July 13th 2009

Dear Editor

A good friend of mine has had a tremendously positive experience of Abbeydale Grange School. It is one of the few schools that occasionally accepts children who have come to the end of the line at other schools and gives them another chance. The value of this is immeasurable for those families and the children concerned.

This particular student had been extremely 'troubled' for some time. He attended one of the so called 'best' secondary schools in Sheffield, who eventually, and in some ways understandably, gave up on him.

In the end with help from the Child and Adolescent Mental Health unit and the school partnership people, he got a one day trial at Abbeydale Grange. He loved it and they accepted him.

This intervention ensured the student didn't receive a permanent exclusion on his record. He had many one and two day exclusions from the previous school for things ranging from his shirt hanging out of his trousers to absolute insubordination and was extremely close to a permanent exclusion. Abbeydale Grange realised a different approach was necessary. They were committed to giving him a fresh start, without the continual threat of exclusions for the more petty things he faced each day from the moment he got on the drive at the other school.

He survived Abbeydale Grange and has even gone back and offered to help one of the teachers with some work he loved doing while he was there. There hasn't been a miracle road to Damascus change for him. He's still struggling with life and will continue to need support.

The point of this letter is that he was accepted without the continual feeling of not being good enough and the self fulling prophecy that he was useless and not worthy of a place at school. This has been of tremendous value and on occasions the people round him see glimpses of the positive man he hopefully will choose to become.

My friend believes Abbeydale Grange has played a crucial role in this. The Council should urgently reconsider plans to close it.

Yours sincerely

Graham Wroe.

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