Základní škola Zahrádka - Zahrádka Primary School.

The Zahrádka Primary School (Zahrádka = “Little Garden”) is a special education school for pupils with multiple handicaps.

The Zahrádka Primary School (Zahrádka = “little garden”) is a special education school for children with serious multiple handicaps and autism spectrum disorders. The school was founded in 1997 in order to meet the educational needs of the clients of the Zahrada Integration Center, with which the school shares a building and closely collaborates.  

The school has room for 36 pupils in five classes – four rehabilitation classes and one specialized class for pupils with autism spectrum disorders. All pupils are taught on the basis of an individual education plan, which is created with a view towards our School Education Program. This binding document lays out the school’s overall education objectives and also describes all its activities and methods and the diverse range of therapies and alternative approaches applied during teaching.

Our special education activities are based on an individual approach with the aim of inculcating the basic skills, knowledge, and habits (communication skills, working habits, self-care, motor skills, etc.) that will give the pupils a certain level of independence. Since the 2012/2013 school year, this individual work has been supplemented by instruction in small groups, with a focus on expanding the pupils’ social skills.

The educational program further includes the development of visual skills, speech therapy, alternative communication techniques, physical therapy, ergotherapy, bazal stimulation, canine therapy, hippotherapy, resonance therapy on a "harmonizing bed", snoezelen, aquatherapy, music, art, and more.  

 The school year is enlivened through field trips, outdoor education camps, theatre performances, celebrations, singing together, and garden parties. The school’s teachers also organize various seminars and workshops, work with student interns, and participate in presentations of the school. The school also hosts meetings for parents of girls with Rett syndrome, for whom (and the general public) we have created a publication on this disorder in both Czech and English (published in 2005 and 2007, respectively).

In the interest of ensuring that the school’s educational activities are as effective as possible, we work closely with parents, the Sluneční zahrada and Sluneční domov parents’ associations, the Rett Community civic association, special education centers, the Association for Augmentative and Alternative Communication, the Motol Visual Impairment Center, the Association Helping People with Autism, and numerous other entities.

In their teaching activities, our teachers focus not only on the children’s performance, but primarily on what they experience and take in, what motivates them, what they enjoy and find interesting, and how they communicate. From this combination, the teachers’ special education work becomes a unique and personalized process of interaction.  

Dagmar Rosecká, director