Islington Council admitted liability after a child fell off a bench

PARENTS have challenged an outstanding-rated special needs school with claims that their children are not being properly educated and are at risk of injuries.

Eighteen parents at the Bridge Primary School in Hungerford Road, run by the Bridge Academy Trust, have spent months chronicling accidents and injuries at the site in Holloway. This includes an incident in which a child needed facial plastic surgery after she was attacked by another pupil. In another case two years ago, involving a seven-year-old pupil, Islington Council admitted liability after the child fell off a bench, unsupervised. Compensation is currently being negotiated.

The boy’s parents, Diego Lopez and Vanessa Lago are planning to go to court over two further incidents which they say led to their son getting badly scratched in the face.

In one incident, they claim the school told them it did not know how he sustained the injury, which they say has left a scar, while in the other they say the school confirmed he was attacked by another pupil.

They say the school has apologised for both and promised it would supervise him more closely.

The Bridge Trust said the number of incidents was “very typical” for a special school, and all of them had been reviewed.

Another parent, whose son is autistic and has been at the school for two years, said he and his wife had worked hard to get him into the Bridge but were now “scared” about leaving him at the gates.

“There shouldn’t just be an acceptance that ‘Oh, well, these kids are vulnerable and that’s what happens,” they said.

“It makes you as a parent feel really scared to be honest, that the rights of your child don’t matter as much as able-bodied children or children that are neurotypical.”

They praised the commitment of teachers and support staff but said they were taking their child out of the school because of poor management and underfunding by the council.

In March, leaders at the school and Islington, which pays £29,000 a year per pupil, completed an investigation into the number of accidents at the school, and the circumstances around them, following an official complaint by the parents last June.

Mr Lopez said the complainants saw the leadership at the school was a problem but argued the issue was systemic and that the school was under-resourced because of funding levels which were lower than in other boroughs.

“I feel like they have failed my son,” said Amira Siraj about her eight-year-old child. “And they are not listening to me because I’m telling them he’s not learning, he’s not progressing.”

She said her son, who is autistic, has not had a speech and language session since he joined the school in 2021, despite therapists’ recommendations.

Jenny Guardamino described how neither of her children have had a physical therapy session at the Bridge, despite spending three years there and that until lockdown, when they were taught by their parents, neither could hold a pen.

Parents are also concerned that class sizes recently grew from six to ten and that children whose care plans state they need one-to-one support are not getting it.

The complaint, signed by 17 parents in June, said: “We believe that the school and its partnership with Whittington Health therapy services is demonstrating inadequate levels of competence in supporting the development of our extremely vulnerable, disabled children in Islington, letting us all down.

“At the heart of this issue is the fact that our children are making no developmental progress, due to the inadequate school provision they are receiving.”

A spokesperson for The Bridge Trust said: “We carried out a comprehensive review of all recorded incidents from September 2023 and the data shows a very typical picture for a special school.”

They pointed to a recent parent survey which showed 97 per cent of parents say their child was happy at the school.

“Our children are making progress, but these are small steps, which again is typical for a special school,” she said.

“We have made representations to the health authority and the local authority to express our concerns that the support currently provided falls short of what our families have a right to expect.

“Listening to feedback from parents is really important to us at The Bridge Trust and we recognise and share parents’ frustration on therapy – this is something that is funded and managed by the health authority, with a contribution from the council.”

They said growing class sizes was based on “growing need locally” but said they remained within “our guidelines”.

A council spokesperson said: “We take all complaints about safeguarding extremely seriously and we have commissioned a further independent safeguarding review into these complaints, which is currently under way and publication of this is expected before the end of the school year.”

They added that Islington was among the highest funders of maintained special schools per head of the pupil population in the country.