Lunchtime Speaker – Karin Young and Tianna Webb- Freemantle School

This week’s speakers were Tianna Webb (Headteacher of Schools) and Karin
Younghusband (School Business Manager) from Freemantles School. Freemantles is a Surrey County Council (‘SCC’) maintained school for children and young people with complex social communication needs; this usually includes a diagnosis of Autism. It has great understanding and specialism in this area and is rated Outstanding by Ofsted. The school supports children from 4-19 years old and has both a primary and secondary section. Its catchment area covers most of Surrey, but most pupils come from the West. The school opened on its current Mayford site in 2007 and was designed to accommodate a single cohort of pupils in each year group with a maximum of 9 pupils per class. Since 2017 Freemantles has been expanding. From September 2025, it will have two form entry in all year groups between Reception (4-5) and year 11, with a total number of 243 pupils on roll at the Mayford site. Freemantles has worked with Surrey County Council to achieve this. The expansion has involved building a new Secondary and FE building on the Mayford site, which opened in November 2023. The rest of the work was completed and facilities were available for use from March 2025. Freemantles also has a satellite site in Ripley for infant children which has grown to 45 pupils. Freemantles places a great importance on emotional wellbeing for its pupils and also working closely with parents. It offers training for them and and also for professionals. The training develops a deeper understanding of the challenges of living with Autism in a ‘neurotypical’ world towards helping children to make progress in their personal and academic growth. SCC has an Autism Outreach Programme for Schools and has commissioned Freemantles to deliver this, in partnership with two other specialist schools. Although Freemantles is fully funded educationally by SCC, it has to raise its own funds for its Community Learning Programme and for extra-curricular activities. These require a fleet of mini-buses and also equpment such as climbing frames. This is where Rotary can help. Terry Smith gave the vote of thanks. He said that the Club had donated to Freemantles since 2007 and we would like to help in the future. He thanked Tianna and Karin for their interesting and inspiring presentation.