post-16 this deadline is March 31^st.

Grove Park is an oversubscribed school with more requests for places than there are places. We make decisions consistently and fairly and always within the 15 days deadline.

Grove Park works in partnership with the Local Authority to enable places for children and young people wherever possible and in line with the legal framework.

Where a placement is unsuitable or where adding another child to a class would significantly impact on the existing children, then Grove Park will not be able to offer a placement.

In situations where Grove Park is not able to offer a placement for your child or young person, we will have informed the Local Authority and will signpost you back to this team for further information and advice.

Parents/Carers can appeal the Local Authority and follow the SEND Tribunal process. Information regarding this is always provided with the issuing of a final EHC plan.

We understand how disappointing it will be if we are not able to offer a placement and we will always discuss our decision making with you.

We have a clear process of following up on any queries around placement decisions at Grove Park and will get back to you typically within 3 days of your queries.