CELEBRATING!
The end of our Spring term brings big celebrations as two of our longstanding members of staff retire! Debbie Kim has worked within our residential provision and more recently as a Speech and Language Therapy Assistant in school for a huge total of 24 years and 6 months! Debbie is well known for always having ‘just the right thing’ and for always spotting things that will come in useful one day! She has been sharing her vast knowledge with those newer to the therapy assistant role, leaving behind colleagues with ongoing skill and talent. Barrie Cooke worked in our residential provision, organising many outings and giving our children a huge variety of experiences. You’ll have seen the stalls at recent events selling things created by the Eco Club, another of Barries initiatives, over the (almost) 13 years that he has worked at Dawn House School for.

We’ll miss you both but wish you all the best for the future. Thank you 😊

More celebrations in our half termly celebration assembly earlier in the week. Children and staff received ‘Develop, Aspire, Communicate, Engage’ certificates and we celebrated children’s achievements in First Aid and Jeremy brought in his ‘Swimmer of the Month’ award from his swimming club. Well done everyone!

HOT OFF THE PRESS…. Libby Jones (Speech and Language Therapist) who joined us for maternity cover, has just accepted a permanent role with us! We are so delighted as Libby has been a great addition to our school and clearly loves being here! Well done Libby!

EASTER RAFFLE!
Thank you for your support in buying tickets for the raffle. The hamper and luxury Easter Egg were won by

Dawn House School Table Cricket Team – Proud of Our Efforts!
The Dawn House School table cricket team competed brilliantly at the Nottinghamshire County Finals at Nottingham Trent University. Although we didn’t win the regional finals, the team gave it their best shot and demonstrated incredible effort, determination, and sportsmanship throughout. We accepted defeat with grace, learned valuable lessons, and came away stronger as a team. Well done to the team, we will be stronger next year!

SEND Reforms
You may have heard a lot in the media recently about Special Educational Needs reform. We wanted to let you know what is happening at national level in Speech and Language UK to make sure that the Government understands what children at Dawn House/Meath need. We are:
– Campaigning in the media – for example we got a letter in The Times this week about how important non-maintained special schools like Meath/Dawn House are
– Talking to officials in the Department for Education – we are one of a small handful of organisations going to a roundtable about the role of special schools next month
– Submitting evidence to Select Committees in Parliament
– Asking MPs to ask questions, for example about why Developmental language Disorder isn’t included in a government taskforce on neurodiversity
– Working with other charities as part of the Disabled Children’s Partnership

Campaigning like this is one of the things our staff, children and families can get involved in because we’re part of a national charity. We will try and keep you informed when we know more. We don’t expect that Government will put out any definite proposals in the summer, so we are trying to make sure they understand speech and language issues challenges they make any decisions. You can keep totally up to date by following Speech and Language UK on social media: go to Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky or LinkedIn.

So, we return back to school on Tuesday 22nd April, starting with a short week.
We wish you all a safe and happy holiday and look forward to seeing you then,

Very best Easter wishes,
Jenny