Admissions

Application Process for Lighthouse Special Education
When parents apply for a place at Lighthouse for their child, they are invited for an introductory meeting with the Director and the Pupil Monitoring Coordinator at which time they are informed about the school and about the admission procedure. Based on information from the parents and supporting assessments/documentation, a decision is made as to whether Lighthouse Special Education is a viable option for the child.

In the event that Lighthouse is deemed a suitable placement for the child, the parents complete the relevant application forms. They are also asked to sign a statement that authorizes Lighthouse to request reports from other institutions involved with the child. Sometimes additional inquiries and assessments are necessary, and may be completed by the Lighthouse Assessment Team. Assessment fees are posted on the Lighthouse website.

Admission Procedure for Lighthouse Special Education in cooperation with SPPOH
The law “Passend Onderwijs” started on 1st of August 2014. Schools are responsible for providing appropriate education for every pupil who is enrolled or has applied for a placement in the school. This ‘appropriate education’ may be a place at the current school; it may also be a place at another school within the local Schools Cooperative (samenwerkingsverband). This legal obligation is called Duty of Care (zorgplicht),

A “samenwerkingsverband” is an institution which organizes the cooperation between all basisscholen (mainstream schools), SO scholen (schools for special education) and SBO scholen (special mainstream schools) within a certain area. Our school is part of the samenwerkingsverband Stichting Passend Primair Onderwijs Haaglanden (SPPOH). The area contains whole The Hague, Leidschendam–Voorburg and Rijswijk.

In 95% of the cases the current school can offer the appropriate educational support and there will not change anything for the pupil. Pupil and school match very well. School offers “basisondersteuning” (basic support), which is the minimum support every school has to offer within the “samenwerkingsverband”. School will define in cooperation with the parents what kind of support has to be arranged for the child and will ask the “samenwerkingsverband” for extra facilities.

If it is not possible to organise appropriate support at the current school, there will be organised a placement at another mainstream school, a SBO or SO school. Some consequences of the system Passend Onderwijs are:

1. Because of the “zorgplicht” the school director has responsibility in providing appropriate support to all children. The director is supported by the school “intern begeleider” (Senco), an advisor of SPPOH, a social worker who is in contact with youth care organisations.

2. There can be created individual “arrangements” depending on the special needs of the child involved.
3. All requests for a placement at a SO or SBO school have to be addressed to the SPPOH, where a team of experts will take the decisions. If they take a positive decision, the child will get a “toelaatbaarheidsverklaring”.
4. SPPOH has organised the cooperation between the schools in dividing them into 10 smaller practical areas: 8 areas within the city The Hague, Leidschendam-Voorburg and Rijswijk. Within these smaller practical areas the schools will cooperate closely together, also with “Centra voor Jeugd en Gezin”.
5. Within every area there is at least one (Dutch) school for children with special needs.
6. SPPOH tries to organise extra support as much as possible within the area the child is living in.
7. Passend Onderwijs is focussing on “handelingsgericht werken”. That means that the focus will be on the possibilities and capacities of the child, rather than the disabilities and deficits of the child. We want to find answers to questions like: Which goals do we want to achieve? What will be needed for that? How are we organising this? Who is going to do this? What are we going to do? Where will it be organised?
8. School and parents are supposed to work together as partners regarding the extra support for the child.
9. Every school has a “schoolondersteuningsprofiel”. In this document school is describing which kind of support the school is able to give and what school cannot offer. You can find this document on our website.
10. Every school has a SPPOH advicer/coordinator. Our advicer is: Ms Carin Bongaerts.
You can contact her by e-mail: c.bongaerts@sppoh.nl

If you want further details about Passend Onderwijs we recommend the following websites:
www.sppoh.nl Stichting Passend Primair Onderwijs Haaglanden (SPPOH)
This is the “samenwerkingsverband” in which our school participates. You will find a lot of information regarding our specific region/area.
www.passendonderwijs.nl More general information regarding implementation of Passend Onderwijs according The Ministry of Education OCW.
www.steunpuntpassendonderwijs.nl Website about Passend Onderwijs, especially for parents