Wolverhampton council to spend £1.5 million to double school’s SEND spaces
A council will spend £1.5m to expand the number of SEND spaces at a school in Wolverhampton.
As many as 20 new places for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) will be created at the Ormiston NEW Academy by 2028 according to City of Wolverhampton Council.
The school in Marsh Lane, Fordhouses, Wolverhampton, had 20 spaces created at its SEND resource base for the start of the new school year in September last year and that number will double to 40 by September 2028.
The number of spaces would increase by ten by 2027 and a further 10 would be created a year later.
SEND resource bases are specialist units within mainstream schools that provide tailor-made support for children with complex special educational needs.
The resource base was created in September last year to provide ten places providing speech, language and communication support and has since been increased to 20 places.
The £1.5m work would include extending the school’s existing SEND resource base replacing its food technology room and performing arts facilities.
A new food technology room and drama studio would also be built alongside new and refurbished changing rooms to replace those making way for the SEND facilities.
City of Wolverhampton Council said the demand for specialist school places has “risen significantly” in recent years with the number of children in Wolverhampton with an education, health and care plan (EHCP) rising from 2,199 in 2020 to 3,300 by the end of 2025.
“Demand for provision is currently increasing faster than places can be implemented and there is a high dependence on placing children in independent provision both inside and outside of Wolverhampton to ensure that the needs of individual children can be met,” the council’s decision notice said.
“This is at high cost to the local authority in both terms of cost per place per year and transport. There is also a number of pupils that are placed in neighbouring authorities’ specialist provision.
“The council is also receiving increasing numbers of consultation requests from across the West Midlands authorities for places in Wolverhampton special schools and these are often contested at tribunal.
“Based on locally held data, as of December 2025, there has been 484 consultations from other local authorities for special schools and 12 consultations for resource bases.
“There has been a total of 521 consultations with equates to 94.5% for special school places and 2.34% for resource bases.”
