De Aston School

As parents of a child with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), our experience with De Aston School has unfortunately been extremely negative. While the school may work well for some children, our child's time there highlighted serious weaknesses in how the school understands, supports, and communicates about SEND.

1. Poor Provision for SEND Pupils

From the very beginning, it became clear that De Aston does not have the training, systems, or culture in place to support children with SEND effectively. Despite our child having multiple diagnoses, the school consistently downplayed or dismissed their needs.

Instead of putting support in place, the school repeatedly told us they were “working at age-related expectations” and therefore did not require structured help. This is not only untrue, but it shows a very narrow understanding of SEND—one that focuses only on grades while ignoring the child’s social, emotional, sensory, and physical needs.

There was no evidence of:
• meaningful SEND assessment
• a graduated approach
• proper planning or review
• coordinated interventions
• or any understanding of day-to-day struggles

For a school of this size, this is extremely concerning.

2. Adjustments That Existed Only on Paper

Even the small adjustments our child was given like early pass cards and a time-out cards were implemented so inconsistently across staff that they became useless. Some staff challenged our child when they tried to use them, which made our child too anxious to use them at all.

Reasonable adjustments should help a child; instead, the way they were handled at De Aston made things worse.

3. A Culture That Misunderstands SEND

Rather than recognising that our child found noisy corridors, sudden changes, unfamiliar teachers, assemblies, transitions, and crowded spaces overwhelming, their difficulties were repeatedly seen as:
• “attitude”
• “avoidance”
• “behaviour”
• “a choice”

This showed us that many staff including senior leadership team do not understand SEND beyond behaviour. Our child was masking every day, becoming more and more overwhelmed, and the school simply did not see it or didn’t want to.

Our child’s anxiety escalated so badly that they eventually began self harming and entered autistic burnout and ultimately became unable to attend school.

4. Communication With Parents Was Poor and Often Dismissive

One of the hardest parts of our experience was the communication with school.
Our concerns were:
• brushed aside
• minimised
• reframed as parenting problems
• or simply ignored

We often left meetings feeling unheard and blamed. Even when our child voiced their own difficulties, nothing changed.

Good SEND support must involve communication and partnership with families. We never experienced that at De Aston.

5. Dishonesty and Lack of Transparency From Staff

One of the most worrying aspects of our experience was the lack of honesty from key staff members.

We encountered situations where:
- information shared with us later turned out to be incomplete or untrue
- staff contradicted themselves depending on who they were speaking to
- decisions were made but not recorded
- meetings were described differently afterward than how they actually happened
- assurances were given that certain actions had been taken when they had not

This created an atmosphere where we felt we could not trust what we were being told.
As parents of a vulnerable child, honesty, transparency, and consistency are essential and we did not experience this at De Aston.

6. Emotional Impact on Our Child

Because their needs were not met, our child:
• developed extreme anxiety
• experienced autistic burnout
• lost confidence and independence
• fell behind academically
• became unable to attend school

This has had a long-term impact on their wellbeing and education.

7. Balance

Some individual staff members were personally kind to our child, but the issues at De Aston run deeper than individual teachers. They stem from:
• weak SEND leadership
• lack of staff training
• poor communication
• and a culture that does not truly understand or prioritise SEND children

If you are a parent of a child with SEND I would not recommend De Aston School based on our experience.

The support simply wasn’t there, communication with families was poor, and the impact on our child has been significant and long-lasting.

Never go there if you have bad mental health and SEND needs because they will just make everything ten times worse and blame everything that they have done on you and your parents. The understanding of SEND needs by staff is appalling and in my opinion none existent. NEVER GO THERE IF YOU DO NOT WANT MESSED UP MENTAL HEALTH. THAT SCHOOL HAS RIINED ME.

A lot of staff are very unkind and do not care about students mental health. They treat SEN kids differently from others and its not fair. I once got called blind by a member of staff and she was also mocking my friends last name. The food they have is good but the prices are far too high. You can only spend a certain amount of money at breaktime and lunchtime and you cant even get a drink and food. Its outrageous! They also let anyone become a sub when a lot of the time they cant even teach. I personally have tried the whole time ive been here to get mental health help but no one has helped me at all.

This school is terrible, bullying is incredibly bad at this school and teachers do nothing about it. The teachers are absent quite a lot leaving students to have supply losing a lot of education, even when they are in they seem to not want to be there. They claim to care about students mental health and meanwhile students report a situation (eg bullying) and nothing is done. The rules also at the school seem vague and overpriced food. I am also having to remove my child from the school.

Your sincerely

The worse school in this country and they don't help students after leaving year 11 the crap school it should be shut down for good

I have been going to this school for 3 years and I have had a good experience. I have additional needs and get a lot of support(without a EHCP) . There is a bit of bullying on the down side however in my experience it dose usually get handed with. On the side of mental health souport I think it’s quite good however is a long waiting list. The food is okay but not anything I really like

i just started in 2020 - people dont wear masks on the bus or over in school. I told my head of year about my mental health and i dont think she cares because i have noticed that she doesnt talk to me alot and she talks to other students more also she seems to be judging me - i feel it when i am around her. I also feel like no one cares about me.

People don’t wear masks and 4 people have Corona virus positive