The Unicorn School, Abingdon, is a unique co-educational day school for dyslexic, dyspraxic and dyscalculic children, and those with speech and language difficulties, from six-13 years of age.

We are located in Abingdon in a large Victorian house with good playgrounds — which has allowed us to expand, so we can help even more children. As well as our primary age children, due to popular demand. we now have Year 7 and Year 8 classes. And in September we opened a speech and language class.

Children will be taught in this class in the mornings by a specialist lead teacher and a speech and language therapist, and will rejoin their peers in the main school in the afternoon. Although most of our children come from Oxfordshire, a quarter of our pupils come from three surrounding counties.

The school has a nurturing, family atmosphere, which we believe is crucial to our success.

Children are taught in small classes, and each child has a daily one-to-one lesson. This is the feature which makes us different from most other dyslexia schools. All our teachers are specialists in working with dyslexia and related areas.

A number of our children are dyspraxic as well as dyslexic, and in order to be able provide the help they need within the school, we have an occupational ttherapist who visits every week.

In addition to her individual programmes, her suggestions are incorporated into PE lessons. We have a ‘whole school’ approach to dyslexia and aim to reintegrate our pupils to mainstream school with renewed self-esteem and strategies for learning that will enable them to succeed.

As our head, Jackie Vaux said: “Children are never put in a position where they could fail here.” We teach along National Curriculum lines — as well as literacy and numeracy we are able to offer humanities, science, DT, drama French and ICT.

We differentiate this for our pupils and teach them in the way they can best learn. Teaching here is multi-sensory, and our specialist IT lab is key to all subject teaching. Our teaching rooms are fitted with computers and interactive whiteboards. All children are taught to touch type.

To the core curriculum we add games on four out of five days and art and music — subjects in which many of our children excel. We play team games with other local schools, and our popular after-school clubs include shooting, football, art and cookery. We believe that school trips and visits are an essential part of learning; all our children have the opportunity to go on a residential trip every year and Michael Morpurgo will be coming in to the school next month to launch a storywriting competition for dyslexic children.

We run a Saturday morning school for children whose parents cannot afford private tuition, and we have an established Outreach programme in local state and indendent schools.

Parents have a very important part in our school community, and we operate an open door policy. We are always pleased to show families around the school and discuss your child’s individual needs.