CHILDREN with moderate learning difficulties will be taught at home if a special school closes.

Fiona Patterson says she would rather keep her son at home than let him be taught in a mainstream school.

And she says she has not spoken to a single parent who agrees with plans to close Cliffey House School at Hanley Castle.

"There's the isolation factor of teaching them at home, but they're isolated anyway," said Mrs Patterson, whose son Joe currently attends Thornton House School in Worcester.

He is due to transfer to Cliffey House in September.

"He won't go to a mainstream school and the majority of parents will say the same.

"I'm even more concerned as Joe spent five years in a mainstream school in a unit for special educational needs, like the ones the council is suggesting.

"He achieved nothing and this is what they're doing again.

They don't work

"As far as I'm concerned, they don't work."

Joe was a pupil at a school in Bromyard before gaining a place at Thornton House School.

He is now in his second year at the Wyld's Lane school.

"He has improved so much just by being there," said Mrs Patterson, who lives in Carlisle Road, Ronkswood.

"His confidence has soared because he always assumed he would fail at things.

"In mainstream education he was integrated for things like art and PE but he was ostracised by his peer group as he was different.

"At the end of his first year his teacher said, that out of all the children in his year group, she was horrified at the amount of things he couldn't do.

"He's a lot slower in his reading and writing. His ability is passable as a Year 1.

"I'm not letting that happen again. But the academic side is not what frightens parents. They're so vulnerable and will be bullied."