For professionals
How we identify and meet additional needs — the same way for every child, across the border.
Additional Learning Needs
Llangattock School Monmouth operates a highly differentiated, graduated approach to Additional Learning Needs (ALN). A defining feature of our school is the depth of our universal provision — the everyday, high-quality teaching every child receives here reflects practice that would often be considered targeted or specialist elsewhere. Because of this, many children with additional needs can access the curriculum fully without needing anything more intensive.
Our provision is built around the individual child, and it is the same whether a family comes from Wales or England — we simply work within whichever framework applies. Support is fluid, moving with a child’s needs rather than fixed thresholds, across three tiers.
For all pupils. Differentiated outcomes, tasks and language; embedded dyslexia-friendly approaches; visual scaffolding and modelling; reduced language load and extra processing time; and relational, trauma-informed practice as standard.
Where additional need is identified. Small-group teaching by subject specialists, focused literacy and dyslexia interventions, communication scaffolding, and emotional-literacy and mentoring programmes — closely matched to assessed need and monitored individually.
For more complex or enduring needs. Individualised curricula and multi-sensory teaching, specialist dyslexia and communication support, therapeutic interventions, and access arrangements such as readers, scribes and alternative recording methods.
Therapeutic and pastoral support is embedded throughout the school day, not bolted on. Depending on need, this can include daily emotional check-ins, access to nurture spaces at break and lunch, social-skills groups, anxiety-support programmes, ELSA intervention, named mentors and consistent adult relationships, and therapeutic approaches such as play therapy, sandplay, “Draw and Talk,” and equine therapy. All staff are trained in trauma-informed and neurodiversity-aware practice.
Our environment is adapted to meet sensory and physical needs as a matter of course. That means low-sensory spaces and quiet working areas, access to our six acres of outdoor space for regulation, sensory tools such as ear defenders, regular movement and sensory breaks, and flexible expectations — there is no school uniform, and no requirement to change for PE. These adaptations are universal, which significantly reduces the need for reactive or restrictive interventions.
Across the school you’ll find visual timetables, vocabulary pre-teaching, precision teaching, sensory adaptations and highly scaffolded learning, alongside integrated support for literacy, numeracy, fine-motor development, sequencing and communication. Structured transition support runs throughout the day.
What distinguishes Llangattock is the depth of universal provision that mirrors specialist practice; a genuinely graduated, needs-led response; the integration of therapeutic, relational and academic support; and a whole-school culture of inclusion rather than reliance on withdrawal. Our emphasis is on removing barriers to learning early, rather than compensating for them later.
Wales and England
Wales and England use different words for the same thing, and families crossing the border are often told their paperwork does not apply here. It does. We work within whichever framework applies to your child.
Additional Learning Needs (ALN), set out in an Individual Development Plan (IDP), coordinated by an ALNCo under the ALNET Act. Most of our Welsh pupils are placed by their local authority.
Special Educational Needs (SEN or SEND), set out in an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), coordinated by a SENCo under the SEND Code of Practice. We take EHCP placements as a matter of routine.
Plenty of children arrive with nothing written down at all — no plan, no diagnosis, no assessment yet. That is not a barrier to enquiring, and it never has been.
Are you a special school? Yes. Llangattock School Monmouth is an independent specialist school for children and young people aged 3 to 19. We are not a maintained special school and not a mainstream school with a resource base — the whole school is built around the children who are here.
What kinds of need do you support? Most commonly autism, ADHD, dyslexia and other specific learning difficulties, speech, language and communication needs, sensory processing differences, dyspraxia, anxiety-based school avoidance, and the effects of early trauma or disrupted schooling. Many of our pupils have more than one of these, which is usually the reason a mainstream setting stopped working.
Do we need a diagnosis first? No. A diagnosis can be useful and it is often already in place, but it is not a condition of enquiring or of being offered a place. We would rather talk to you early than have you wait for an appointment.
My child has stopped going to school altogether. Is it too late? No, and this is one of the more common reasons families reach us. Children who have not attended anywhere for months, sometimes years, do start again here. It tends to be slow at first and that is expected rather than a problem.
We live in England. Can our child come here? Yes. Cross-border placements are routine for us. Families travel to us from Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and the Forest of Dean as well as from across Monmouthshire — Monmouth, Abergavenny, Chepstow, Usk and Newport.
Who pays? Most places are funded by the local authority through an IDP or EHCP. Some families choose and fund a place privately, with no local authority involvement at all. Both are normal here. If you are not sure which route applies to you, ask — we can usually tell you in one conversation.
How do we start? If you are a parent or carer, the simplest first step is to arrange a visit. If you are a professional making a referral, our referrals and placements page sets out the route and the information we need. For our youngest children, see Early Years from age 3.
The best way to understand our school is to visit. Get in touch and we’ll arrange a day that works for you.
Arrange a visit