How Inclusive Education Can Help Your Child and You?

Inclusive Education is very much in the news in the UAE at the moment and has long been an approach highly valued at Regent International School. Inclusive education is not just about ensuring quality provision for those identified with diagnosed additional needs but is wider and focuses on ensuring that ALL students feel included and experience education in a purposeful manner that holds meaning to them as an individual.

Research shows that a policy of inclusive education offers unique benefits for all children in the learning environment. The benefits of inclusion go beyond academics and help with the holistic development of the whole child.

At Regent International School, I believe that as a community-based school with a strong inclusion approach our classrooms help your child:

• demonstrate increased self-esteem;
• show greater development in critical thinking;
• acquire new skills and knowledge independently;
• create warm and caring friendships;
• demonstrate increased acceptance and appreciation of diversity;
• develop better communication and social skills; and
• demonstrate leadership abilities

As a longtime resident of Dubai, who has worked in education here for close to 20 years I have watched with great enthusiasm how, in recent years, the government has begun to encourage a much greater emphasis on a more inclusive model of education. Not just in terms of meeting a wider range of academic needs but also in focusing on social and emotional aspects of education.

However, I am also aware that support and information are still not readily available to most families. It can be hard to find the right advice, to know whom to trust and find other families to connect with who we feel understand. It can often feel that you are the only parent or family facing such challenges.

Therefore, we will be holding regular get-togethers over coffee and breakfast, open to all families who would like to attend, to create an informal community of sharing of knowledge and experiences.

To ensure these are kept as small and informal gatherings we will hold several different ones that are most suited to specific age groups.

The Inclusion team at Regent International School will be present including our school counsellor. Also, we are inviting professionals from areas such as Speech and Language, Occupational Therapy and Education Psychology to attend.

We welcome conversations and questions on any topics, though each coffee morning will have a theme to get us started. During our recent parent workshops, we realised that anxiety and low confidence is a very relevant topic for many families. This led us to feel that this would be a good theme to go with for our first ‘Connect over Coffee’ session. There won’t be any presentation, but we will bring some resources to share with you on this topic.

To join us for ‘Connect Over Coffee’, please RSVP here for the age-group most suited for your child. We look forward to meeting with you.

Victoria McKeown
Head of Inclusion
Regent International School