For students who have special needs, early screening, before the child enters kindergarten, is ideal. The parents, and the staff at health or community services organizations, can determine the nature of the child’s special needs and begin the process of planning and sometimes even intervention. Then, as soon as the child is enrolled in school, it’s possible to plan the implementation of programs and services to address the needs of the child and to facilitate his or her learning and integration into the school.

 

For those children whose special needs are less obvious, often it’s not until they’re in school that their needs are discovered. For example, a parent might observe challenges faced by the child while helping with their homework. If that’s the case, it’s recommended that the parent discuss this with the child’s teacher. Most often, it’s the teacher who recognizes the child’s special needs, through observation and assessment in the classroom. In that case, the teacher will consult the parents and an assessment of the child's needs will be carried out. In many cases, the teacher can meet the child’s special needs (by adapting the teaching style, for example) without any outside assistance.

 

 

However, when the teacher, always in consultation with the parents, considers that the student requires a more thorough evaluation, it’s necessary to call upon the expertise of other members of the school-based team. The school-based team is a group of different specialists at the school, such as the resource teacher and the school counsellor. In consultation with the school-based team, an action plan is put in place. Depending on the needs of the child, the plan might be to continue the teacher’s interventions in the classroom while adding new strategies, or to have a resource teacher undertake direct intervention. In many cases, the child receives the services of the resource teacher temporarily. An individualized education plan or IEP (plan d’apprentissage personnalisé, PAP) must be prepared in writing for each student who receives more than 25 hours of learning assistance. This plan is presented to the parent and must be signed by them.

 

To see the CSF’s five-stage intervention model, visit the CSF website.

 

 

For a small number of children whose special needs are more complex, more specialized evaluations are needed. The school therefore calls on specialists such as psychologists and speech and language therapists. They may also call on certain health and/or community services to intervene with students who have special needs. The school board’s evaluation process takes time, because resources are limited and are allocated according to the priority of the case; the most serious cases are evaluated first.

 

 

The term “special needs children” applies to a large number of students and a great variety of needs. The Ministry of Education estimates that about 10% of the student population can be considered special-needs students.

 

Clearly, these students’ needs will be very different, in terms of both the type of intervention and the magnitude of such interventions. To better serve these students, the Ministry has defined different categories of funding, according to the level of service required.

 

Also, it should be noted that the school does not automatically receive funding from the Ministry of Education for all special-needs students. Only certain types of special needs are funded by the Ministry. To find out more about these specialized services, visit the BC Ministry of Education website.

 

To find out about the different types of designations used in the education system, visit the CSF website.