Simon Antal Primary School, Student Home, Children’s Home

 

 

The school opened its doors in 1971 as an Auxiliary School for Children with Hearing Problems offering accomodation for one hundred inmates. This was the first institution in Hungary established for teaching mentally deficient children hard of hearing.

 

From September, 1988 the institution’s profile was extended to include mentally healthy children with problems of speaking, reading or understanding the spoken language or written texts. At present, this section deals with pupils from the preparatory classes to the fourth grade of the primary school and offers education, special education, health service, training and rehabilitation for handicapped children. Our aim is to train children with speech disorders so as to make them capable of reintegrating into normal classes in their original place of residence.

 

Our institution deals with the habilitation and rehabilitation of children with complex problems (mental deficiency plus hearing problems), moderately mentally handicapped, and autistic children.

 

Today the student home houses one hundred and forty children in rooms with four beds each. The education of those with complex problems and speech disorders and of those living in the student home takes place in different buildings. Our temporary children’s home houses twenty children.

 

The student home aims to replace the family for the children and offers social welfare as well as physical and emotional security for them. Those with complex problems learn basic learning and communicational skills, social behaviour, self-reliance, self-service, working abilities, and interoperability.

 

The section for children with speech defects aims to correct this deficiency and problems with reading, writing, and calculation, and to prevent or compensate secondary problems. Besides learning the normal curriculum of their respective classes, these children continuously receive special education and speech therapy.

 

Our institution creates a relaxed and calm atmosphere for its activities for both children and adults, based on mutual trust, acceptance and pedagogical activities that rest on the observance of the special needs of these children both as groups and as individuals, forming a unified and structured system.

 

Our team consists of special teachers, speech therapists, counsellors, teachers, phychologists, medical specialists, nurses, and physiotherapists. Our well-equipped gym for adapted physical education houses a time-honoured programme of sensorimotor therapy. In warm weather an outdoor swimming-bath serves the instruction of swimming. In winter we take our pupils to the public baths to swim. In the web-lab pupils can learn to use computers on a basic level.

 

Pupils are admitted on recommendation by competent expert committees.