CS Daily─HKCS Survey: 20% Primary SEN Children with High Pressure Refused Classes
HKCS surveyed on 'Social and Emotional Support for SEN Children Adapting to Primary School' this year, interviewing 347 parents of children with special educational needs (SEN) and 158 professionals serving SEN children.
The survey found that SEN children moving up to primary school faced very high pressure to learn and refused to go to school. We also found that the higher the social-emotional skills of SEN children, the better their academic performance and the lower the pressure of learning and parental care. The survey was widely reported by the media, and drew public attention to the difficulties faced by SEN children in adapting to primary schools.
We, therefore, recommend that the government, schools, and pre-school rehabilitation services strengthen social and emotional support in the primary school adaptation programmes and establish parents’ training and mutual support group to facilitate communication with schools.
Funded by the Woven Charitable Foundation, we have launched a programme called 'Social & Emotional Support for P1 Adaptation of SEN Students', which is specifically designed to provide social and emotional support to SEN children and their parents as they move up to primary school, to help them effectively manage their emotions and interact with other people. It also introduces the CASEL Theory on social and emotional education. We have already produced and distributed 5,000 copies of the home learning kits to SEN children in K3 to Primary 2 and their families. We hope to walk with them on their way to primary school.'
