New School Helps Fill Gap In Special Needs

A new special needs school has opened in Singapore to offer primary education for children with a range of academic learning difficulties. Located in Orchard Road, Dynamics International School is a small private school currently running three classes from Reception through to Grade 2 for “students who require academic support or simply benefit from a different type of instruction.”

The school has been opened by the Dynamics Therapy Centre, which has been offering paediatric therapies since 2005. It helps to fill a much-needed gap for special needs education in Singapore, where the choice of schools is limited for students with mild academic learning difficulties through to severe intellectual and physical disabilities.

Teaching at Dynamics International School follows the UK National Curriculum combined with the International Primary Curriculum. Lessons are combined with speech therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy as required.

Yael Sasson, Director of Dynamics International School, says: “Since 2005, we have been passionate about helping children with unique educational needs, and our core expertise lies in having a wide range of in-house therapists who address these needs.

"The Singapore landscape has very few schools who are addressing the current demand of special educational needs inclusion in a mainstream setting. Even fewer have a full range of in-house expertise relating to occupational therapy, speech therapy, educational therapy, psychologists, early intervention and physiotherapy, which we can organise in a timely manner depending on student's needs.

“Students who enroll in Dynamics International School will be able to receive support in their educational journey as needed; establishing skills and confidence to be ready for mainstream setting in a large classroom or being supported in learning mainstream curriculum while addressing individual’s educational needs or having an alternative curriculum to address functional skills in communication and daily living skills with close therapists’ support.”

The school, which is registered with the Committee for Private Education (CPE), appears well equipped to offer an alternative to mainstream education. Class sizes are small, with four to eight students in each class; teachers are qualified in special education or psychology; and all students have access to facilities at the neighbouring Dynamics Therapy Centre including an indoor therapy gym, indoor play areas, and occupational, speech and language therapists.

Dynamics International School, which follows a January to December academic calendar, is exercising a rolling enrollment and currently recruiting students for term three and four of 2019 and for January 2020 classes.

Read our review of Dynamics International School here.

Sasson adds: “We plan to “grow as we go” in expanding our school further. In our first few years, we are looking at establishing lower grade classes and ensuring they are able to build a solid foundation for students’ advancement to higher grades. As they do so, we will concurrently be adding in additional grades and increasing our capacity with teachers and facilities.”