Beijing - School Report Question and Answers

What is the climate for children with special needs? Is there a general attitude of inclusion for children with special needs?

ISB has made the investment to offer the greatest amount of inclusion for special needs in Beijing, and is one of a handful of its kind in the world.They accept children with mild to severe special needs. The Learning Centered Education (LCE) classroom uses best practices to accommodate children with intensive special needs and also integrates them with their assigned same age typical peers classroom as much as possible. Children with undiagnosed needs still often, though not always, find themselves with defacto accommodations because teachers often recognize their needs or learn about it from parents even when the child has not been evaluated. On the other side,there have been instances of children not receiving their accommodations for more mild needs in the main stream classroom. The system for alerting teachers has been revamped to avoid this failure in the future. Historically, the approach of the host country culture at large has been to deny and mask special needs, so the school has both an opportunity and a challenge to educate children, parents and community members about neurodiversity to promote greater inclusion and acceptance. LCE invites other classes and groups of children into their classroom for thoughtful interactions, which has been very positive and successful. - Jun 2023


There is definitely a general attitude of inclusion within the community and this certainly includes those with disabilities. - Nov 2022


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