Autism Accreditation

The Autism Accreditation Award Committee has awarded The Holmewood School an Advanced Accredited Award following the Autism Accreditation review in March 2023.

Advanced awards are only given to provisions who offer excellent person centred support showing a high level of consistency and quality rooted in a specialist understanding of best practice in the field of autism. The Holmewood School is now one of about 20 services in the UK to receive this status.

The committee pulled out a particularly high number of strengths of the school which included:

There is no complacency at Homewood with staff being highly reflective and keen to take on new ideas and approaches.
Autistic students were empowered to ask and answer questions and express their views. They demonstrated assertiveness and confidence in doing so.
Students' confidence in speaking in public situations and expressing their opinion has been developed through the Homewood public speaking and Performance program both in giving TEDx style talks as well as less formal open mic sessions.
The career program can be considered a particular strength at the school.
Support for mental health and wellbeing is exemplary the therapists work collaboratively with each other and with teaching staff sharing their knowledge about student and their professional expertise and insight to create highly personalised flexible and trans disciplinary programs of support.
Young people present as confident, relaxed and happy with no indication of anxiety or stress. They have been empowered to be themselves, speak their own mind and respect others.
There is an excellent established comprehensive well-being program which can be considered another strength for the school.
Student behavior was excellent on those occasions where students needed to be reminded of expected or appropriate behavior, this was done quite gently in a non-confrontational way to stop.
Feedback from parents and students confirm that the school has a transformative impact on the quality of life of the students and their families. Admission to the school is often seen as a life-changing and a turning point after previous very negative experiences of school.
Feedback from autistic students is overwhelmingly positive.

This award goes a long way in highlighting the great work of our team at Holmewood, and how, together, we really do make a difference to the lives of autistic young people.

Read the 2023 Advanced Accreditated Award Report here (PDF).

Read the 2023 Advanced Accreditated Award Summary here (PDF).

Read the 2020 Advanced Accreditated Award Report here (PDF).

Read the 2017 Autism Accreditation Report (PDF).