Modelling an inclusive school supporting hidden learning disabilities of children with atypical development

Lila.school, has applied for this project to create an educational institution that will be an inclusive school for children and young people between the ages of 10 and 18 in Vienna. It is important to us to create a place where children with typical and atypical development are taught equally. We take the aspect of inclusion very seriously. Life Labs Education founds and runs this school and needs a competent partnership, which we have found in Hungary, as we have hardly any role models to fall back on in Austria. Together with NestingPlay, a company that provides high-quality education, especially for atypical children in inclusive classrooms, we are striving to become a model school. We work side by side from the beginning and benefit from the wealth of experience of methodological resources, materials and guidelines. In this way, we address the needs of parents who want children with hidden learning difficulties to be cared for in a loving, healthy learning environment. We make the knowledge we have acquired available to all interested educational institutions that are embarking on the path of inclusive education.

On the one hand, we wanted to show that inclusion is possible and, on the other, to create valuable documentation that is useful for other organizations. The number of children with developmental delays, learning difficulties and behavioral problems has increased, especially since the pandemic, but the political response to this has tended to decrease, causing teachers and parents to despair. Teacher shortages, classes that are too large and hardly any further training opportunities in the area of inclusion. It's a downward spiral that we want to counteract. Through our project, we want to pass on our expertise and act as a model school by training our teachers and preparing them in the best possible way to deal with atypical children. We want to give these children and young people a protected space to develop and flourish.

Together with NestingPlay, we carried out all the comprehensive activities that we mentioned in the concept. The training of the learning guides, the workshops with the parents who came to lila.school and learning group experiences with the students of lila.school. In addition, we have created some documentation that is intended for publication and has been distributed via social media and channels. We have organized regular parents' evenings and founded a new label: "Bildungsallianz", which invites to meetings with entrepreneurs and politicians and all interested parties to deal with the topic of education and financing. We have participated in public discussions to present our focus and raise awareness of the issue of inclusion. We have published our numerous activities, led by NestingPlay, with our students in a photo/storybook and encourage them to use the city's nature and cultural opportunities to make educational topics more tangible. We have created admission criteria and developed a questionnaire for teachers to clarify the support services required in advance and to clarify the existing knowledge and experience of teaching staff.

Learning guides: We have people from a wide variety of backgrounds and training. Through the training provided by NestingPlay, we developed a common language and drew up common rules on how to deal with our students. Over time, it became clear that we were increasingly able to deal with problems independently and find our own solutions. Parents: The training for parents has shown that problem discussions have decreased and openness has increased. This also had a positive effect on the children's group behavior. The understanding and acceptance of each individual increased over time and this led to honest communication. The play and learning units with the pupils developed a group feeling among each other and friendships were formed. Through visibility on social media, we reached out to groups and clubs that we didn't know before. Homeschoolers and social clubs that were sought out by desperate parents contacted us. We became a point of contact and were able to advise and help. Through our participation in public discussions, entrepreneurs became aware of us and asked how they could support us. This gave rise to the idea of the education alliance, which raises awareness and asks for financial help for the future of lila.school.