As a career teacher, I am proud to have served in a number of schools helping thousands of young people navigate the stormy seas of adolescence and confidently embark on secure career paths but I am still haunted by the significant number who were lost on the way. I am referring to those bright, talented children for whom mainstream education was a nightmare.
The children who's learning style did not fit the regular classroom model, The children who faced paralysing anxiety and clawed the seats of their parents' cars unable bring themselves to cross the school threshold. The children who could not understand the behaviour of their peers and became the fodder of the bullies. The children overwhelmed by slow processing skills, dyslexia, dyspraxia who fought so hard to fit in but failed. The maverick tormented by the constant noise, endless movement, the senseless rules. Children who recoiled, preferring the haven of their bedroom to the medley of school life.
From this knowledge rose my dream. A dream in which academic children, unable to face mainstream, could find a oasis in which they could breathe easy. A small, boutique school in which the individual was as equally important as the team. A school in which damaged, fragile children could reclaim their self esteem, rekindle their love of learning, acquire the social skills that had previously eluded them and bravely step forward as confident citizens of 21st century Britain.
My Dream is now reality and twelve young people are successfully rekindling their lives. They enjoy a rich, holistic curriculum supported by one to one and small group learning delivered by fully qualified, specialist teachers. Lives are being saved.
Wemms Education Centre needs to serve more children. We need a bigger building and the financial security to be able to offer bursary places to children abandoned by their local authority and without the means to fund private education