THE headteacher of Mountjoy School has said it would be impossible to recreate the special relationship it has built up in Bridport anywhere else.

Dorset County Council has announced it would definitely be rebuilding the school – and Beaminster was named as a likely option.

Head Pam Steward said the way the town embraced the children was not something she had ever come across in previous special schools.

She said: “In the previous special schools I have worked in the schools have always been slightly separate from the community and going into the community has always been quite an adventure.

“In Bridport whenever we take children out they are always really welcomed. Nobody seems to find any of the behaviours that ours exhibit odd. We are not subject to stares, our pupils are just accepted as the people they are.

“It goes further than that. Each of the shops we go into are so much more accommodating in the way they speak with our children rather than talk at them.

“They take time for our pupils to communicate back, because for some it is quite a struggle.

“All the shop assistants take that extra time and making that effort enables our children to learn so much more effectively, and it is something I have not come across before in other special schools.

“The whole ethos of the town is that we are part of the community.

“It accepts us without them showing that we are different in any way and that is what is so important.

“We can feel confident that our pupils will be safe and accommodated anywhere in Bridport and that their confidence will build because of that.”

Deputy head Denise Young and Frank Wilde, chairman of the Friends of Mountjoy, said the town’s facilities were also of paramount importance to pupils.

Ms Young said older pupils could go to Morrisons without school staff because there were no major roads to cross and they could learn life skills to enable them to live independent lives in the process.

She added: “We use the leisure centre at least three times a week and often more. We go swimming and we do some gym sessions, trampolining and use their field for cricket coaching. We have used the arts centre and work with pyramid schools there.”

Mr Wilde said: “All that would be lost if they went to Beaminster. It is a nice place but it hasn’t got the facilities that Bridport has, and that is so important. We have about £100,000 committed and we could raise a lot more if we know where we were going.”