Breckenbrough School

Breckenbrough is a Non-Maintained Special School (NMSS) approved by the Secretary of State. We offer day and residential placements for boys with a range of complex needs, including Autism (ASC), Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA), Tourette’s Syndrome (TS) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Like our students, Breckenbrough is unique; offering a bespoke, special school approach in the delivery of our holistic curriculum. We pride ourselves in being a ‘specialist’ school, providing a nurturing, supportive and low stress environment to help our students learn to manage their anxiety levels and specific needs to make holistic progress towards their individual outcomes. Our vision is to improve the Quality of Life for all our students in becoming healthy, happy and successful adults. In order to improve the Quality of our Student’s lives, we aim to support our students to achieve two key goals during their time here: 1. To be themselves, aspire and be successful. 2. To develop strategies and coping mechanisms to move towards a level of self-actualisation in order to thrive in the neurotypical world. Following the model of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need, every student arrives at Breckenbrough seeking a safe, nurturing environment where they can be accepted and learn. Due to their adverse experiences in prior settings, our first goal is to reduce anxiety levels and for every student to feel safe and secure in the school environment. It is unreasonable to expect any progress until this has been achieved, especially with their academic studies. Every student progresses through the school seeking to achieve what Maslow terms as self-actualisation, which is essential in achieving the second key goal. As a student progresses upwards through the levels of Maslow, there is a parallel increase in engagement, learning and progress. In order to achieve this, high staff to student ratios are required with class sizes of no more than five students.