ASN+Case+Study

**ASN case study GZ**

Most of the high schools in the Czech Republic don’t have a special needs department (unlike for example AHS) but there are special schools for ASN pupils (for those with severe disabilities). This obviously has significant disadvantages for both ASN students and students from other types of high schools.

Since GZ is a school that accepts only students with the highest scores achieved in the entrance exam, people with special needs wouldn’t usually choose to go to gymnasium type of high school. If they do choose to go to a gymnasium there are special conditions for them during:


 * The entrance exam (e.g. more time for students with dyslexia)
 * The whole time in high school (see below)

**__Personalisation of curriculum__**

In the Czech Republic **it is the law** that parents of a child with additional support needs of any kind have to inform the school about their child’s disability so that there is appropriate support available. This allows the school to shape the curriculum and also assessment so that it suits the pupil’s needs.

In GZ there are two groups of ASN students:
 * Students with physical disabilities (those are provided with personalised study plan and also special equipment)
 * Students with mental disabilities (e.g. dyslexia, ADHD, autism or any kind of syndrome and those don’t have personalised study plans but only special conditions)

Although the teachers are informed about the students’ disabilities they don’t get any special courses, lectures or training. Some of the teachers admitted that they wouldn’t know how to teach an ASN pupil and also that there wouldn’t be enough time for that in a class of 30 (which is not unusual at GZ).

**__ASN Technology__**

GZ has never had a student on a wheelchair although the whole school is wheelchair accessible thanks to specially designed corridors (this was able thanks to recent reconstruction of the school), lifts and a special platform.

**__Conclusion__**

Although gymnasium is not tailored to suit ASN pupils, we found some good examples of pupil support and some good effort in improving conditions for ASN pupils. Due to the fact that there aren’t many examples of ASN in GZ we didn’t get to carry out as much research on this topic as we would like to. Luckily we managed to speak to some students who all agreed that there is not much support for those why may be struggling due to their social or home problems.