‘Pupils and staff enjoy first-rate, trusting relationships. The school….makes a wonderful contribution to pupils’ personal development’.

Ofsted, March 2022

‘…..fantastic opportunities provide students with exceptional experiences that they will remember for life’.

Challenge Partners, April 2023

A warm welcome from all at Riverside School and thank you visiting our website.

We are a successful co-educational maintained secondary special school based in Haringey in North London. We provide 165 places for students, mainly from across the borough.

The school is located on the same site as the Mulberry Academy at Woodside which enables a range of inclusive group activities to take place between the schools.

Students at Riverside experience a wide range of learning challenges, from the highest functioning to the most complex, including general, moderate, complex, severe and profound and multiple learning difficulties. Approximately two-thirds of the school’s population have a diagnosis of autism, one third a variety of other needs.

At KS4 all students take a range of fully accredited courses according to their capacity. The majority of students transition to college at year 11, but a small cohort stay on at Riverside for their Post-16 years where they also take a range of accredited courses.

The school is organised into 5 Teams. Classes are grouped within Teams 1-4 according to common levels of communication and independence, with Team 1 classes being the highest-functioning, and the other Teams reflecting staggered complexities of need. Team 5 is based in an off-site annex covering a range of needs. The age ranges are: Teams 1-3 (11-16), Team 4 (11-19) Team 5 (16-19).

(please click on the various blue links below)

I would encourage our website visitors, in the first instance, to take a look at our SCHOOL OFFER which can be found under the For Parents tab above. This will give you a thorough overview of everything we offer at Riverside, including how classes are organised to meet different levels of need, the curriculum and our safeguarding arrangements.

New parents can find the answer to most questions they may have before their child starts at Riverside in all the sub-menus under the For Parents tab.

Our Ofsted Inspection Reports can be found under the Reports tab. Other quality audit reports can be found under this tab, such as our National Autistic Society (NAS) Certificate of Quality Provision, 2020, NAS Accreditation Report (2020) and all our Awards.

All the documents under the Learning tab offer detailed descriptions of our curriculum frameworks, assessment systems and the accredited courses we offer.

The Beyond Lessons tab gives comprehensive descriptions of our extra-curricular programmes, including our after-school and holiday clubs and residential school journeys.

We are very proud of the Ofsted Inspector’s judgement of Outstanding that we received for our Personal Development work in our March 2022 Inspection. The Inspector wrote: ‘The school has an extensive programme for pupils’ enrichment outside the classroom. It makes a wonderful contribution to pupil’s personal development’.

We also received a judgement of Outstanding for Behaviour and Welfare, with the Inspector commenting: ‘Pupils and staff enjoy first-rate, trusting relationships. Staff are experts at managing pupils’ behaviours. They do so with consistency’.

Our school motto is ‘Learning to Live Life to the Full’. We aim to deliver positive outcomes for all, enhancing our students’ life-chances through ensuring that they all have the highest possible levels of independence before transition to their post-16 or post-19 provisions, and on to adult life.

I must say I feel privileged to lead a school so highly-regarded, and be part of a community culture featuring such high levels of mutual respect, the protection and promotion of dignity and an authentic celebration of diversity.