Principal Activities

Witherslack Group provides education and care for children with special needs, their families and local authorities across the UK. The Company leads with its education offer and provides residential accommodation to school pupils where necessary. All young people in the Group’s homes attend the Group’s schools. The Group aspires to being an exemplar of best practice for the education and care of children and young people with special needs, locally, regionally and nationally. It has a clear view of its purpose and practice, and this is articulated in the theoretical and philosophical aspects of its work. Outcomes for children and young people are closely monitored across a variety of internal metrics.These places are funded by local authorities, our primary revenue stream. To ensure the Group remains competitive we strive to obtain the highest level of quality. The Group has consistently invested in people, training and infrastructure to create a leading platform in the specialist education sector. Company Strategy

The core business strategy is to continue to drive organic growth in revenue through the acquisition and development of new sites. We also plan to expand and further develop existing sites to create more available spaces for children and young people who require special education and care.

Organic growth will be complimented by strategic acquisition of existing education providers where possible. The business continuously looks to expand its reach, actively researching opportunities for expansion into markets where we can leverage the use of our expertise.

Continuous reinvestment in our sites, staff and young people ensures that we maintain competitive in our market by offering the highest quality service. Our track record of success and sector-leading Ofsted judgements have been achieved through an ethos of high aspiration, placement stability through our ‘team around the child’ approach, unique in-school therapy solutions and our inspiring environments. These all combine to optimise life opportunities for children and young people, give confidence to parents and carers, and deliver unmatched value for local authorities. Staff recruitment and retention has again been a key focus of the Group as it continues to expand. The annual staff engagement survey returned the highest results in the company history with an eNPS of +42 and the Board is committed to reviewing and improving its employee value proposition.

We have acquired new sites to develop into schools in Cheshire and Hertfordshire which will open in 2025/26. The new school’s locations are due to strong demand in the area and from a response by local authorities.

Developments During the Year

The Group has made investment in a new integrated Human Capital Management and finance system will transform the way the business operates, creating efficiency and a stronger platform for growth. The Group is engaged with an active ESG agenda, to focus on reducing CO2 emissions

throughout the business. We continue to develop a wider ESG strategy, harnessing ideas from colleagues to ensure we can optimise our offerings to young people.

Walker Guidelines

Witherslack Group (the “Group”) is committed to complying with the Walker Guidelines (the “Guidelines”) for increased disclosure and transparency in private equity and has included the additional disclosures as set out in the Guidelines in the 2021/22 Annual Report. The Board has decided not to upload the audited annual report for the Group and has instead provided the above explanation under the “comply or explain” principle as set out in the Guidelines. The Board believes that certain information included in the audited annual report is commercially sensitive, and, due to being the only company included in the scope of the Guidelines in our sector, has decided not to include the audited annual report within the scope of this report. The audited annual report for the Group can be found on Companies House.