Learning First Aid

While The Philippine Red Cross spends much of its time conducting first aid training workshops to companies and schools, the target audience is usually adults. This year, Little A is in Upper School, a sixth grader, so their year level was included in the workshop.

I spent the morning at the annual Manila International Bookfair while my son was learning how to administer CPR. His, I think, may have been a more worthwhile use of time (though I did get a lot of Christmas shopping done and supported local authors and publishers at the same time). I pray he'll never have to use his newfound skills, but am glad he has learnt how. Perhaps I ought to get certified as well. 

Circles

What goes around, comes around. Pay it forward. We hear and read things like this everywhere. Every religion talks about getting what you deserve, in this life or the next.

This week, I realized all the sayings are very, very true.

When Little A was sixteen months old, I enrolled him in a playschool across the road. The owner of the school was a neighbor with a son a few months older than Little A.

While the school didn't last too long, she did make use of her space to open a Tomatis Centre, and held two seminars, both of which I attended. The first introduced the therapy and its benefits. It was at this event that I met the doctor who would become Little A's developmental pediatrician.When Little A still wasn't speaking at age 2, we made an appointment to have him assessed, and a few months later, he was diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum.

The second seminar was about Special Education in Regular Schools - inclusion programmes, in other words. When this event took place, Little A had started at his preschool, but I was already feeling that he might need a shadow teacher. I met one there, who turned out to be working at the preschool I had wanted Little A to attend had it not been so far away, owned by the same people running Keys Grade School, where we are now applying him for next school year.

The second speaker was from Brent International School, the school Big A dreamed his son would attend (because in our time the girls from there sported the shortest uniform skirts imaginable). Hearing about Brent's inclusion programme put that school at the top of my list for his future applications, which are no longer in the future but very much in the present!

Upon submitting Little A's application last October, I was told by the Admissions Office that for several years now, they have stopped accepting children on the autism spectrum. Disappointed, I went on with the school search.

Then, two weeks ago, Little A's PROMPT therapist, newly back from maternity leave, mentioned that two of her colleagues were setting up a new inclusion school to open this coming academic year.

This therapist also happens to be the in-house speech pathologist at Brent; her students who do not attend the school are seen at home, or, in Little A's case, his grandmother's house, which is as far north as the teacher is willing to travel. She sent me the link to One World School, and I contacted the person-in-charge, who set a meeting the following weekend.

When I arrived at the meeting, who did I meet but the very speaker from the inclusion seminar in 2010, whose name I hadn't gotten back then and couldn't find later through the neighbor who hosted the seminar! Truly, it was serendipity. He and his colleague told me about the school, and I in turn told them about Little A and handed over the obligatory set of therapist reports, psychoeducational assessment, health certificates and the like, all of which I have in multiple copies for any school applications that may suddenly turn up.

Since the school is still under construction and no marketing has yet begun, I was one of the first to apply, therefore securing my son a place. Hooray!! Their programme is good, but it will mean Little A will have to "repeat" his last year of preschool, as for the first year they will only be offering preschool classes and adding grade levels as the students progress.

The good thing is, the team heading the school is experienced and able. The campus is conveniently located, and the facilities will be at least as nice as what is currently available at Little A's current preschool. The tuition is more than twice what the other schools are asking, but we will no longer need to provide our own shadow teacher, which will save us more in the long run rather than paying school fees and the shadow's hourly rates for possibly Little A's entire academic life.

This school will take him through to age 18 and beyond, as they will offer transition programmes and life coaching for adults with special needs as well. So truly, this is a fervent prayer answered, for as long as we can afford to keep Little A there, that is. It's a huge load off my mind.

School Search

As only a parent of a special needs child will know, getting your child a place in a good school, one that suits the child's personality and supports the child's needs, is nearly as difficult as finding that proverbial needle in a haystack.

For one, there is the list of available schools, which, as I have mentioned before, does not exist for children on the Autism Spectrum. A friend whose daughter has Down's Syndrome was given a "Bible" shortly after her child was born, detailing doctors, therapists, schools and various other programmes available at the time. This directory is regularly updated at doctor's visits.

Children on the autism spectrum, on the other hand, are rarely diagnosed before they are two years old, and when they are, because each child is different, finding the right course of action is always a long process of trial and error. There are diets, biomedical treatments, assorted therapies and many more. Finding a school, when the child is of age, is just one more challenge.

After ruthlessly questioning friends, teachers, therapists and random women in waiting rooms, supermarkets and bank queues, I made a list and went through it one school at a time.

First was Reach International School, an inclusive school even nearer our home than Little A's current preschool. A visit though, led me to think that this would not be the best environment for my son, as the work is done on a largely self-motivated basis. There was no teacher and class interaction, or even small group work. Students meet with the teacher one at a time for instructions and complete the set work quietly at their desks. At the moment my son needs a shadow teacher just to keep him seated long enough to complete a single worksheet, so this type of school was not right for him.

Next came The Laren School, a Montessori school located in a commercial building not far from home. My parent's visit morning was very eye-opening. While my sister attended a Montessori school, I knew very little about it beyond that the preschool advocated independence and taught children self-help skills as part of the programme. I thought Little A would benefit hugely through their manipulative material-based learning methods.

Unfortunately, it turns out there will not be a space available for him this coming school year. Since Laren runs vertical classes, children aged 6-9 are in one group, and there were already 3 special needs kids among them. A new student would only be offered a place if one of the special needs students was ready to move to the regular group.

Inclusion schools generally accept a maximum of 2 special needs children per class, in classes of up to a dozen students. Larger schools run on more traditional programmes do not support inclusion at all.

St. Mary of the Woods's SPED coordinator impressed me throughly with her knowledge and years of experience in the field of educating special needs children in a traditional setting. I wasn't sure though, if Little A would benefit from being mainstreamed in Filipino language social studies classes, but I did like that they are a Catholic school, as I want my son raised in the same faith as his parents, grandparents and cousins.

The Learning Child turned out to be a bit of a dead end as they have started phasing out their grade school levels and are maintaining only the preschool.

The Abba's Orchard, another Montessori school, did not seem very keen to process Little A's application, as after I paid a visit and made several phone calls, they never got around to scheduling him for an assessment.

Create School had a wait list as long as my arm. Plus, they weren't really an inclusion school in that Little A would be in a separate class, along with other special needs kids of his same level of ability.

Britesparks School was recommended by a friend of my sister, whose child attended the school and has since moved successfully to a traditional one. However, a visit and telephone call revealed that their SPED support department had dematerialized due to talent being lost overseas and to other industries over the last two years. They will only accept very high-functioning, Asperger's students. Not proper inclusion, then, so not an option for us.

I was hesitant to even apply Little A to Keys Grade School, as I had it from one of the directors and the principal back in August that spaces for special needs children were reserved years in advance by the students attending their preschool. However, my mum's former student turned out to be the vice-principal, and she convinced us to pay a visit anyway. I was so glad we did, as we were beyond impressed by the teachers, the programme and most of all, the students. They were, without exception, confident, articulate, interested and positive in an environment that clearly nurtured and developed them properly.

As a special needs applicant, Little A's entire support team was required to attend an open day, and then write recommendation letters. His application has been processed and he is scheduled for assessment and a two-day sit in next week.

Keys is a fair school, assessing all applicants over a period of at least two days and making final decisions and issuing offer or rejection letters in mid-April. As their academic year begins in early June, this does not leave parents of children who are not accepted much leeway to find backup schools at that late time.

Apart from those, my alternatives were SPED centres, which would focus more on self-help and life skills rather than academics, which seems a shame when considering that Little A was reading ahead of his year level and has achieved many improvements by modeling his neurotypical classmates. I prayed we would find a place at an inclusion school.

My prayers were answered. More on that next post!