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Shapwick School

1974 establishments in England2020 disestablishments in EnglandDefunct schools in SomersetDefunct special schools in EnglandEducational institutions disestablished in 2020
Educational institutions established in 1974Special schools in the United KingdomUse British English from February 2023
Shapwick School
Shapwick School

Shapwick School was a specialist school at Shapwick Manor in Shapwick, a village on the Somerset Levels in Somerset, England. In March 2020, it was announced that the school would close at the end of term in March due to financial difficulties.The fee-paying school specialised in the holistic education of pupils with dyslexia and its related learning disabilities such as dyscalculia, Developmental coordination disorder, pragmatic language impairment, and specific language impairment. It had pupils aged 8 to 18, most of whom were boarders, while the rest were day pupils. The therapy department offered speech and language and occupational therapy within the timetable according to assessed need. Pupils in the 6th form received direct support from the school but studied at Bridgwater College.The school was accredited by the Council for the Registration of Schools Teaching Dyslexic Pupils (CReSTeD), and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.In November 2010, the school gained national attention when it briefly featured in a BBC Three documentary Kara Tointon: Don't Call Me Stupid about actress Kara Tointon who has dyslexia. Tointon visited the school to see how it approaches the teaching of pupils with dyslexia. She sat in a class, learning new techniques for addressing her own dyslexia, and talked to some of the pupils about their experiences.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Shapwick School (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

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Latitude Longitude
N 51.1422 ° E -2.8341 °
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Shapwick School

Station Road 21
TA7 9NJ
England, United Kingdom
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Shapwick School
Shapwick School
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Nearby Places

Sweet Track
Sweet Track

The Sweet Track is an ancient trackway, or causeway, in the Somerset Levels, England, named after its finder, Ray Sweet. It was built in 3807 BC (determined using dendrochronology) and is the second-oldest timber trackway discovered in the British Isles, dating to the Neolithic. It is now known that the Sweet Track was predominantly built along the course of an earlier structure, the Post Track. The track extended across the now largely drained marsh between what was then an island at Westhay and a ridge of high ground at Shapwick, a distance close to 1,800 metres (5,900 ft) or around 1.1 mi. The track is one of a network that once crossed the Somerset Levels. Various artifacts and prehistoric finds, including a jadeitite ceremonial axe head, have been found in the peat bogs along its length.Construction was of crossed wooden poles, driven into the waterlogged soil to support a walkway that consisted mainly of planks of oak, laid end-to-end. The track was used for a period of only around ten years and was then abandoned, probably due to rising water levels. Following its discovery in 1970, most of the track has been left in its original location, with active conservation measures taken, including a water pumping and distribution system to maintain the wood in its damp condition. Some of the track is stored at the British Museum and at the Museum of Somerset in Taunton. A reconstruction has been made on which visitors can walk, on the same line as the original, in Shapwick Heath National Nature Reserve.