PRIVATE SPECIAL AND TUTORIAL SCHOOL

New Hope

Private Special & Tutorial SchoolThe New Hope Private Special School was

founded in 1992.

• First Private Special School in Cyprus approved by the

Ministry of Education and Culture under the Education

Act 47/1979.

• First school outside UK to join the Council for the

Registration of Schools Teaching Dyslexia (CreSTeD) in

1995, as a category A School.

• Corporate member of the British Dyslexia Association

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New Hope

Private Special & Tutorial School

It provides Greek and English education to

children aged 4 – 21 with special needs such as

mild and moderate mental retardation, learning

difficulties, (dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, ADD,

ADHD), behaviour disorders, speech impairment.

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New Hope

Private Special & Tutorial School

The school’s philosophy is to provide appropriate education according to each child’s individual needs, in the least restrictive environment. Each child in the school has the opportunity to strive for an existence as close to normal as possible, by making available to him/her patterns and conditions of everyday life which are as close as possible to norms and patterns of the mainstream society.

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New Hope

Private Special & Tutorial School

The New Hope Private Tutorial School is

approved by the Ministry of Education and Culture

and is renowned in Cyprus and the Middle East as

a leading force in the field of learning disabilities.

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New Hope

Private Special & Tutorial School

New Hope’s Tutorial School provides highly teamed diagnostic prescriptive teaching, in order to meet each student’s needs. Students can receive remediation in all academic areas such as reading, spelling, composition, maths, geography, history, science and computer literacy, as well as assistance in learning study skills and models of organisation so that they can effectively complete academic work. The Tutorial School caters for students of ages 4 – 21+.

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New Hope

Summer School

The New Hope Summer School runs every year

from the last Monday of June to the last Friday of

July. During the Summer School emphasis is given

to fun activities such as basketball, volleyball,

football, table tennis, art and swimming among

others, but at the same time is tailor-made to suit

each child's individual educational needs.

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New Hope

Summer School

Educational programs include preparation for the next academic year, preparation for the September re-sit exams, Dyslexia teaching programs, English classes, etc.

Children and their parents can choose from a variety of programs of any length of time between one week and the full duration of the Summer School which is five weeks.

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New Hope

Summer School

In 2011 a Residential Summer School will also run

in conjunction with the normal Summer School.

This will focus on children and/or adults requiring

short 1 or 2 week courses for English Language

and/or dyslexia.

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Staff

The staffing complement consists of professional

teachers, psychologists, speech pathologist,

physiotherapist and administrative personnel, all

approved by the Ministry of Education and

Culture. The professional personnel are trained to

teach the types of students in class. A variety of

teaching styles, to accommodate the different

needs of students, is offered.

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Assessments

Assessments are carried out to identify the nature and the degree of the specific disability in order to offer appropriately tailored education to the needs of each child. Students are assessed in all areas related to disability by a multi-disciplinary team. The total team evaluation is oriented to planning appropriate instruction rather than in pinning a diagnostic label to the child.

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Programs

New Hope school provides academic enrichment

and skill development for students interested in

addressing specific academic and social skill

needs or maintaining progress achieved over the

preceding academic year.

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Academics

The New Hope Academic Program is a

challenging and stimulating learning environment

which provides students with the opportunity to

improve their academic skills. With an average

class size of five students and individual attention

from teachers, students achieve success in areas

they never thought possible. The 5:1 student-to-

teacher ratio ensures that attention is focused

and productivity is maximised.

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Academics

Teachers use multi-sensory strategies to teach

students with different learning styles. Classes

such as English Language, Creative Writing,

Arithmetic, Study Skills, Forward to Literacy,

Recreational Program, enable students to

develop and enhance their skills.

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Writing composition

Students are offered a wide variety of

opportunities to improve their oral and written

communication skills. Weekly activities for

students involve vocabulary development,

spelling, grammar, capitalisation and punctuation,

as needed. Peer and teacher conferencing is a

part of writing process.

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Study skills course

This course focuses on building confidence in

the classroom, by encouraging students to utilise

organisation, communication, patience and

creativity to elevate academic achievement. A

combination of the following topics will facilitate

the coursework: organisational skills, writing

skills, spelling, reading proficiency, class

participation, test preparation and test taking,

word problems, research, reports (speech), note

taking, and studying outside the class.

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Reading and Literature

Students will learn strategies for decoding, as

well as listening and reading comprehension. The

reading curriculum at New Hope is a balanced

approach to teaching students with learning

differences. In conjunction with the teaching of

literature, students are exposed to many

language experiences and activities while still

being directly instructed in learning to decode and

encode unfamiliar words.

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Reading and Literature

All students during the course are exposed to the

process writers go through to arrive at polished

work through the use of writing, including topic

sentences with supporting details, introductions

and concluding paragraphs, sentence structure

and research and organisation of information and

data.

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English Language Course

• The English Language program offers students

training for Beginners, Lower Intermediate and

Upper Intermediate levels. Daily five-hour classes

are devoted to:

• Reading

• Spelling

• Handwriting skills

• Written expression

• Comprehension

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English Language Course

New Hope is an approved examination centre

(Centre Code CYPR1004) for EDI JETSET ESOL

International Qualifications

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Computers

• Computers are important tool for the students

who have spelling and expressive writing

difficulties. New Hope recognises this and

provides not only a computer lab-room but all

classrooms are equipped with a PC. All

computers are connected to the internet and all

have available a diverse range of software in

dealing with specific areas of learning at all

levels.

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Computers

• Students use the computers for a variety of

reasons during their selected course including:

• To learn keyboard skills (taught in the language tutorials and

writing classes)

• To use appropriate speech-to-text technology to assist them

with reading and expressive writing

• To practise maths facts

• To encourage students to use the internet for research

projects in different classes

• For other problem solving endeavours

• To compose, edit, revise a creative story

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LiFLexiA©

As a part of the English language course, students

are offered sessions on the LiFlexiA© methodology

to improve their spelling, reading and writing skills.

This pioneer multi-sensory method attempts to

match teaching to learning style and increases the

individual’s performance skills.

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LiFLexiA©

LiFLexia© - Light Flow Lexical Approach: A

pioneer approach for the development of writing,

reading and spelling skills of dyslexic students.

Developed in-house by Dr Eleni Rossides and

designed to:

- Remedy disorders of writing, reading and spelling

- meet the needs of pupils of varying levels of ability

- apply to individuals or small groups

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LiFLexiA©

LiFLexia© was created due to the growing

awareness that a number of pupils have not been

making the expected progress in reading and

writing skills despite their obvious intellectual

capacity. Some of these pupils have come to be

known as “language disabled” or “dyslexics”.

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LiFLexiA©

LiFLexia© is based on a structured phonetic

linguistic approach and it can be used with children

from 6 to 18+ years of age. It is designed to enable

specialist teachers to improve the cognitive

weaknesses of children with Specific Learning

Difficulties in the following areas:

- Visual memory

- Auditory Memory

- Phonological awareness

- Auditory discrimination

- Automized naming

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LiFLexiA©

It is an important tool for students with reading

and spelling difficulties. Through the use of

LiFLexiA© in their daily program, students

improve their skills along with their eye-hand

coordination, visual and short term memory,

auditory discrimination and phonological

awareness.

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LiFLexiA©

LiFLexiA© in its current form is based on a

hardware-software combination, that uses

commercially available light flow message boards

controlled by a specially developed software and

adapted for use either in a class situation or for

teaching children with specific needs on a one-to-

one basis.

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LiFLexiA©

LiFLexiA© is currently undergoing development for

the production of a PC version for use by teachers

in class, as well as for individual use by students at

home.

The LiFLexiA© software application is expected to

be ready in the first quarter of 2011.

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