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CEO Blog

Our CEO Thomas Keaney's Blog. For other updates, please visit our News page.

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  • 25/11/24

    From Isolation to Independence: Transforming Excluded SEND Pupils into Young Leaders

    At TCES, we have a guiding mission: to take children and young people who have been marginalised and excluded by traditional educational settings and empower them to become confident, capable young leaders.   For over 25 years, we’ve worked with thousands of neurodiverse pupils, m...
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  • 20/11/24

    Reflecting on a quarter-century of Education at TCES and empowering pupils through Project-Based Learning

    As we mark TCES’s 25th anniversary and take part in the Department for Education’s call for evidence in a new Curriculum and Assessment review, there has never been a more important time to reflect as we plan forward to create a 21st century curriculum that all children and young people...
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  • 07/11/24

    Re-Imagining Education: How Our ‘No Exclusion’ Policy Changes Lives

    “When that threat of exclusion is removed you create space for the trust, attachment and sense of identity that these young people need, to open up and make significant progress educationally, emotionally and socially” - Goldsmiths UoL TCES research project - 2019. At TCES, we operate...
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  • 05/11/24

    The Origins of ‘The Complete Education Solution’ (TCES): A reflection on 25 Years of transforming lives through zero-exclusions ​​​​​​​

    Thomas Keaney founded TCES in his words, ‘by happy accident’. Following some time working in New York as a social worker, he had returned to London, taking up a role supporting one young person with significant learning challenges. This was a temporary position because Thomas was determi...
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  • 03/11/23

    Is online school a genuine choice for neurodiverse children?

    The half term is over and we’re right back into the thorny issue of what elective schooling really means in the context of families whose children have SEND. Department for Education figures released earlier this year show that nearly 4,500 of the 517,000 children and young people with Educ...
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  • 25/04/22

    Lives less ordinary

    Imagine the scene. Staff and pupils are sitting in a small circle in an independent day school for pupils with special educational needs. We are beginning to form what for us will be the most important intervention in our school: our twice-weekly Group Process. We have 10 pupils and 5 staff in...
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  • 21/09/21

    Award-winning week for our LIFE Programme as team scoop National SEND Award and now shortlisted for a second gong

    It’s been an outstanding week for our LIFE Programme (Leadership, Independence Skills, Future options including Employment and Empowerment), having been recognised as the Most Innovative Special Needs Intervention in the country in the 2021 National SEND Awards. The Programme has also just bee...
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  • 08/09/21

    The TCES WAY: Pupil Leadership

    ‘School Life Without Labels’ — A strengths-based approach The most important thing we can do for our exceptional pupils is support them to positively transform their perceptions of their skills, strengths, and abilities. Our job as educators is to suppor...
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  • 01/12/20

    the one that got away

    Last week I celebrated the birthday of TCES as it entered into its 20th year as a Social Enterprise. TCES delivers education, health and care through its schools and services for pupils an Autistic Spectrum Condition (ASC) and/or Social Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) needs. As this is our 20t...
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  • 30/11/20

    A most gentle mind

    Every year for the past decade we have attended the Autism show and each year we meet more and more desperate and frustrated parents and carers. We meet the parents of young children who have been told by nurseries and primary schools something that they long witnessed but didn’t want to...
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  • 10/08/20

    A worthy finish despite the start: The trouble with Jane

    Today we received the news that one of our Care Experienced Children Jane (not her real name) is being moved out of one of our Independent Special Day schools following another foster placement breakdown.
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  • 20/02/20

    hidden heroes

    It is a rare thing for a young person to know with certainty what they want to do in life. “The best laid plans of mice and men” is often used to describe the lives of young people who are trying out multiple jobs until something fits, taking gap years that never lead to college or unive...
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