Beit Hakerem

Background

WIZO Beit Hakerem School is a six-year school, including middle school and a vocational high school. The school is located in the heart of the Beit Hakerem neighborhood in Jerusalem.

With an enrollment of approximately 100 students ages 12-18, Beit Hakerem is the only vocational high school in Israel catering to youth with learning disabilities. The facility provides students with extraordinary opportunities to learn a variety of skills and trades. Upon graduation, youth have the practical skills and knowledge they need to gain employment as hairdressers, cooks, and sound system technicians.

Over the past two years, the school has undergone significant changes in its student population with the number of students with mental health challenges projected to triple this coming school year. The school’s unique knowhow in special education led it to facilitate and deal with more complex academic cases and children from vulnerable backgrounds, including children whose parents are less involved in their child academic accomplishments or children who were initially rejected and expelled from regular settings.

Students who attend the school are referred to it by a special education committee. These students typically have emotional, behavioral, attentional, and psychological difficulties. The school accepts students from Jerusalem and the surrounding region (Modi’in, Beit Shemesh, Ma’ale Adumim, Mateh Yehuda, Mateh Binyamin, Gush Etzion, and more). The school operates under the joint supervision of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labor, with the curriculum integrating core studies and vocational education.

Strengths

The uniqueness of the school lies in its status as a comprehensive special education school (grades 7-12 with the option of a personal program until the age of 21), which enables students to acquire a government-recognized vocational certificate. Learning takes place in a warm and home-like atmosphere, creating a meaningful relationship between students and staff based on trust and respect, working closely together to tackle challenges.

The school is based on “two complementary legs”: educational and therapeutic. It combines emotional aspects (building personal plans and emotional therapies) with educational-pedagogical aspects aimed at achieving high professionalism in both professional and academic education tracks.

The school persistently strives to adapt emotional pedagogy to empower students with the necessary skills for their transition to adulthood: self-reliance, critical thinking, creative development, and more.