United we learn
FOR 20 years, Side by Side has been providing a special educational environment for children with learning difficulties and disabilities, enabling them to find their place in their community. Earlier this year, the National Children’s Bureau stated that academies are “turning away children with special needs in order to cherry-pick pupils who are likely to get the best results”. Although this is deeply alarming, we should be proud that this does not reflect the reality at Side by Side or the other Jewish schools in the community. The provision of places for children, in particular young children, with learning difficulties, is truly astounding and across our community we have institutions that are second to none in integrating all children.
Some children with disabilities do best when cared for and educated in a special environment, where they can be encouraged to learn and grow despite their needs. It is important that they are provided with facilities and a system in which they do not have to struggle.
For years, governments have amended and adapted policies based on new scientific research and statistics, trying to identify the best ways to educate children with special needs. Over the past 50 years, schools have increasingly been adopting policies to include all children, whatever their challenges, in mainstream education. Many schools that were set up specifically to educate children with special needs have since closed down. There are now approximately 1,150 dedicated schools for special needs children compared to around 1,570 in 1979 and mainstream education is finding it hard to cope with the pressure; it seems current education policy just fails some children with special needs.
However, within our community we recognise every child is unique and provision must take that into account. For some, inclusion with support in mainstream is ideal but others need a more tailored approach. Our vision at Side by Side ensures that all options are open. While meeting all the requirements of the early years foundation stage curriculum, we spend considerable time planning and ensuring that our programmes are designed to meet the specific needs of all our children.
Side By Side integrated nursery and special school was founded by Rebecca Rumpler in 1997. With the birth of her son Yiddy, who has Down’s syndrome, she realised that there was no local Jewish school to provide expert teaching for him and other children who had special educational needs.
She set up Side by Side in her own home with a small group of children from within the community and her venture grew into the flourishing school it is today. Rumpler has been recognised with an OBE for her contribution to special educational needs.
We teach all children how to accept, work with and interact with other children, to do more than coexist but to be friends with mixed-ability children and to consider them in no other way than fellow children.
Nursery years are an age when children learn the subtle tools that will help them navigate through life, including how to interact with others while developing an awareness that friends come in all shapes and sizes and from all different places. Our children learn that there is more that unites us than separates us and that there are no barriers to making friends or getting an education.
Today, Side by Side welcomes special needs and mainstream two- to five-year-olds and supports them with our own specially designed integrated nursery.
So although many nurseries offer some places to children with varying degrees of special needs, our nursery has an approximate 50:50 ratio of non-special-needs to special needs children, a ratio which has a truly positive impact on all the children, in the most impressionable years of their life.
We have a diverse mix of highfunctioning children, children with developmental delay (in speech or physical) and children with severe special needs, who benefit from our therapists and the extremely high ratio of teachers to children.
As the children reach school age, some of our students will be ready to move on to mainstream settings with continued support, while for others, our special school offers greater opportunities for success. Part– time integration opportunities are explored for the school-age children, should this be beneficial for them.
Our secondary department works with the students towards achieving nationally recognised qualifications such as ASDAN (focused on “skills for learning, employment and life”), work-experience opportunities and preparation for independent living and working.
As we celebrate our 20th anniversary year, it is to the credit of our community to see just how far we have come in delivering a unique educational provision for children with disabilities alongside mainstream children.
Many look around Side by Side and speak of the “miracles” happening here. I know the next 20 years will be filled with the same positivity, warmth and ambition which define Side by Side’s work.
Children do more than co-exist; they are friends’