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Anyone who has ever visited a school for children suffering from autism
will know it sounds very different from any other school. It is largely
silent, punctuated occasionally by voices of distress and sometimes
sounds of unbridled enthusiasm. Usually these schools, which cater to a
small number of students, are in old buildings which have been adapted
to their current use, but are rarely well-suited to the purpose.
The Benjamin Rothman Kadoorie School is one of the few purpose-built
schools anywhere in the world for students on the autism spectrum
and it shows nearly immediately upon entering. The soft surfaces,
the symbols and shades of color, and inside the classrooms the
combination of both shared spaces and individual ones, which are all
designed to ensure the students have a familiar environment and room
to develop with increasing confidence, at their own pace. The regular
classrooms have adjacent rest areas, to enable children who need to
spend time on their own, a comfortable and soothing place. As life-skills
is an integral part of the curriculum, all the classrooms include fully-
equipped kitchens where they can prepare and eat meals and snacks.
In addition to the classrooms, there are treatment and physiotherapy
rooms, a computer lab, a music roomwith a wide range of instruments
and a school gymnasiumwhich functions also as the school’s assembly
hall. The school also boasts a Snoezlen – a room that contains a wide
variety of lights and instruments which create a controlled multisensory
environment. The Snoezlen approach, which was developed in the
Netherlands, has been found to be very useful in helping children with
autism come to terms with outside stimulation that can often be highly
distressing to them.
The environment outside the main building has also been carefully
planned, with sports and games structures specifically designed for
the children’s capabilities and an outside rest-area which includes
a comfortable hammock overlooking the Tabor mountainside. On
the second-floor of the school there is a fully-equipped replica of a
residential apartment, where the students, especially those who are
in their last years before graduation (young adults with autism remain
in school until the age of 21), can practice the skills they will need for
independent lives in the community.
Michal Neilinger, teacher of the older class, says that the entire school
“was designed with a different outlook than a regular school, to be a
very accepting and reassuring environment and one that contains as
few surprises as possible. It allows us to make it clear to the students
that while there are rules, each of them is accepted and understood, no
matter what their situation and where they have come from. We have
Jewish, Arab and Circassian students, as well as those from religious
and secular homes. They can all feel part of what we do here”.
The Benjamin Rothman
Kadoorie School is one of the
few purpose-built schools
anywhere in the world for
students on the autism
spectrum, designed to ensure
the students have a familiar
environment and room to
develop with increasing
confidence, at their own pace.
A unique
environment