Learning Support in Secondary
We employ a student-centric Learning Support policy at The International School of The Hague. This means that the student's needs are at the forefront of any support given, and any learning plans made. We have a dedicated Learning Support Team made up of highly qualified Learning Support Specialists.
If your child is under their care they will continually review the support they need, to make sure the your children are as supported as they can be within the context of our school.
If I can't learn the way you teach, will you teach me the way I learn?
- Ignacio Estrada
Philosophy and Guiding Principles
As part of Student Support Services at ISH, the Learning Support Team believes, “it’s not where you start, it’s where you finish that counts.”
The Learning Support department at ISH upholds the principles of a balanced education rooted in the firm belief - a model of inclusion that embraces curiosity, relationships and compassion. Academic excellence is reflected in our philosophy of supporting and celebrating the diversity of learning needs within our international community.
We look at the whole child in developing strategies and evidenced-based practices in meeting the unique and diverse learning needs of the students we serve. We strive for excellence with high expectations and equally high support. Our aim is to inspire personal excellence in our strong and diverse community.
Types of services provided
- We utilise a multi-tiered approach to intervention based on the specific learning needs of individual students.
- Classroom observations and teacher consultations on differentiations, scaffolding, and a continuum of positive behavioural supports to increase student engagement.
- In-class supports through parallel teaching to increase student accessibility and curriculum engagement.
- Specialised student workshops on Executive Functions, Study Skills, and Attention/Focus and Prioritizing.
- Teacher weekly drop-in supports in our Learning Centre in room A218.
- Student individual and small group explicit instruction in the foundational literacy areas of written language, spelling, reading, mathematics, and organisational study skills.
- In-class math supports through a Co-Teaching model.
- Restorative practices through mentor class connection circles and relationship repair circles.
- Dyslexia and specific language evidenced-based interventions and supports.
- Facilitating liaison between ISH Families and Outside Agencies for their services including Psycho-Educational Assessments Educational Psychologists
- Removing barriers to ensure accessibility to our curricula.
Guiding Principles:
- Empowering our students and staff with differentiation strategies and tools for increasing student access and engagement to curriculum and assessments by identifying and removing barriers.
- An inclusive learning community, inspiring international-mindedness, personal excellence, creative thinking and resiliency development.
- To ensure that all students, including those with specialised needs, have full and equal access to a broad and balanced curriculum in an inclusive environment that delivers high quality opportunities for learning at all levels of attainment.
- To ensure that all students are valued equally, regardless of their ability, and have their needs met through an appropriate level of support provision.
- To ensure that our focus is on the whole child, seeing individual differences not as problems to be fixed, but as opportunities for enriched learning.
- To identify and assess the needs of students promptly, implementing and monitoring inclusive practices to meet their needs efficiently, and to provide appropriate educational plan for these students.
- To ensure differentiation becomes an integral part of each teacher’s curriculum planning as differentiation can help learners access the content at an appropriate level through a variety of resources.
- To promote the use of differentiated instruction through identifying a student’s learning style, scaffolding their learning and differentiating the curriculum in order to develop the student’s full potential.
- To work collaboratively with class teachers to develop appropriate programs for teaching and learning for all students.
- To ensure that parents and students are seen as partners and their views form part of any decision-making process.
- Ongoing Professional Development
- Providing Professional Development of Best Practices to the ISH Community
The Secondary Learning Support Team
Dilfuza Adilova
Ruti Asa
Annabelle Lilly
Ellie Loizou
Gina Maxwell-Fraser
Roda Odari
Jayne Pessia
Kristina Trbuk
About the Learning Support Team
This department has diverse qualifications in meeting the needs of a diverse population, not limited to but including Literacy and Dyslexia Support, Dyscalculia support, Support for students on the Autism Spectrum, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Children with Attention Deficiency Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), attentive and inattentive and other attentional challenges.
We also address Executive Functioning Skills, Self-advocacy skills, Proactive Restorative Practises including Connection Circles, Social/Emotional and Behavioural Interventions such as Positive Behavioural Interventions and Supports (PBIS).
Collaboration
The Learning Support department works in collaboration with the Student Wellbeing department and the English as an Additional Language (EAL) department to support students and teachers in the areas of academics, behaviour, and social and emotional development. Learning Support services range from observations and consultations with staff and parents to a range of individualized and small group instruction for students with various learning needs. Our Learning Support delivery model is inspired by the philosophy of the three-tiered system of Response to Intervention model. Students are placed in one of the three levels of support range from Tier 1 being a universal intervention in which 80% of our students will fall within, and Tiers 2, & 3, in which more specialised, differentiated and explicitly taught strategies and best practices will fall.
We can teach our children to flap their wings, but conditions have to be just right for them to fly
- Annie Campbell
Parent Testimonials
"I valued the regularity and continuity of the support as an important part of the concept. The teachers are easy to address and are warmly willing to help the students wherever they can.
I highly appreciated the personal commitment of my son's LS-Teacher."
Sabrina M, mother of a Year 11 student
"For many years ‘Learning Support’ helped our son and us a lot with general advice and practical support. But the most positive fact for us was, that our contact person from LS always showed a genuine understanding of our problems and concerns. Our contact person helped us very much by indicating and showing us the positive aspects of things, which we in the first instance perceived as negative."
Dan I, father of a Year 12 student
Dutch Law on Support in Education
All students who are resident in The Netherlands have the right to access education that suits their qualities and abilities. The education provided by a school must provide them with the potential to be successful and therefore the school should try to determine before entry whether the education that is offered by the school is appropriate. Entrance to The International School of The Hague is determined by the nature of our academic programmes and the availability of the additional support that we provide.
We offer a range of support for students with additional needs, including academic, social-emotional and health - but we are not a special educational needs school.
During the Admissions process we need all available and accurate information regarding any needs the children may have, so that we are able to determine whether they will be happy and safe following our educational programmes.
In the event that we are provided with inaccurate and/or incomplete information a student’s place at the school may be jeopardised.