Our History

Within the current context, Cambridgeshire County Council has to place a significant number of children and young people with autism in independent or out-of-county provision. The Cavendish School will be accessible and available to many families who cannot be catered for within current state provision in the county.

Our small, self-contained school will be co-located with Impington Village College and Impington International College, providing excellent opportunities for all students throughout their time at The Cavendish School.

At the heart of our school will be relationships and the important ways in which they can support the growth of each child. These relationships include those between each student and the staff they work with, other students in the school and families. Our co-location with Impington Village College and its sixth form will allow our students to forge lasting and memorable relationships with people both inside and outside of their peer group, helping them to grow as individuals and make measurable progress towards their own personal outcomes.

On entry to the school, each student will be assessed to identify the developmental milestones that have been met and those which have been bypassed. Following this assessment, our staff will collaborate with each family to establish a comprehensive overview of the relationship development support tailored to each young person.

The Cavendish School aspires to remove all limits that a young person with autism may face. We will celebrate diversity; we will be accepting, respecting and recognising of neurological and developmental differences, framing a philosophy that enables a bespoke curriculum and teaching methodology, which supports each individual student through a differentiated programme that builds and focuses on their skills. We will also seek to remove limits beyond the school gates by encouraging, supporting and guiding efforts to remove barriers to inclusion in the wider community.

Throughout the planning stages for the school, our team has drawn on the latest research into autism and used its expertise in education and experience of working with young people with autism and their families. All of this knowledge has helped us in developing the strategy and roadmap for achieving the school’s mission of ‘enabling the self’.

Our Chair of Governors, Julie Bailey, is a doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Education within the University of Cambridge. Visit our Autism Education Network page to listen to informative Q&A videos where Julie speaks with a number of experts in the field of autism.