My husband, myself and my son first visited this particular international school back in June 2010 (http://humbledmum-myjourney.blogspot.com/2010/06/visit-to-international-school.html), having heard good things about it from another mother of a special needs boy.
Fast forward a few months to November. That same friend drops by on the off chance I'm home. She urges me to quickly submit the application form for registering my son. She heard from another parent there that there was already a waiting list.
I panicked. I scrambled to get things in order. Luckily, it wasn't the school holidays yet and he was attending class without me, thus enabling me to see to this matter.
You see, completing the application form is no simple task that can be completed in an hour or two. The form itself is 28 pages long. Among other things, it requires both parents to submit a Curriculm Vitae covering education and employment history. That was one of the easiest documents to attach to the form. The rest of the documents requested required more effort.
A recommendation letter from a non-related parent with a child currently enrolled in the school, was required. No big deal? Well, that friend of mine is super busy stay at home mum with 3 kids and no helper. She's very involved with her special needs son, and my request for her help came at a bad time. She was stressed out preparing her special needs son for the term exams. Both of us didnt know what to write in the letter. I'm thankful to her that she not only slotted in time to come up with the letter, but also the words that I think are able to touch the heart of the principal.
A doctor was required to fill in his medical history of vaccinations, and conduct a medical examination based on their check list. My son's paeditrician is a very busy doctor and you will usually need to book appointments one month in advance. I didn't have the luxury of waiting a month, so we went in one afternoon as a walk in patient, and waited and waited and waited.
Being a special needs kid, there were additional documents required. The check list for special needs kid was simple enough to fill. But I needed time to get reports from his speech therapist, his physiotherapist, and a detailed report from his kindergarten. I spent many more hours over several days getting those reports, so I was kinda busy while he was in school, on top of the other stuff I had to see to.
I wasted a few hours struggling over drafting my son's kindergarten report (yeah, I was asked to draft my son's report). Thankfully I subsequently remembered that many months ago, I had downloaded a very detailed assessment guide (UK's Early Foundation Years Assessment Guide) and got going. After 4 more hours, I ended up with a detailed 4 page report for his kindergarten teacher to review!
My advice to other parents of special needs kids who are planning to register their child in a private/international school, is to get the paperwork started early!
That was just the part on getting the application form ready. There's another long story on attempting to submit the form, and then to get an appointment to meet the principal. Even though there have been mini road blocks along the way, I believe it is worth, just to get the chance to get him into that school.
Note that from the school's viewpoint, that was just Stage 1 - Submitting the application form. I'll now have to wait until July to be called for my son to be assessed by their teachers. I had sent a prayer request to a few friends on this schooling matter, as it is a major worry for us.
The big worry is: what happens if he doesnt get through the assessment? It was only in the last few days of Dec 2010 that I found out from another parent that another international school (that is also far from home) accepts special needs kids with shadow aides. Realising that it was also affordable (a fraction of the more popular international schools), I went there last week to place him on the waiting list.
This back up plan doesnt provide any guarantees. In fact, it may be harder to get into this second school as it is a lot more popular (modern, more facilities, spacious, more reasonable fees) with a long waiting list. That school has as it's preference: non-Malaysians; existing students from it's other schools within the group; siblings of existing students; or resident of the housing estate in which the school is in. We're non of the above, and to top it off, he has a mild disability. Not much that I can do, apart from praying! God will make a way!
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