A new school in Meare that specialises in educating children with learning difficulties has received a donation of free ultrafast broadband connectivity for life, courtesy of full fibre infrastructure provider and ISP Truespeed.

A community-focused business, Truespeed provides schools passed by its network with a free Gigabit-capable service, ensuring school-age children have fast, reliable internet access to support their education.

Abbot's Way School in Meare is already connected to Truespeed's gigabit-capable broadband service, with nearly 50 others set to join it as the West Country company rolls out its service across the area.

Reliable, ultrafast broadband is now a must-have for schools as they rely on digital technologies and cloud-based storage and services to plan and teach the curriculum.

Many schools also rely on email as a cost-effective and efficient way to keep in touch with parents.

Gareth Wright and Hellen Lush, joint heads at Abbot's Way School, said: "Abbot's Way is a new forward-thinking specialist school near Glastonbury.

"The introduction of our Truespeed connection is a vast improvement, with speeds reaching 200Mbps.

"For our students, assistive technology is an essential resource, enabling them to explore, discover and thrive within the world of technology and support their general learning.

"The installation of a fast, reliable broadband service is crucial to any educational environment and we are very happy with the Truespeed service."

Evan Wienburg, CEO of Truespeed, said: "Our vision goes beyond delivering full fibre gigabit-capable broadband to businesses and homes in harder to reach areas, we're also pledging free broadband for life to schools passed by our network.

"With our free service, teachers and schoolchildren in parts of the country left behind by the national providers are benefitting from reliable connectivity and ultrafast broadband speeds that are vital for education today."

Truespeed says it is focused on connecting communities and all types of organisations located in harder to reach areas of the South West underserved by the national broadband providers.

The firm's community ethos also extends to providing free broadband for life to local community hubs passed by its network.