Shapwick School


Shapwick School was a specialist school in Shapwick, a village on the Somerset Levels in Somerset, England. In March 2020, it was announced that the school would close at the end of term in March due to financial difficulties.
The fee-paying school specialised in the holistic education of pupils with dyslexia and its related learning disabilities such as dyscalculia, Developmental coordination disorder, pragmatic language impairment, and specific language impairment. It had pupils aged 8 to 18, most of whom were boarders, while the rest were day pupils. The therapy department offered speech and language and occupational therapy within the timetable according to assessed need. Pupils in the 6th form received direct support from the school but studied at Bridgwater College.
The school was accredited by the Council for the Registration of Schools Teaching Dyslexic Pupils, and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.
In November 2010, the school gained national attention when it briefly featured in a BBC Three documentary Kara Tointon: Don't Call Me Stupid about actress Kara Tointon who suffers from dyslexia. Tointon visited the school to see how it approaches the teaching of pupils with dyslexia. She sat in a class, learning new techniques for addressing her own dyslexia, and talked to some of the pupils about their experiences.

History

In 1974, Colin Atkinson, a former cricketer for Somerset County Cricket Club and head of Millfield, established the Chalice School in Glastonbury to teach pupils with dyslexia. It used the old school in Burtle and was called Edington School, where in 1981 a Senior School was created called Edington Senior School. In 1984, Shapwick Senior School was established. The two schools worked together until 1994 when they merged to become Edington & Shapwick School, operating on the two sites in Shapwick and Burtle, and run by joint headmasters. In 2015, the school's two sites were merged again onto the Shapwick campus
From 1984, Jon Whittock and David Walker were joint headmasters, until David Walker's death in May 2011.
In May 2013, Jon Whittock stepped down as Headmaster of Shapwick School for the next Headmaster, Mr Lee. Adrian Wylie was Principal from September 2014 until his retirement in July 2019. The final Joint Principals were Gareth Wright and Hellen Lush.
On 31 March 2020, the school closed permanently.

Successor

In April 2020, it was reported that a group of former staff from Shapwick School were planning to open a new school locally. The new school, called The Levels School, is expected to open in September 2020 in the village of Ashcott, close to the site of Shapwick School, and was founded by Bradley Middleton, who formerly worked in a pastoral capacity at Shapwick. Moving with him to The Levels School were teachers and therapists from Shapwick, including the former head of therapy.