A WEST Dorset special school will receive funding to provide more places after it was revealed that more than 70 children with special needs or disabilities are being educated outside of the county.

Dorset County Council has agreed to provide £550,000 to create 14 additional places at Mountjoy School in Beaminster and between 10 and 14 places at Yewstock School in Sturminster Newton.

Gary Binstead, senior manager – sufficiency and school organisation at Dorset County Council, said: "We are currently looking at whether we have enough specialist educational places across the county, to make sure as many children as possible can get a great education close to home.

"We have identified the need for more special school places in Dorset and are working with Mountjoy and Yewstock schools to create extra places to meet the growing demand."

He added: “More than 70 children with special educational needs or disabilities are being educated outside Dorset, some of whom could have attended one of these schools. Our aim is to avoid children having to travel out of the county to go to school.

“We want to provide 14 more places at Mountjoy and 10 to 14 places at Yewstock. The actual number of children who attend the schools will depend on the complexity of their needs, but we expect that at least 24 new places will be created across the two schools.”

Mountjoy School said it was happy to expand to help more pupils be educated locally.

Headteacher of Mountjoy School, Jackie Shanks, said: "We would always work hard to ensure that children and young people are kept as local to their home as possible and if that incorporates growth then that is what we must do.

“Pupil numbers have already increased by more than 50 per cent since I joined Mountjoy School in September 2014.”

A report to councillors by chief financial officer Richard Bates and director for the environment and economy, Mike Harries, said: "There is a need for additional special school provision in the county for children with moderate or severe learning difficulties.

"The county council currently has five special schools to cater for these needs, of which at least two have scope for an increase in their capacity."

It added: "By providing this additional capacity the county council will avoid having to place pupils with external providers, sometimes out of county, which incurs an average cost of £65,000 per annum per pupil, together with additional transport costs. The average cost of pupils attending one of DCC’s special schools is £20,000 per annum, so the creation of these additional places would save the county council in the order of £900,000 per annum.

"It would also be in the best interests of the children and their families to educate them close to home and would improve the lives of these families."