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school for inspiring talents uk's first trauma informed school

date. 2011

location. Devon

I contacted Mark Escott in 2011 to say I was planning to set up a new kind of school for kids who didn't fit into the system. I wanted to draw on the work I had developed with excluded youngsters, being a Headteacher of a village school and work around coaching with Sir David Hemery. I knew that Mark, like myself, thought differently and wondered what we could make. At very short notice we put together a Free School bid which was unsuccessful. The following year a small group of us got to interview with the DfE and were again not successful. We spoke to a philanthropist who loved our idea and gave us funding to start. We blended the worlds of education and therapy into something new and Mark started the school as its first Headteacher. It has become the UK's first trauma informed school and successfully develops young people who have failed in other settings.

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