Kingsdene Special School and Residential Service

Kingsdene Special School at Telopea provided schooling and residential care to children aged 10-18 from March 1976. It was run by the Anglican Home Mission Society’s Care Force division, the welfare arm of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, who described it as being for children and young people with “moderate to severe intellectual disabilities”. It closed in 2010 due to a lack of funding to continue operations. At the time of closure Anglicare (the successor to Care Force) stated that it was the only school in Australia providing education and accommodation for children with intellectual disabilities. Following the closure of the school, one of the buildings was redeveloped to support the expansion of work by Anglicare Out-of-Home Care Services.

The residential portions of the Kingsdene Special School included a hostel on the school site (open from 1976 to 2010), and a group home called the Denison Group Home which was located next door to the school (open 1986 to 2012). Anglicare also ran two Homes for children with disabilities as part of the Kingsdene program that were not located at the Kingsdene School site. ‘Tress’ Kingsdene Home opened in 1979 at 222A Pennant Hills Road Carlingford, and moved to 2 Treeview Place North Rocks in 1987 until its closure in 1997. ‘Manning’ Kingsdene Hostel was located at 28 Gladstone Street, North Parramatta, and ran from 1979 to 1997.

Dave Earl’s thesis describes Kingsdene as a “semi-residential high school”. It contains the story of Julia, born in the early 1980s, who would spend weeknights at the school and weekends at home with her family (Earl, 2007, p.133).