Our Schools

Zespół Szkół Specjalnych, Poland

 

 

 

The school is situated in a small district town in the Łódzkie Province. We are a complex of schools that provides three levels of education: primary, junior secondary and vocational. We also offer individual education, including revalidation and education classes provided at students' homes. We have 72 students aged 6 to 21.

We educate children with mild, moderate, severe and profound intellectual disabilities. Some of our students also have mobility and speech difficulties. Furthermore, they suffer from numerous problems of not only medical but also behavioural nature.

We take an active part in Special Olympics. We specialise in swimming, bowling and table tennis.

We organise trips for the so-called nature school as well as rehabilitation camps.

In our work, we particularly focus on the art therapy. We teach self-care, meal preparation and functioning in the environment. We use, among others, the Dennison's method, the work centres method, the Montessori method and the behavioural method in working with autistic children.

Our school offers children access to speech therapy classes and psychoeducational support. We have a sensory integration room, a snoezelen room, a computer room and a canteen.

Most of children in our school come from a poor, negligent or even dysfunctional background. Their general knowledge is poor and they lack self-confidence; therefore, it is of great importance to broaden their horizons by international cooperation, opportunity to meet new colleagues and ability to communicate using ICT.

 

 

 

MILTON SCHOOL, GLASGOW, UK                       

Milton School is situated in Glasgow City, Scotland.  It is for children aged 12 to 18 years old who have complex learning needs. The children live in all different parts of the city and are brought into school by bus. We have 9 class groups just now - 2 for children who have very severe difficulties, 3 for children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder and 4 for children who have  a range of different difficulties.   Just now we have 45 children on our school roll.

 The school day is divided into 4 periods and the children will experience different activities throughout the day.  Most class groups have at least one community outing each week and we also use local swimming pools and sports clubs. Our younger children follow a Broad General Education and our older children work towards receiving national certificates. Some of our  seniors also  go to Further Education College and to work experience for part of the week.  We have 3 senior management, 8 full time teachers, 2 part time teachers, 27 assistants (some of whom are part time), a nurse and a nursing assistant.  We have visiting specialists such as physiotherapist and speech and language therapist. 

The school building is quite small and we do not have a lot of space. Just now half of our school hall has to be used as a classroom.  We have a lovely sensory room and soft gym which are fairly new.  We have a small outdoor area but it is not in great condition.  We can’t leave any outdoor equipment out as it gets stolen or vandalised which is unfortunate. 

Every year in May we have a school show which is based on a musical.  The musicals we do include  Grease, The Sound of Music, Oliver, Joseph, Mary Poppins  and  South Pacific.  This is a big part of our school’s curriculum and involves for example music, drama, art, dance,  language and communication.  Pupils families and friends as well as people who live beside the school all come to see the show.   We also join in lots of different charity events.  Just recently we all had to wear a “ONESIE” to school and pay £1 towards Glasgow’s Children’s Cancer Hospice.  We then had to wear “PINK”  in aid of breast cancer awareness.

We may be moving to another building next year but we are waiting for news about this.

 

 

 

5th Primary School of Special Education

Thessaloniki, Greece

"5th School of Special Education" is a primary one attended by disabled students with special educational needs. The school is located in the greater area of western Thessaloniki. This is a disadvantaged area, environmentally polluted, amongst big avenues, industrial plans and factories. Moreover, the students are at high risk of social exclusion, not only because of disability, but also as many of them are children of migrants and come from lower social classes.

50 pupils, from 6 to 16 years old, attend the courses in groups, according to the difficulties they face. The lessons last from 8.15’a.m. up to 12.45’p.m.

They are students with special educational needs (mental retardation, autism, multiple disabilities, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, behavioural problems, etc.)

The building has two floors. On the ground floor there are the classrooms and the kitchen. On the first floor there are the offices of the Head-teacher, of the staff and gym room, the physiotherapy room, the psychologist's and the social worker’s office, the speech therapy room and a computer room.

Our school’s curriculum includes the next fields: communication, skills-language, mathematics (mainly pre-mathematical signification), social skills, shelf-help skills, concerning the home life, the community life and emotional integration of the students, pre-vocational training and expression through arts and crafts.

The staff of our school consists of seven teachers, one social worker, one school nurse, one psychologist, one physiotherapist, one gymnastic teacher and one assistant, all of which are specially trained to teach pupils with disabilities.

Special school “Stefan Karadja” – Plovdiv, Bulgaria is a specialized institution for education of children with severe and multiple disabilities. The pupils are 95. They are from 8 to 20 years old. They learn here from 1 until 10 grade. They are with different diagnoses - autism, mental retardation ( mild, moderate, severe), Down syndrome, ADHD, behavioral problems, Cerebral palsy, multiple disabilities, epilepsy, specific learning difficulties etc. They study of all day - morning  - of classes, afternoon  - of groups, some of them sleep in boarding-house during the week. In the school also learn and pupils from homes for children deprived of parental care from our city. Every pupils also have Individual programs of developing which are prepared from Team of specialists from the school

Our school  consists from two buildings. One of them is for primary school and boarding-house, the other is for pupils from 5 to 10 grade. There are also Board chair, Sensory Room, Psychologist's office, Speech therapist’s room, Art therapy room, Music therapy room, Gym room, Playgrounds, Physiotherapist's room, Experienced greenhouse complex, Recreation areas, Dance room, Computer room, Room for development, Classrooms with spaces for recreation and didactic materials, Surgery’s.

The school employs highly qualified specialist. Total staff in the school is about 42 employees. There are management and administration, support staff  and  teachers - a Director  - Mrs. Veselka Bakish and an Assistant Director - Mrs. Jana Naldhzhieva, an Accountant and also 3 administrative staff, 1 psychologist, 1 speech therapist, 1 physiotherapist, 1 doctor, 27 teachers – some of them who work afternoon are named educators.  They are divided in primary and lower secondary, three of them are professional teachers. The teachers continually enhance their qualifications on graduate programs, undergo training courses to develop knowledge and skills to work with pupils with SEN.

The school is provided with adequate welfare conditions and specialized teaching aids for teaching children with SEN.

 

 

 

 

Gartenschule Ettlingen

 

                                                                                                                            Germany

 

The Gartenschule is a school for solely mentally challenged children aged between 6 and 19 . There are 80 students attending our school.

The students suffer from different kinds of handicaps, e. g. Down's Syndrome, autism, sensomotoric challenges. The students are taught in a 3-tier system (basic level, secondary level and vocational level) by 36 teachers. We have also young volontiers who help the teacher in the classes.

In the so-called „Aussenklassen“ (outer classes) we work together inclusively with common schools such as elementary and secondary modern schools. Our school offers activities such as a school band as well as an art and garden project. We are working with facilitated communication (FC) using boardmakers, big macs, talkers and sign language. We cooperate intensely with a sheltered workshop.

Ettlingen, Germany  is situated at the northern edge of the Black Forest on the Upper Rhine Plain (to the south of Karlsruhe) and has around 40.000 residents.

 

Heemschool 1, BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

The school team:

·         hope the pupils will feel at home in our school

·         create an open relationship with the pupils

·         pay attention to the uniqueness of each pupil                     

·         give each pupil maximum opportunities

·         give its full devotion, engagement and goodwill

·         to be open to suggestions and dialogue

 

 

A.      HEEMSCHOOL 1

Special  infant education and primary education for children with mental and motorical disabilities as well as children with Autism- Spectrum-Disorder..

B.      BOARDING-SCHOOL

For boys and girls of Heemschool 1&2.

C.      SEMI-BOARDING-SCHOOL

On Mondays,  Tuesdays and Thursdays  reception from 8.h. until 17.30 h

On Fridays  reception from 8.h. until 16.30 h

D.      RECEPTION CENTRE

Open during weekends and holidays. The reception centre provides qualitative reception for pupils of Heemschool 1&2 as well as for pupils from other schools for special education, 365 days a year

OUR TARGET GROUP

A severe mentally-disabled child can learn to talk and communicate.

A profound mentally-disabled child will continuously need support for different development skills.

The Heemschool also provides special education specifically adapted to the educational needs of children with a (multiple) motorical disability. 

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

OUR EDUCATIONAL GOALS  

·        COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGE

·        MOTORICAL DEVELOPMENT AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION

·        SOCIO-EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

·        WORLD-ORIENTATION

·        ARTISTIC ACTIVITIES

OUR PARAMEDICAL SERVICES

Next to our educational staff  the Heemschool also has a paramedical staff at the pupil’s service:

·         Respiratory physical therapists

·         Occupational therapists

·         Speech therapists

·         Nurses

·         Nursery nurses

Lakeside School, Welwyn Garden City, England, UK.

·         63 students with severe or profound and multiple learning difficulties.  Many pupils have additional physical or sensory difficulties and ASD(autism).

·         Aged 2-19 years

·         12 teachers  (some part time}

·         Teaching assistants – at least 2 per class

·         7 classes, with approximately 9 students in each.  These are divided by age groups.

·         Each classroom has a sensory area and interactive whiteboard.

·         We have links with partner schools and colleges in the local community.

·         School nurse, and part time physiotherapists, occupational therapist, and speech therapist. 

We have the following  resources in our small school:

·         Swimming / Hydrotherapy pool

·         Sensory classroom

·         Physiotherapy room

·         Library

·         In ground trampoline on a playing field

·         Soft playroom

·         Outdoor gym equipment

·         Soft surfaces in play areas

Areas of specialism within the school include:

·         Working with students with Autism

·         MOVE – A functional movement programme

·         Intensive Interaction – engaging students with complex needs in communication

·         ICT

·         International Education

 

 

SCHOOL CENTER FOR INCLUSIVE EDUCATION no. 1,

SIBIU,

ROMANIA

 

It is a school for children with moderate, severe mental deficiencies and associated deficiencies, with classes from I to VIII. It has 18 classes, 6 classes at primary school, 12 classes at secondary, 65 pupils at primary and 122 pupils at gymnasium.

They learn from 8 till 11:30 (in the primary) or till 12:35 at secondary level. A class has 45 minutes. After these classes all of them have a hot meal till 11:50, then the pupils of mild deficiencies from I to IV grade stay in school doing the homework or therapies till 15:30.

It is a resource center for teachers for mainstream schools from Sibiu. It offers educational services for special needs children integrated in mainstream schools through supporting teachers. (there are 16 supporting teachers)

It offers educational services for homebound children. (there are 8 teachers for homebound children)

Also provides education to hospitalized children.

There are 10 teachers for the pre-primary classes, 4 speech therapists, 3 educational teachers for the afterschool program, 2 psychologists, 30 teachers of different learning objects (sport, religion, geography, music, practical skills etc.).