Jill, for twenty years school nurse and currently chair of the Friends of the school, gave an interesting, inspiring and sometimes moving talk about the school, which is our charity for the year.
The Frank Wise School, is a community school for children with special needs, between the ages of 2 to 19 years, described by Ofsted as “Outstanding and inspirational”. Beginning at Wood Green House with 30 pupils, the school has now been running for 50 years, currently catering for 107 children and young people.
All classes spend some time in a main stream school each week, which also benefits children in those schools. Children take part in residential visits, sometimes abroad. Much is done with older pupils to give them life skills such as shopping and meal preparation. Some pupils are able to move on to college in Banbury and some to live in supported small groups.
Jill described some of the recent projects achieved through fund-raising and explained the current one. The school plans to broaden the scope of the drama room by installing new technology, which could, for instance, provide virtual reality settings to stimulate pupils.
Jill thanked members again for the opportunity to speak to them and concluded by saying “Our children can teach us a lot”.
The president gave the vote of thanks