"Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best."
~ Henry Van Dyke ~
Academy of Teacher Excellence News
Academy for Teacher Excellence recently graduated the fifth batch of Special Educators. The Sixth batch of the course
“Diploma in Special Education” commenced on 28th June 2006.
In recent times, there has been a sharp increase in the number of Special Children requiring intervention from trained
professionals to develop their Speech and Communication Skills. This is more so in the case of children with Developmental
Delay or who are in the Autistic Spectrum.
To counter this desperate need, the academy is now offering a Diploma course for interested graduates. The course appropriately
called “Diploma in Childhood Speech and Language Intervention”, provides both Practical and Theoretical knowledge of
Speech and Communication, with internship to hone their skills. Students will receive field training in special schools under
the structured supervision of a field supervisor.
Kaleidoscope Learning Center (KLC) News
School started with much excitement after the summer break and it did strangely appear that children were ‘happy to be
home’. KLC welcomes four new teachers - Banu, Archana, Bharathi, and Shyamala and ten new children.
The Founders Day on the 9th of June had all the children of KLC making a huge collage called ‘KLC is 4’ with the help of
young friends from the Visual Communication Department of MOP Vaishnav College who gave finishing touches to the mural.
A big thank you to them.
The Parents’ Orientation was held on the 8th and Student Information sheets were filled up by parents and new social and
behavior checklists as part of the new students intake was conducted over the next few days.
Classes were set up, timetables and individual schedules made and a lot more documentation has been introduced this year.
This month has been an observation and assessment month to collect data for the baseline for each child.
The Prevocational classes saw the opening of ‘Pots and Pans’ and the ‘Tuck Shop’ on Friday, 30th June. Mr. S. & Mrs. Maya
Hariharan were the benefactor couple who donated the gleaming kitchen for our children to learn their independent life skills
in a beautifully set up kitchen. KLC would like to thank them for all their support.
V-Excel Remedial Center (VRC) News
The new academic year began with enthusiasm for all the children, teachers and parents of VRC.
Most of our children remained with us through the summer, and those who took a break started trickling in slowly by end
May. By first week we were full up and teeming again. The morning group children came back on 5th and started the new academic
year with Sasirekha, Prabhu and Venkat.
Three teachers from our Adyar center have taken on the RCI bridge course at Vidyasagar, Chennai. This will facilitate them
to get the required certification to work with children with special needs.
The year’s ‘Teachers Enrichment Program’ started off with a workshop on sharing of experiences by our teachers and therapists.
We intend to work towards:
better understanding of our children
deepening of our knowledge base
improvement of effectiveness of our teaching
the focus for the upcoming academic year.
We are in the process of making the IEP’s for our children. July will see the vigorous implementation of the plans.
Bridges Learning Academy
The start of the year has been exciting for BLA. There have been a lot of changes with new staff and lots of new children.
The family has grown!
There are now very clear academic classes and one vocational stream. The three primary sections, have been divided into
early academic skills, the pre-reading and writing stage where they work more with concrete activities and the higher
primary class, which does academics with remediation. The middle sections, of which there are again three, have two clear
academic streams and one vocational stream.
The NIOS section is back with the older boys diligently preparing for their exam. The results were out in June and the
boys who had attempted their papers last April did very well.
BLA had a parent orientation this month: the response of the parents has been very good and they have been very cooperative
with the school policies. BLA was working half days in June primarily because of student assessments. This has helped in
grouping children in classes that are as homogeneous as possible. Full days start again in July and there are plans to start
the art, dance, music and a whole lot of group sessions that will be beneficial for the children.
V-Excel Outreach Program
The V-Excel Outreach program has witnessed tremendous progress during the last few months. With the support of SSA, nine
full-fledged resource rooms have been set up in all the blocks that we service at Villupuram. Physiotherapy facilities
for physically challenged children have also been created in all the resource rooms. Every day 30-40 special children are
drawing benefits from the resource rooms.
Play-parks have been installed in six blocks to develop the gross motor skills of the special kids.
During the summer vacation, the special educators undertook home visitations and rendered remedial services.
Contact Info :: India:
V-Excel Educational Trust
#1 Norton 2nd Street
Mandaveli Chennai 600 028
Tel: 91 - 44 - 24620243
91 - 44 – 24956373 E-mail us or visit us at www.v-excel.org
Contact Info :: USA:
Academic Concepts, Inc.
1403 Merrywood Drive
Edison, NJ 08817
Tel: (732) 572-3748
Tax ID: 22-3632715 E-mail us
Volunteer Info:
Volunteers are an integral part of our success. Our most pressing needs are in the areas of occupational and speech therapies, and
as teacher aides. We also require assistance in library management.
If you have any of these and are interested in volunteering at V-Excel, please contact us.
Inclusion
Is
• A philosophy built on the belief that all people are equal and should be respected and valued, as an issue of basic human rights.
• An ‘unending set of processes in which children and adults with disabilities have the opportunity to participate fully
in ALL community activities offered to people who do not have disabilities.
Means
• Educating children with disabilities in the schools they would attend if they did not have disabilities
• Providing support and services that parents and children with disabilities need in order to be in normal settings
• Support regular education teachers and administrators
• Having children with disabilities follow same schedule as other children
• Encouraging friendships between children with disabilities and their classmates/ peers without disabilities
• Teachers and administrators taking these concerns seriously
• Teaching ALL children to understand and accept differences
UNESCO, Center for Human Rights, Geneva.
