Children with special needs School and specialised establishments education / health

THE OLIVE TREE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL
Maison Dauphine, Route de Valensole
Tel +33 (0)4 92 74 33 29  

Description
The Olive Tree International School has been developed as a direct and personal response to the difficulty faced by a number of students in International education here in the South of France. Its aims and objectives are:

- To give students with specific learning difficulties the opportunity to learn, develop and succeed in a small school environment designed exclusively around their learning preference and needs.
- To provide a much needed and essential compliment to the range of educational services currently available to the International community in the South of France
- To balance academic progress with the development of self esteem and confidence.
- To foster the values of cooperation, service, commitment and respect.
- To combine specialist expertise, research findings and examples of best practice in International Education to serve the real educational needs of our students.

It is a small specialised school integrating the very best in experiential and brain based learning to meet the educational needs of dyslexic students. A Critical Skills Programme School. Modified British National Curriculum.

The school is located in Quinson in the heart of the Verdon Regional Natural Park just over an hour and a half from Nice.

Places are available on a boarding basis for children aged 11 to 16 years, with a weekly bus service transporting students from the Côte d'Azur, leaving on a Monday morning and returning them on Friday afternoons.

BESOINS EDUCATIFS SPECIFIQUES/LEARNING DIFFUCULTIES

Description
How to recognise a child with special needs/learning difficulties?
The term special needs in this case refers to children with physical, mental or sensory difficulties and those who find it hard to adapt to normal school life such as exceptionally gifted children or those who are ill.

How does the school system work for children with learning difficulties?
The current aim of the French National Education systems is to help children with special needs to enter main stream schools. The decision whether children will integrate into primary, middle and high school or go to a special school will be made after having run through various procedures and after having had an individual learning program set up.

Handiscol is the name given to the schooling of children with learning difficulties by the French government.

This service is open to families of children with learning difficulties, who are often confronted with problems concerning the education of their children, and teachers who are in contact with these children and teenagers.

The Handiscol telephone number is: 0 810 55 55 01 (the price of a local call).

For further information about Handiscol and the below points, you can look at the following internet site: http://www.education.gouv.fr/handiscol
- general information about the education system for children with learning difficulties,
- official texts
- statistics
- resources (guides, reports, academic contacts, useful contacts, key of symbols)