Inclusion Policy
Special Educational Needs Policy
EAS SEN Philosophy
EAS has a set of guidelines that the school follows in its attempt to support and encourage the teaching and learning of students with special educational needs. This policy is intended for students of special educational needs registered for the IB Diploma Programme. The SENP is compiled in reference to both the school’s guidelines for students with special educational needs and the IB documents and publications on special educational needs.
Acknowledging Learning Diversities
- Inclusion
In its strive to achieve genuine inclusive education, EAS ensures a friendly learning environment and attempts to remove learning barriers for all students. The school, the staff, and the Learning Support Department all collaboratively work to:
- Protect the interests of all students
- Support the learning of all students.
- Support the learning needs of individual students in the regular classroom setting.
- Help students understand themselves as learners and include students in decision-making about their learning.
- Develop student learning by appropriately defining challenges and setting expectations.
- Develop the understanding of the attributes of the IB learner profile for the students as well as the school community as a whole.
- Differentiation
In EAS, differentiation is an integral part of every teacher’s work. All teachers work collaboratively to enhance the following in every class:
- A coherent and challenging curriculum and syllabus.
- A wide range of teaching and learning strategies.
- Diverse tasks and activities for diverse learners.
- Help students self- advocate independent learning skills by helping them understand themselves as learners of different learning styles and needs.
- Special Educational Needs Learners
These candidates may have learning support requirements due to one or more of the following
- Learning disabilities.
- Social, emotional and behavioral difficulties
Once a student with learning support requirements is enrolled in the school, it is the responsibility of the school to meet the student’s learning needs, including suitable arrangements for teaching and assessment.
For the time being, EAS doesn’t cater to students with the following types of disabilities and learning difficulties
- Communication and interaction needs e.g. autism spectrum disorder (ASD), speech, language and communication needs (SLCN)
- Sensory and physical needs e.g. hearing impairment (HI), physical disability (PD), vision impairment (VI)
- Severe physical and or mental disabilities and mental health conditions e.g. attention deficit disorder (ADD), attention hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Key Points
The Language Policy
Arabic is the mother language for the school and is offered as Language “A” Arabic Language and Literature. English is the language of instruction in EAS and is offered as Language “B English Language and Literature for language acquisition. Gradually, the school will consider adding more languages to meet the needs of different special students. The school, staff and Learning Support Department understand and take into consideration several factors that might hinder the learning process of students with special educational needs and might even threaten their self-image or self-confidence. Teachers plan and work collaboratively to ensure that students learning languages enjoy and develop in a safe and friendly learning environment.
The IB Learner Profile
The school strives at all times and through various strategies to develop its community through understanding, implementing, and integrating the IB Profile attributes. Gradual development will definitely achieve a safe and friendly learning environment for all students.
The Learning Support Department/Committee
This committee consists of
- DP Teachers.
- The DP coordinator
- Psychologists
- Support / Shadow teachers
The Learning Support Programmes offered in EAS are essential aspects to the learners and the learning process. Accordingly, the school will take full responsibility for the following:
- Providing qualified staff for the all students and support teachers
- Providing support materials for the support teachers
- Guiding and supporting all SEN students
- Providing guidance and support for students with social emotional needs
Responsibilities of the teachers
- Collaborative planning of curriculum outline and syllabus breakdown.
- Collaborative planning for differentiation in the classroom, individual education, inclusive teaching, learning styles and teaching and learning strategies.
- Regularly based meetings to ensure development
- Collaborating in designing a set of criteria targeting academics, skills and student motivation.
- Ensuring that students are assessed regularly and properly
Responsibilities of the Coordinator
- Ensuring the ongoing development of the school support programme, SEN students and teachers.
- Orienting parents to the SEN Policy and student report system.
- Meeting and consulting with teachers concerned to plan the arrangements needed and required for students for the teaching process and the assessment procedures.
Assessment, planning and review
- A range of assessment tools (e.g. diagnostic, standardized, observational) are used within learning support in order to identify learning needs, inform planning and target setting, track progress and to determine the correct level of support.
- POP will be implemented for the students coming from non-IB system.
Students’ behavior modification program includes the following:
- The social worker defines the problem through the teachers and presents it to the evaluation committee
- Meeting the parents and involving them in problem solving.
- Asking for a psychiatrist if the case was in need of one.
- Preparing a weekly report about the student and presenting it to the school admission.
Behavior modification techniques that are followed in the school
- Positive discipline It’s one of the latest educational methods that depends on motivation and firmness and rejects punishment and rewarding.
- Class meeting One of the positive discipline methods that should be done once a week at least.
- Motivation: It’s a procedure that reinforces the required behavior and helping it to be frequent in the future.
- Modeling: Observing others' positive behavior and imitating it through showing different models of the correct behaviors
- Error correction: When the student does a bad behavior, he is asked to correct himself for example when he pours water, he should clean it.
Adverse Circumstances Committee /Department
The committee consists of:
- The DP Psychologist
- The administration
- The DPC
Adverse circumstances committee will be responsible
to receive the candidates’ medical or psychological evidence along with the candidate(s) affected by adverse circumstances’ form. The form ‘Candidate(s) affected by adverse circumstances’ must be received by the IB within 10 calendar days of the published coursework deadline.
Adverse circumstances are defined as those beyond the control of the candidate that might be detrimental to his or her performance, including
- medical conditions/illness with onset or occurrence up to three months before the IB examinations offered in May/November—such as injury, severe stress/anxiety, exceptionally difficult family circumstance and bereavement
- events that affect the whole school community, such as a natural disaster
Actions the IB will take under adverse circumstances (as defined above)?
The IB will be able to take three actions namely extensions, special considerations, missing mark procedure and deferral to the next or future session.
