FOR a full service centre to be successful, it needs an efficient resource centre.

The Philip Kushlick School at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital serves as a resource centre for Lakeview Primary School.

The school caters for children with cerebral palsy and moderate physical and intellectual disabilities. It has children from Grade 0 to Grade 12.

Deputy principal Dikeledi Koopedi said: "We collaborate and share ideas with the school. We help the school deal with children with physical disabilities. They help us with the academic stuff.

"Working with Lakeview we are also trying to become a school that specialises in skills. Some of the children that come to us cannot adapt academically."

Unlike mainstream schools Lakeview needs the assistance of a physiotherapist, occupational therapist and a social worker. Through the collaboration, Philip Kushlick offers the school these professional services.

Koopedi said: "Teachers share views to try and adapt the curriculum to suit all learners."

Gauteng education spokesman Charles Phahlane said: "A resource centre is a special school for learners with disabilities, with specialised devices and staff members to enable the school to be a support structure for the district in order to support neighbouring schools

"All the resource centres in Gauteng are special schools, enrolling learners with various disabilities."

There are 75 full service schools in Gauteng and 60 more will be converted by the end of 2012.

Other than operating as a resource centre, Philip Kushlick has the duty of educating learners with intellectual disabilities.

Physiotherapist Mosito Rakalle said it was rare for a child with special needs to move to a normal school.

"When they transfer the next level is usually a skills centre," he said. Though the school caters for special needs, children are taught using the normal teaching curriculum.

Foundation phase teacher Faith Maila said that the children's learning needs are different.

"There those learners that you see can catch on in when taught and there are those who have speech therapy and use AA devices to help them learn and there are those who are puzzled," she said. "We group them according to their ability."

The school makes it a point that they choose the easiest section of the curriculum to adapt to the children's needs.

Intermediate phase teacher Thandi Mbele said it takes more than a year to do only a section of the learning programme.

"We sometimes do one quarter of the curriculum for two years. It is not easy for the children," Mbele said.

The school does not group the children according to their disabilities. The learners in a class are grouped according to their special needs.

Children who are not literate are transferred to the skills centre where they are taught different skills such as woodwork, fabric painting, art, craftwork, salon, domestic science and metal work.