Annette and Kevin Maxwell were nervous about sending their son Jonah to a residential home for children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send). Jonah has severe autism – he is non-verbal, has epilepsy and behavioural problems and needs round-the-clock care.
“It was a huge decision, but we almost had no choice because with Jonah at home, you can’t work and we had two other children to think about. He’s beautiful, but he is very, very complicated,” said Annette. “Outsourcing parenting is just foreign to us and it’s horrible, but we didn’t have another option.”
When he first arrived at St Christopher’s in Bristol, Jonah was thriving, receiving different therapies and doing activities such as horse riding. Then, in 2016, the charity that ran the home collapsed and the centre was acquired by the Aurora Group, which runs more than 30 Send schools and is owned by Octopus, an investment management and real estate company.
The Maxwells, who live in Bath, noticed a change almost immediately. They said the food quality went downhill, an overnight nursing position was cut and they began to have concerns about Jonah’s wellbeing. Whenever he came home to visit he seemed very tired.
“Alarm bells were going off. But every time we spoke to management and staff, they would always reassure us that everything was OK,” said Annette.
At this point, the Aurora Group was being paid £292,000 a year by their local authority to care for Jonah. The company was expanding rapidly by acquiring several established providers to become one of the UK’s largest specialist education and care operators.
Then, in 2019, it was announced that St Christopher’s was being closed down by Ofsted after serious allegations of child cruelty came to light. Vulnerable children had to move out at short notice, their belongings hastily packed into black bin bags. They were sent across the country to new placements.
The police began an investigation into alleged child cruelty and safeguarding concerns and this concluded after two years without any criminal charges being brought.
The Maxwells were told by police there had been allegations involving Jonah. In one incident, he was said to have been roughly grabbed and shoved into his room by a staff member. They also found out a carer had allegedly been waking him up every two hours through the night to go to the toilet to avoid having to clean soiled sheets, which police said could be classified as child cruelty.
“I just wish I’d been more pushy at the time and tried harder to get to the bottom of things. I really, really regret that I didn’t do more,” said Annette.
Police later confirmed they were unable to interview the directors of the Aurora Group, who parents believed had questions to answer over cost-cutting that may have contributed to alleged abuse. Child cruelty legislation applies only to those who directly commit an alleged offence.
St Christopher’s was classified as a school, not a care provider, meaning it could not be investigated under legislation that might implicate both a corporation and individuals.
Kevin said: “Our kids have become a moneymaking tool for these companies, and they squeeze it, because they know that, ultimately, they can walk away. There has to be better accountability.”
The couple pursued civil action against Aurora, alleging a breach of Jonah’s human rights. The company agreed to pay £18,600 without admission of any guilt.
The Maxwells are pushing for stricter laws to ensure private Send providers face the same levels of accountability and transparency as other schools.
As part of sweeping Send reforms announced earlier this year, the government promised to “crack down” on private companies running schools, imposing fee caps and minimum standards.
Those in the sector said they had been raising the alarm for years and urged the government to create more state schools in the Send sector to wrest back control from private companies, which charge significantly more.
Darren Northcott, the national officer for education at the NASUWT teaching union, said: “There is a big problem where public money which should be being spent on children, young people and the staff working with them is leaking out of the system in the form of profits and surpluses. That’s not acceptable.”
He said many Send schools, in the state and private sector, had become incredibly challenging places to work because of a lack of staffing or resources to deal with children with complex needs. He said staff were increasingly expected to accept violence from children as “part of the job” and in some cases “the level of care and investment in staff falls short of would reasonably be expected”.
Hayley Harding of the Let Us Learn Too campaign said many parents were frustrated by the lack of Send places in state schools, leaving private providers as the only option for many. “There’s a huge issue with local authority capacity and lack of planning – for so many years they have been firefighting, rather than actually planning for how many children need this,” she said.
“Nobody wants people making profit out of our children. But we want them to be educated, and that’s often the only option available.”
A spokesperson for the Aurora Group said it was the only B Corp accredited provider in the sector. B Corp certification is a private credential for for-profit companies that prove high social and environmental standards through independent evaluation. Aurora also said 96% of its services were rated by Ofsted as good or outstanding.
The spokesperson added: “St Christopher’s was in serious difficulties under different ownership and under close Ofsted scrutiny when we responded to a campaign to keep the school open. We invested substantially in improving staffing, facilities and overall provision.
“We regret that we were ultimately unable to overcome the school’s challenges, and we remain saddened by the circumstances surrounding its eventual closure in 2019. We did all that we could at the time to support the Maxwell family and wish them well.
“The police thoroughly investigated the allegations and agree that we did all we could to support their inquiries. Police took no further action.”
The spokesperson said all the Aurora Group’s profits were reinvested in establishing new schools in partnership with local authorities, bringing “relief to families and making it far easier for children to go to school nearer to home”.
