Belgrave School has been a lifeline for our daughter and our family. Before joining, she struggled to attend school at all. The team at Belgrave welcomed her with open arms, took the time to understand her needs, and never gave up on her—even on the hardest days.

As our son prepares to leave Belgrave School, we find ourselves reflecting on the incredible journey he’s had. When he first joined, he was anxious, withdrawn, and unsure of his place in the world. Thanks to the unwavering support, patience, and expertise of the staff, he has grown into a confident, capable young man who now looks forward to college with excitement rather than fear.

When he first joined, he was anxious, withdrawn, and unsure of his place in the world. Thanks to the unwavering support, patience, and expertise of the staff, he has grown into a confident, capable young man who now looks forward to college with excitement rather than fear. The way the staff celebrated his every achievement, no matter how small, made him feel seen and valued. We are so grateful for the nurturing environment you’ve created, where learners are truly understood and supported.

The whole team go above and beyond.

The school deserves far more recognition for the miraculous work it carries out for those few lucky enough to attend.

In her time spent at Belgrave she has transitioned from a depressed, highly anxious, broken spirited child with low self-esteem to a bright young happy girl that loves school, is willing and able to take part in group activities and has a great future working at her best.

We are truly amazed at the breakthrough and progress our daughter has made. When she came to you she was more than 2.5years behind with reading. Over the last two terms she is now reading, she has at least kept pace and possibly closed the gap a little and her progress has been outstanding.

I am writing to express how grateful we are that our son has a place at Belgrave School. He has come a long way in his year and a half with you from the child so afraid of failure due to his dyslexic difficulties that he had disengaged from learning completely. We investigated eight other schools as well as home school as an option but we are convinced that Belgrave is the only suitable school for his needs. It is the only school in the Bristol area that offers dyslexia specific help.

Belgrave is a community, the staff and teachers are just as interested in the families of their students, when you have a child in the cocoon of this school you are automatically included. This makes Belgrave a hugely happy and positive place to be which gives all parents the confidence to merrily wave their child off in the morning knowing their offspring will be in the very best of hands whilst they are away from them.

Belgrave isn’t just about a pupils education, they care deeply about welfare, happiness, positive attitude, confidence. I would urge anyone who is considering applying for a place for their child, to attend an end of term service where they can observe children with Specific Leaning Difficulties take their place on stage and confidently participate with their class in the service. Then afterwards to seek out the parents of those children and ask them if they ever thought their son or daughter would ever be able to do that.

I firmly believe that mini miracles happen every day in this school from the child who wouldn’t talk to anyone being able to make friends, to a child whose mainstream school felt they’d never learn to read (they are managing rather well with the Biff and Chip books now and he is so proud of himself)!

I have often heard parents in the playground saying they don’t know what they would have done if they hadn’t got their child into Belgrave. I have said this myself many times and heard it echoed by all members of our family.

One of the key strengths of Belgrave is not that it’s just a small school it’s a shared appreciation of individualism and the strength that can be derived by developing children’s confidence and empowering them to believe in themselves so they can learn. As we know education isn’t just about qualifications it’s about learning about other people, the world and our place in it. And this is what Belgrave does. So thank you to all the team at Belgrave.

What Belgrave did for our son was to give him space to be himself and no longer be fearful.  I think his trauma was such that it took the first couple of years to build him back up to a fit psychological state to actually start learning. We know he isn’t terribly academic but at Belgrave he actually had a crack at it .

Since day one at Belgrave we as a family actually saw a physical as well as a mental change in our son. When we secretly observed him, when we had meetings at the school we could see his engagement. All a massive contrast to his previous experience.

Belgrave has been a lifeline for our son who has enjoyed a warm and supportive school experience there since he was nine years old. We were despairing of his primary school when we first started to look into transferring him. He had been bullied, unsupported and literally left in a corner to fend for himself in the classroom. His mental state was such that I could see him steeling himself to go into the school and eager to leave. He was retreating into himself and the selective mutism had really taken hold. Yet from the day he did his taster session to his last day at Belgrave School he has absolutely loved going in. His demeanour changed in the playground from day one. I could see he was amongst a kind, tolerant and supportive cohort of children and parents.