Canossian School works with its partner schools, Canossa Convent Primary School and MacPherson Primary School to promote integration and eventual inclusion of its students into the mainstream schooling experience. The school monitors very closely how each student is coping with the mainstream curriculum to calibrate the extent of integration most appropriate for each of them.
Inclusion Programme
INCLUSION PROGRAMME
Research has shown that there are many benefits for students with special educational needs to be mainstreamed. In Singapore, Canossian School is the only SPED school that offers a mainstream schooling experience for every student in varying durations of each school day.
The seamless integration of students from both schools has the following benefits:
Social Integration
Social integration between mainstream and students with special needs. There are heartwarming stories of students from these groups becoming best of friends.
Environment
Students with hearing loss are immersed in a language-rich hearing environment. This supports the language development for both mainstream and students with special needs as they learn how to better communicate and interact with their peers.
Empathy
Mainstream students increase their awareness and sensitivity to students with special needs and develop empathy.
HISTORY OF THE INCLUSION PROGRAMME:
From integration to inclusion
The integration programme started in 1989 with the integration of its preschoolers into the mainstream kindergarten. In the same year, four pupils from Canossian School, located at Jalan Merbok then, were integrated into nearby Bukit Batok Primary School. The four pupils performed very well in the PSLE which paved the way for more pupils to be integrated into mainstream primary schools.
Do you know?
St Magdalene of Canossa insisted that her schools would be “charity schools” where service would be given free to the poorest of the poor, the most wretched and abandoned. With education, Magdalene hoped to help her young people (regardless of gender or need) become aware of their dignity so as to be able to live meaningful lives and contribute responsibly to family and society. Her charism, vision and purpose were based on her faith perspective that God makes every person equal in dignity. This means that everyone deserves respect and an equal opportunity to lead a meaningful and purposeful human life.