Hello,

We are planning to move out to Zurich from the UK next year (my husband will go out in January actually, we will follow later). We have two boys aged 6 and 4.

Our problem is that our youngest might be mildly autistic and currently receives extra support within a mainstream pre-school in the UK. I have been in touch with a couple of Swiss schools in Zurich so I understand the process we would have to go through when we move and what support could be available to him, but I would like to hear from anyone who has experience of provision of special needs support in particular schools (local Swiss schools or international/bilingual) in or around Zurich. As I understand it, it can vary.

My husband will be working on the east side of Zurich so we are particularly interested in areas within 20/30 mins or so commuting distance of there.

Hi Shelley

This is a big subject for a Saturday night!

Might I enquire how you believe you will be funding this special needs support? If you are looking at IV insurance (disability benefit insurance from the State), I am not sure if you would be applicable to this due to rather stringent criteria for non Swiss citizens under the age of 20 particularly where they are not born in CH.

We are currently going through the process of getting our suspected autistic pre school son accepted for IV insurance so that he can attend a special school for children with developmental delay, but this is not in Zurich area so I can not help you with specifics for Zurich. All I can say is that in our Canton, special schooling requires IV insurance support. I am not sure about the position if you are looking at mainstream schooling with specific classroom support however.

My son has Asperger Syndrome and attends the local grammar school here in Kanton Bern.. at this stage he has been with some of this class mates since kindergarten, so it might be a bit different for you.

The first thing that happens when he is about to join a new class or a new class mate joins his class is that the parents receive an information pack, explaining what it will mean to their child to be in class with him. After that the kids get a few seminars along the same lines, explaining about the Asperger Syndrome and showing them what they can do to help.

The second thing is that he has a few one-on-one lessons every week with a specialist where they deal a lot with developing social skills and addressing any issues he might have - like most Aspergers he is highly intelligent and understands his condition very well.

The other thing is that in Swiss schools the emphasis is on the class as a unit, rather than the individual - if you are in the class, then the class has a responsibility for you. This has resulted in a lot of the kids watching out for him, particularly when they go away on trips - making sure he stays with the group, does not forget to take his meds and making sure things go smoothly when they go away over night. Very often Aspergers have little problems that they don't know how to deal, with such as forgetting to bring tooth paste with them - it would never enter their head to ask if they could borrow some... here a few of his class mates really come through for him by jumping in when they see a problem.

All in all, it is working out very well for him

ecb - I don't get out much

Very good point though. So far I have assumed he will be supported in a mainstream school but he won't be assessed until we get there and know where we are living. And the people I have spoken to haven't mentioned anything about insurance support. I will definitely look into it though. Thank you.

Jim - thank you for describing your positive experiences in Bern. It sounds excellent - information packs for parents of children in the same class and seminars for the children? That's brilliant.

Our personal experience/impression (and it is only our personal experience) is that there is less support in main stream schooling than in the UK. However, there are some amazing centres of excellence in the special schooling sector and the movement between the special schooling sector and the mainstream sector can be very fluid. In particular you might be interested in the Sprachheilschule (of which there is at least one in the Zurich area and I know there are parents on this forum whose children attend that school). They offer specialist support for children with speech and communication problems and (in our Canton anyway) integrate various therapies into the school day. Places are highly sought after and demand always exceeds supply.

In our case, we are preferring to start schooling in the specialist sector mainly because they integrate all sorts of specialist therapies into the school environment, meaning that we do not have to rush around like mad things trying to access various therapies ourselves. The range of therapies available is far in excess of anything we could organise ourselves privately. The school we have found for our son is only a short term solution - most children stay between 2 to 4 years, with nearly all of them moving on to mainstream schooling with teaching support, but not with much specialist therapy support beyond speech therapy in the regular school environment.

Do you know whether you can start the assessment process running even before you move to Zurich? This would be helpful as it is a long winded process at the best of times and you may miss cut off dates for school places (if you have not done so already .. our son's school was organised a year prior to his entrance - the places are now all taken for August 2011).

Sorry if I am sounding not too positive, but forewarned is forearmed. There is a lot of excellent provision out there for your son but you have to know where to go (and who to annoy) to get it.

It would be great if I could start the assessment process before we move, but as I understand it you first have to go the Schulpsychologische Dienst of the Gemeinde where you will be living and we don't know where to live yet! I feel I can't choose a place to live before I know about what schooling is available in the area... hence my original post.

Thank you for your insights into schooling in the specialist sector. It does sound good.

Yes you are 100% right .. we were in a slightly similar situation in that we were moving Canton so could not get him assessed and placed in our current Canton, but had no place of abode in the new Canton to kick start the assessment process.

Instead we contacted the main Educational Department of the Canton. After a couple of meetings with them, we were directed by them to a couple of schools who we contacted directly and arranged the eventual placement with them directly. Now the usual channels are falling in place with the already allocated decision. So whilst you are absolutely right about how it is usually done, out of sheer luck (and the goodwill of the people we were lucky enough to get in touch with), we managed to circumvent the process.

I think this is fantastic. My sons attend a Grammar in Britain and from conversations I have had with them I suspect there are boys in their classes with Aspergers but they are not told about this. It means that they find it hard to accept some of the behavioral characteristics of the boys and also don't understand that their own actions can be misconstrued when they interact with a child with Aspergers. A number of boys have got into trouble because of things they have done unknowingly that have caused upset. This doesn't help anyone.

Can I just add there does seem to be a sense that the British schools are some sort of pinnacle of excellence when it comes to dealing with Special Educational needs. This is not the case. A child joined our local school over a year ago with diagnosed Autism and a year later he is still not receiving any extra support. He is left to do pretty much his own thing whilst the school go through the statementing process. Also remember that this boy spent at leat a year in preschool before he joined the class.

Sorry I can't help with your situation but it might help to know that moving Switzerland might actually benefit your son.

Perhaps that's something I could try, thank you.

Good point. I think it can vary so much though. I feel we have been lucky with our current school, but they had been through the whole statementing and diagnosis process at least a year previously with two older boys so by the time my son arrived they knew exactly how best to proceed. They are already funding the extra support my son needs even though he doesn't have his statement yet. It could well have been a different experience entirely at another school.
I just want to get it right in Zurich too!

Hi everyone, I have just seen this post and may be a bit late in commenting but thought you may want to hear about our own experience. We arrived from UK last Oct, our son (8) was diagnosed with mild autism last year in the UK although it had been suspected since he was 3. Although we had good experiences with the consultant paediatrician and the clinical psychologist who made the diagnosis, who were very supportive and proactive, our experience with the school (one of the best state primaries in UK apparently) was not good. He had one 15 minute session with a speech and language therapist in the last year and that was it. Because he is quiet, he was ignored and left to his own devices.

Before we arrived in Switzerland, we made contact with the local school (once we knew where we were going) and headmaster and he tried to reassure us. In the 3 months we have been here, our son has been seen by the educational psychologist and an action plan has been put in place. He is to receive extra weekly support for his social and communication skills, plus 2-3 hours of speech and language therapy a week. Please feel free to PM me if you want any more information, (we live in Horgen, Zurich lakeside town).

In my humble opinion, the UK may have been able to put lots of money once upon a time into special needs support in mainstream schools, but this has totally dried up. We are very, very, very happy we have made the move to Switzerland - it's been worth it for our son alone. I think you will be fine here - more than fine!

It's good to hear some good news on the English forum, especially in regards to such important things as education and Parents feeling they are supported. Thanks shem.

All the best to you and your family. Hope you have a good experience in Switzerland.

Thanks so much for your post, shem, you're not too late at all! Although my husband is already in Zurich, the boys and I are still in the UK going through the autism diagnosis process. And we haven't found an apartment in Switzerland yet! I'm really pleased to hear of your experiences. My son will need support for his social and communication skills as well as speech and language therapy, just like yours.
I probably will PM you... thanks