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A specialist independent day school for children and young people aged 6 to 19 with severe, profound and multiple learning difficulties and complex needs.

Aurora Meldreth Manor School

Welcome to our Special Needs School in Meldreth, Cambridge 

Welcome from the Head of School

Here at Aurora Meldreth Manor School we are proud of our uniqueness and celebrate this in all we do. We are a passionate team that put the opportunity to provide the best possible outcomes for our children and young people in their preparation for adult life at the centre of all we do and all our decision making.

Our numerous awards are an accolade to the achievements of our students with the skilful support of our team. We are a highly specialised provision with a particular strength in meeting the needs of students who prefer to learn and be outside. 

We aim to ensure that all our students are able to safely access, be accepted and valued within their community by making meaningful contributions within it. 

Here at Aurora Meldreth Manor School we are fortunate to have such a comprehensive specialist provision of high quality facilities and resources. Our therapy team work collaboratively with our education team to ensure the students make the best possible progress and promote improved life chances. 

We are looking forward to welcoming you to find out more about our wonderful school and students.

Emily Willis

Head of School, Aurora Meldreth Manor School 

Welcome from the Principal

Here at Aurora Meldreth Manor, many of our students have complex learning difficulties, often associated with profound physical disabilities and/or medical needs. Whatever a student’s abilities or challenges, we aim to provide them with memorable experiences and stimulating activities that promote self-esteem and personal independence.

This approach is enhanced by the imaginative use of a variety of suitable and interesting resources and environments – from the rich experiences of sound, colour and touch in the sensory room, through to energising rebound therapy and physical exercises in the hydrotherapy pool.

We hope you enjoy reading about our school, and we look forward to welcoming you and your child to our community here at Aurora Meldreth Manor.

Denise Grayston
Principal, Aurora Meldreth Manor School and Children’s Home

A Day in the Life at

Aurora Meldreth Manor School

  • How we Love to Learn

    We all learn in very different ways and have our own special curriculum and targets to help us develop our communication and life skills in a way that will help us most now and in the future.

    We have workstations to help us focus and work on lots of different trays to build our knowledge in using symbols, words, signs, numbers, using our hands and learning about our favourite topics. Some of our favourite sessions are attention autism, music, creative arts, science and sensory play where we get to explore our world through using materials, tools, textures and getting messy!

    We have weekly opportunities to go to the sensory room, cook and try soft zone activities.

  • Lunchtime

    Lunchtimes are an opportunity for us all to come together as a school to enjoy eating tasty school meals and socialise with our friends from different classes. We have our own placemats and eating and drinking equipment that helps us to develop our skills in making healthy choices and being independent in our eating.

    After lunch we can enjoy time with our friends playing outside on the swings, roundabout, scooters, trikes or have a relaxing time in the gardens and Musical Garden.

  • Therapeutic Support

    Therapeutic activities are embedded into our daily routines and our therapists help our teachers to deliver them in class. Movement and maintaining our health is very important to us and we like to spend time stretching in our standing frames, going on the drive deck, bouncing on the rebound trampoline and stretching in the hydrotherapy pool.

    There are lots of therapeutic activities to help us work on our communication. We each have special equipment or communication pods such as eye gaze, switches and P.O.D.D books to help us express our opinions and choices. Some of us go to Music therapy sessions which we really love.

  • Forest Schools

    We have daily forest school sessions. We like to come together across the school to explore the outdoors and learn about nature. We enjoy making up our own recipes to cook on the campfire and learning how to take risks balancing on the strap line and swinging on the rope course.

    If you like gardening, there are lots of opportunities to enjoy planting trees and foraging in our gooseberry and blackberry bushes.

    At forest school we get to lead our learning and choose to learn how to use tools safely, make our own art pieces or watch the clouds and the birds. It is a place where we feel really calm.

  • Outdoor and Community Learning

    Being outside in the big spaces that our school provides is where we learn best and feel happy and calm enough to learn how to manage our feelings. We have lots of spaces to choose from including our music garden, the green house and water wall, number station and the Jubilee border which we all planted together. We can take our work outside in our special learning bags and enjoy all weathers.

    We like to go out into our wider community and enjoy trips on our minibuses or learning how to use public transport such as trains and buses. We go to all sorts of places including to the shops, the lido and for long country walks.

  • Community Events

    We love our community events and try to do one exciting thing every half term to share our achievements with our families and to raise money for different charities. Our favourites are Fireworks night, the Christmas Fayre and visits from Santa’s reindeer, Pancake day, Afternoon tea and Sports Day.

    We like to go into the wider community to help with litter picking, to decorate Christmas trees at the local church and lay a wreath for Remembrance Day.

    Sometimes we have performers come to us. We really enjoy Music performance and workshops that we can join in with.

  • Getting our Voices Heard

    We like to be independent, and it is important that we get to do school our way! We have lots of opportunities to express ourselves and tell others about our choices and the things that are important to us including our assemblies where we explore world events, our gallery where we can showcase our art but also tell people about what we like about school.

    In class our teachers help us to give our thoughts on how we are doing and to can contribute to our learning progress and reports.

    We have student ambassadors for issues that are important to us including Eco and Recycling Leaders and well as Tree Ambassadors.

Latest News

  • We finally found somewhere where the staff actually think of my son’s needs first, not their own, and what works for him rather than what works for them.