What makes us different?
Every child in our school has a diagnosis of autism and we have designed our approach and environment to make Church Lawton School a great place for them to learn.
Our pupils have the potential to do well academically, and the individual programmes we create for them encourage them to thrive, grow and exceed expectations in everything they do.
We have individual learning areas in every classroom for times when a child needs to learn alone, and in our separate specialist learning centre we can support children with more complex needs.
A child with a particular gift for a subject can study at a level that challenges them, thanks to our flexible timetabling. We encourage all our pupils to take external exams and expect most to pursue their education at a university level.
Many of our children are talented in science and media technology subjects, and our staff expertise and resources mean that they explore these subjects creatively and in depth.
More than this, we help each child to build their own personal, social and life skills so that they leave us as confident, resilient and valuable young adults with an important contribution to make to the wider world.
A National Autistic Society Academies Trust school
Church Lawton is a free school owned and operated by the National Autistic Society Academies Trust.
The National Autistic Society Academies Trust was established in 2012 as a subsidiary of the National Autistic Society. Its purpose is to establish and operate autism-specific free schools and academies. We’ve run autism-specific schools for over 50 years and continue to innovate all the time; we now have a thriving employment offer too, helping 1,000 employers last year to understand autism better. We are committed to developing outstanding schools that improve outcomes for young people with autism.
Free schools represent a new model of education. You can read more about them on the Department for Education's website.
A key factor in this vision is that children and young people receive the right education, one which equips them to make informed choices. Church Lawton School is hence the realisation of the National Autistic Society Academies Trust vision, since we increase the achievement, choice and opportunity for our young people.