About Us

Five Acre Wood School main site, is situated in Maidstone, the County town of Kent and is just a few minutes from the town centre.  We share a campus with an academy secondary school, a primary free school, a private nursery, a local church and a gym.

The Functional Learning Approach is based at two sites, our Snodland site and our Oxford Rd site. The Formal Learning Approach secondary classes are based at our Snodland satellites. Each site has bespoke facilities for our pupils. We have a satellite provision at Palace Wood Primary School, with pupils in a KS1 and a KS2 class. To find out more about our satellite provision please click here.

We have over 800 pupils who represent a wide range of additional educational needs within the profound and multiple learning difficulties, severe learning difficulties, complex needs, challenging behaviour, sensory impairments and autistic spectrum. We cover an age range of 2 – 19 years and the school is currently organised in six learning approaches – Early Years, Practical, Sensory, Formal, Structured and Functional.  All of our pupils have an Education, Health and Care Plan.

Our staffing compliment is over 400. We are supported by an NHS school nursing team, NHS physiotherapists and have our own multi disciplinary team (Speech and Language Therapists, Occupational Therapists. Clinical Psychologist and Social Worker) and family liaison team.  We also work with consultant paediatricians, teachers from the sensory service, educational psychologists, specialist community nurses, disabled children’s team and respite services.

Parents/ carers and families are very important partners in our school and we have daily contact plus a range of events and meetings throughout the year.

We support SEND pupils within mainstream provision through our Specialist Teaching and Learning teachers and offer bespoke training through Leading Education and Achievement For all (LEAF).

We are a Flagship school for the Inclusion Quality Mark and have been awarded the IQM National Inclusion Champions Award for the academic year 2023-2024.

We are a lively school with a friendly and supportive staff and we are constantly seeking to continue to develop the school for the benefit of our pupils.