Pivot operates sites in Leeds and Huddersfield, and employs more than 170 teachers, mentors and support staff.
CEO and founder Michael Smith said, having been excluded from two schools as a child himself, it was after taking a job as a teaching assistant aged 18 that he developed a passion for education.
He said he believed there was “a lack of variety” at mainstream schools for meeting children’s needs as a result of the pressure on them to try and mix provision.
“But,” he said, “how can you educate and house a child with complex needs in mainstream schools and expect them all to get the same outcomes?”
Dawn said: “There are so many children out there, that are getting failed by education settings and all it needs it just an environment change, just little things to change it for children so they can feel comfortable and safe in schools.”
Figures suggest more than 120,000 children are absent from education in Yorkshire and the Humber, many of whom are from a SEND background.
Among the adjustments at Pivot are classrooms with low lights and soft furnishings split across a cluster of buildings.
The group says 82% of pupils’ education, health and care plan (EHCP) targets were being met or exceeded, with attendance recovery going from zero to about 90% for learners experiencing severe school-based anxiety.
