Pilot SEN-friendly School- an inclusiveness teaching school for special education needs (SEN)and normal students

City University of Hong Kong

Project idea

The project idea can be concluded by one sentence " Learn to play, play to learn"

The design of this school aims to encourage more playing activities on the campus

Traditional schools in Hong Kong have long teaching hours and heavy workload on homework for the children, which is not an ideal situation of education. Children should have more time to play and gather with their peers. Therefore the first statement "learn to play" suggests that kids should not be the slaves of homework, they need to learn to play more.

The second statement suggests children can learn through the playing activities. Both SEN and normal students can learn soft skills out of the book, such as communication, cooperation,problem-solving etc.

Finally, the most important is to let SEN and normal students get along well.

Project description

The Education Bureau in Hong Kong is promoting inclusiveness teaching and no SEN students will be taught separately from normal students anymore. However, the Bureau realized that some accommodations or a new way of teaching must be introduced to school to provide a better learning environment for SEN students. Therefore the Education Bureau plans to develop a pilot SEN-friendy primary school.

In response to the main idea, the design of the school begins with creating a loop and wider corridor that allows children to run, which conform to their instincts. Meanwhile, slides are added to create an interesting vertical circulation for the children to play around.

In recent years serval educationist stated that unstructured play is also important to child development. Unstructured play can allow children to explore, create and discover freely without any predetermined rules which traditional school lack of. To promote both structured and unstructured play, a unique playhouse is planned at the centre of the school.

The playhouse comprises of two-part: playroom and STEM room. The playroom includes building cushion blocks, slides and climbing wall etc., which allows children free to play around. The STEM room includes 3D printing machine, VR headset and other related facilities that allow children to play under the guidance.

Technical information

1 Master Plan
4 Floor Plans
1 Sectional diagram
2 Elevations
1 Set of concept diagram
5 Visulization