Side by Side is a very special school based in Hackney, which has children with multiple learning difficulties including autism, cerebral palsy, down's syndrome as well as other forms of brain injury and sory impairment. It serves the orthodox Jewish community of this area.
At present, the school operates from a cluster of condemned and environmentally unsuitable portakabin buildings and is under pressure from the local authority to relocate.
The Philip Green Memoral Trust is helping them raise the £3.5 million they need to build a new school. Whilst the State will provide funding to ordinary faith schools, they will not hjelp special schools unless they are multi-demoniational. The Trust feels this is wrong as disabled children have as much right to attend a faith school as their able-bodied peers. It is important for children to receive their education within an environment with which they are comfortable and these very orthodox Jewish chidlren are no exception.
Once built the number of children able to attend the school will double. They will take children from the age of two until the age of nineteen.
The PGMT's donation will pay for the integrated nursery at the school.
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