The school welcomes students with moderate learning difficulties, in other words, students with special educational needs, provided that it is able to meet these needs and can enable each student to have the chance to fulfill their potential. The Student Support Services team of the Primary School works collaboratively with other team members, class teachers, specialist teachers, teaching assistants and parents to support learning and emotional needs of students. The team members help students through the use of variety of strategies. They work together to ensure that the individual needs of each student are met.
These support services support school programmes and to enhance student opportunities for learning. The services are designed to assist students both in managing curriculum requirements and in participating fully in school life.
Primary aged students with special needs are offered services at 3 levels. In Level 1, students are supported all the time in mainstream classes with differentiation in the classroom and students are withdrawn for less than an hour in a week. In level 2, the students are identified as having needs that require individual support for more than an hour but less than 5 hours. These students opt out of foreign languages. In level 3, the students seem to have significant difficulties to be supported in mainstream classes throughout so they are withdrawn for support for more than 5 hours and mainstreamed when they are ready.
In the Secondary school, students are in mainstream classes for a greater part of the school day. They may be withdrawn from one or two of the foreign languages for getting individual support. In the IGCSE years, students with learning difficulties opt for fewer subjects and their extra time is used for individual support. Students in Primary and Middle school are supported in class by the special needs teacher. The SEN (Special Education Needs) teachers help the other teachers to in differentiating instructions. Students taking IGCSE and IB exams are given examination support depending on their needs and subject to the approval of the examination board.
Individual Education Plans (IEP)/ Student Support Plans (SSP) are developed by the SEN departments and which are reviewed twice a year. The mainstream teachers, parents and administrators are invited for the meeting to contribute to the students’ plan. A copy of these plans is given to concerned teachers and parents and the original is filed in the students’ folders maintained by the SEN department.
The school’s Admission policy requires parents to declare if there are any learning needs. When not declared, based on the admission tests, the The school may require such applicants to provide evidence of, or seek, recognised external assessments. It is very important that prospective parents, who are applying for admission for a child with diagnosed or clearly known learning difficulties, disclose these details at the time of admission. If it becomes apparent that such needs were not disclosed, the school reserves the right not to admit the child after assessment if, in the judgment of the teacher assessing the child or the Principal, the student’s needs cannot be met adequately by the school. Once the child is enrolled, the school reserves the right to insist that the parents withdraw the child if it becomes clear that the school does not have the capability to support the child’s learning needs.
The SEN department also has a clear referral process in place to refer students at any time of the year. Referrals are used for students who are already members of the school.
The SEN department is an integral part of the school and works in consultation and collaboration with administrators, leadership, key stage coordinators, counsellors, EAL (English as an Additional Language) and mainstream teachers.
