Thank you for your interest in this story
To continue reading this article, subscribe to the Stray Ferret for as little as £1 a week
Already a subscriber? Log in here.
06
Aug
Opening date revealed for Harrogate autism school
Harrogate’s long-delayed autism school has finally got an opening date, with the first pupils set to attend in November.
Lighthouse School Harrogate was initially set to open in Bilton in September 2024, but has since been beset by delays.
The Stray Ferret reached out to the Lighthouse Education Trust, appointed to run the school in December 2025, as recently as July 2026 and was told that there was as yet no opening date.
The school, which was formally Woodfield Community Primary School, will cater for 80 pupils with autism between the ages of 11 and 19.
While a September opening had been assumed, a November opening will tie in with the start of the second half-term.
Tom Gordon, the Liberal Democrat MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, has welcomed the news while calling for lessons to be learned from the two years of delays that left local SEND families in limbo.
He said:
While it's disappointing that families who were expecting the school to open in September will now have to wait until November, the important thing is after two years of waiting, SEND families finally have a concrete step forward.”
Parents have shown incredible patience while a brand-new, multi-million-pound school sat empty during a SEND crisis. We should never allow families to be put through that uncertainty again.
Ahead of Parliament's summer recess, Tom challenged the education minister in the House of Commons, saying it as "beggars' belief" that a fully funded school had remained unopened for so long while families struggled to access specialist provision.
The MP has also encouraged parents with questions about the school or general SEND provision to attend his constituency supermarket surgeries on Saturday, August 15.
1