“ School Center for Inclusive Education, “Delfinul”, Constanta, Romania ” The activity of our school begins fifty years ago, under the name of Special School no. 1, Constanta. We are a public school in charge with the education and therapy of the children with mental and associated disabilities as autism, Down syndrome, visual disabilities. We are trying to make a difference in the education and life of almost 250 children (age 4 – 18) with disabilities and their families.

During the years, we were able to extend our educational offers, and now our goals are: Provide high quality education and care for all the children in a safe, structured and appropriately stimulating environment. Deliver a full, broad, balanced and relevant curriculum set within the National Priorities for Education in Romania. Enable children and young people to achieve their potential and develop the greatest degree of independence, social competence and communication as possible.

We seek to enrich the learning of the children by capitalizing on their interests as well as expanding their understanding of the world around them, using rewarding experiences and motivating activities. In providing an effective learning environment we recognize that all of the children have a range of abilities and learning needs. Therefore, we take account of their diverse characteristics in the planning and design of the curriculum and in the delivery of learning and teaching.

Our activity Children spend 8 hours in our school centre, organized as following: in the morning, they have learning activities in small groups of children) and specific therapy activities (individually) (speech and communication therapy, physical therapy); In the afternoon, they have play therapy, art therapy, music therapy and activities for independent life abilities.

Our resources We have trained teachers and therapists for all our educational and therapeutical activities; We have classrooms, rooms for speech therapy, gymnasium, rooms for physical therapy, play therapy room, art therapy room.

Structured Educational Space This year, we managed to have two classrooms ready for using TEACCH method. We had to adapt this method in order to respect the national requests for special education. The children are in preparatory grade and in first grade, and most of them are children with autistic syndrome. We are focusing on all our beneficiaries but our main priority is early educational intervention.

Summer school In order to reduce the challenging behavior we are facing and to prevent loosing the abilities that our children gained during the school year, this summer we had a summer school. After the summer school, we noticed that, in autumn, when they returned to school the time needed to readapt to the school environment was shorter. We consider that this fact is due to the summer therapeutical activities we organize.

Partnership school - family We consider families our allies in the therapeutic process and we try to have a close and efficient relationship with the families of the children that learn in our school.