More children referred to Stockport school with social and emotional needs after Covid

Video report by ITV Granada Reports Jennifer Buck

A school that supports children with social, emotional and mental health needs says it is receiving more referrals than ever before.

The Pendlebury Centre, in Stockport, is a pupil referral unit that has been open for 20 years, but it has seen an increase in the number of children seeking a place since Covid.

It follows the school curriculum, but has small class sizes and also helps with complex needs like anxiety and depression.

Jane Maxey joined as headteacher at The Pendlebury Centre three-years-ago, and says they are now helping children with more complex needs.

"What we are finding now, post Covid and since I've been here, is the complexity and the vulnerability of the children," he said.

"90% of our children have at least three or more additional needs.

"What we are finding is more and more of the children who are being referred here are sadly often very, very broken and the challenge we have is to rebuild literally from the bottom."

After Covid many children did not want to return to school, Maddie Ashworth was already struggling with her mental health and was self harming after being bullied at school.

She said: "Having to quarantine and distance yourself, I got so used to my own comfort being at home, and knowing what it would be like when I would go to school, which made the experience a lot less likely for me to want to go, so Covid impacted me a lot"

It is a story shared by so many children who struggled to return to school after the extended time away.

What are the facts?

A record number of children are refusing school since the pandemic, and parental prosecutions have doubled in less than a year.

School absences were 50% higher in the past academic year than before Covid.

The rise has been attributed to a number of factors including the post-pandemic increase in children’s anxiety, mental health problems and special educational needs, insufficient school funding, and long waiting lists for CAMHS (Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services).

Wilbur is a transgender child who was struggling with identity issues and mental health before Covid struck.

Wilbur, who was previously known as Katie, was 12 when the pandemic stopped him attending school.

His mum, Jayne Berry, said: "All children became very isolated over that time but I think the biggest thing we noticed was when Katie / Wilbur went back to school, he'd had 12 months of not being able to learn off other children, learn how to continue to fit in with the year group, so when he went back felt very very isolated."

Jayne said that spending time at The Pendlebury Centre turned things around.

"Being here and being given the space to be who he was who he wanted to be and to fear less being in a classroom allowed him to get back into a certain amount of learning."

The school has only 44 places and every two weeks headteacher Jane Maxey sits on a specialist panel to make the difficult decision about who can attend.

She says the number of referrals has gone up in the last few years, with about an extra 10 children being referred every fortnight.

Children normally come here for about 12 weeks with the plan to re-integrate them back into their mainstream school.

Adam is a Year 11 student who had just about given up on education.

He was bullied at his mainstream school due to his disabilities and at time, his mum Clare said it was a struggle to get him out of the house.

Now he is celebrating taking his exams at The Pendlebury Centre and has made many friends at the school.

Mum, Clare Finch, said: "I feel blessed that we have Pendlebury Centre in Stockport.

"Adam would have fallen completely out of education and I dread to think where he would be and where we would be as a family if we didn't have it.

"I feel desperately sorry for the families who are struggling to access this level of support."

While there are other pupil referral units in the North West, there are calls for more places to tackle the specific needs of children with social, emotional and mental health needs.

The Pendlebury PATHS scheme targets children who have been persistently truant and it turned things around for Maddie.

"I would get excited to come to school and want to come to school and a few years ago I would never have thought that the way things were," she said.

The school is funded by the local authority but relies on fund raising to keep offering the children a future they once thought they would never have.

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