Sayuri Kandachi
Chief Teacher
Tokyo Metropolitan Fuchu Keyakinomori Gakuen

As a school functioning as a regional support center in Fuchu City, our school supports the promotion of local special needs education.  Here, I would like to introduce some of the initiatives that our school has carried out in collaboration with Fuchu City.

Support for Teachers in Elementary and Junior High Schools

[Itinerant Consultation]

We provide support in response to requests from nursery schools, kindergartens, elementary and junior high schools.  Our teachers observe their classes and give advice on improving their contents and methods of teaching.

[Seminars]

At seminars on special needs education hosted by Fuchu City and elementary and junior high schools, our teachers serve as lecturers on topics such as “An Overview of Schools for Special Needs Education” and “Recommended Activities that Promote Independence” upon request.

Our school also holds open seminars and seminars on teaching materials relevant to special needs education.  Every year, many teachers from local nursery schools, kindergartens, elementary and junior high schools participate in these seminars.  From the appearances and comments of the participating teachers, I believe that understanding on special needs education has gradually deepened.

[Collaboration with Neighboring Schools for Special Needs Education and the Board of Education]

We are building an area network collaboration with the Chofu School for Special Needs Education in neighboring Chofu City.  The Chofu School and our school belong to the same school district.  The boards of education of the four cities (Fuchu, Chofu, Komae and Mitaka Cities), which are the school districts our two schools belong to, and the schools for the blind, deaf, health impairments, persons with intellectual and orthopedic disabilities in the same four cities (eight schools in total) regularly hold liaison meetings to exchange information and opinions on the endeavors of each city government and the schools for special needs education.  In addition, the eight special schools issued pamphlets that disseminate information on the special needs education support available to the community.  We distribute the pamphlets to nursery schools, kindergartens, elementary and junior high schools to provide information on the network that offers various types of support.

Support for People in the Community

[Consultation]

We provide consultations on the telephone and at school relating to special needs education, schools that provide such education, enrollment, school transfers, and other concerns for the residents of the community.

[Information Dissemination]

At the “Meeting on School Enrollment” hosted by Fuchu City, we give information about schools for special needs education to parents who have preschool children.  For the parents who wish to enroll their children in our school, we offer them a school tour and let their children experience attending classes as part of our school consultation services in collaboration with the city’s School Enrollment Consultation Office.  We ensure that parents are provided with sufficient and accurate information necessary to consider the school their children should attend.

Other Services

[Promotion of Secondary Registration System]

The Secondary Registration System is a system in which children/students enrolled in the elementary and junior high departments of Tokyo metropolitan schools for special needs education have secondary enrollments in the municipal elementary or junior high schools in the area where they live, aiming to create and maintain the ties with the people in the same community through direct/indirect interactions.  At a pre-meeting to discuss direct interactions attended by the child, parents, homeroom teacher of the elementary/junior high school in which the child has secondary registration, our school’s special needs education coordinator (hereinafter referred to as “coordinator”) shall also be present to help reach a consensus on the purpose and content of the interactions.  Before the actual interactions, our coordinator shall visit the relevant elementary/junior high schools to explain to the students about schools for special needs education and about the student with whom they will interact in an easy-to-understand manner.  Thus, they become more active in interacting with the concerned student from the school for special needs education as they become more familiar with him/her.  This helps to reassure the child and his/her parents.

At present, the rate of implementation of direct interactions in junior high schools is considerably low as compared with that in elementary schools.  Our future task is to enhance our support for junior high school students so that the students in schools for special needs education and students from other local schools in the community may engage in meaningful interactions with each other.