Szkola Podstawowa nr 7 w Ostrowie Wielkopolskim, POLAND
Primary School no 7 in located in the suburbs of Ostrów Wielkopolski, in western Poland. The pupils are from 6 to 13 years old. The district is inhibited by about 3 000 people, who mostly live in detached houses. Often young people live with their parents and/or grandparents. This situation is difficult for the young people who want to have some freedom and privacy. Some of them organize in non-formal groups and spend their free time in non-accepted way. The school tries to help those students by organizing psychological therapy and additional afternoon classes for underprivileged children. In school work 4 special education teachers, a psychologist, 3 speech therapists. The school cooperates with local community, institutions, organizations, and town government to provide as much help to the pupils as possible. The social help involves free meals, free books and school equipment, social scholarship, occasional gifts for Christmas and Easter. 5 students are not able to follow and educate the mainstream curriculum and are studying an adapted program. In our district live many roman families. Unfortunately the Roman minority is reluctant to public schools. They finish their education after 2 or 3 grades. Some of them have never attended school. Recently, we face a problem of immigrant children coming back with their parents from Western Europe and the UK. They encounter adaptation problems because of the language and in some cases different skin colour. Another problem caused by migration is family damage. In many families parents go to work abroad and leave their children with grandparents or other family members.
