THE new Pacific Hope School is creating a safer space for children with autism to get an education.

The school, which shares its campus with Pacific Coast Christian College at Tweed Heads West, is just the second school in New South Wales to specifically cater for educating those with autistim.

While students have been enjoying the new facilities since the start of term, the four new classrooms were officially opened on Friday by Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells.

School director Klaus Knobloch said the $1.85 million project, which received $700,000 in Federal funding, would be a great learning space for the 50 students enrolled as well as for their parents.

"It's the largest autism school in South East Queensland and Northern NSW,” Mr Knobloch

said.

"What makes it special to our parents is that we are on the same campus as a mainstream school without fences, which gives our students the opportunity to interact with mainstream students.

"All the parents I talk to want their child to not be excluded and be in a separate facility with a big fence around it on the other end of the school property, which is the current model for many special needs schools.

"Quite often you have parents who have a child in the mainstream and a child in Pacific Hope.

"It's easy for the parent to come to one location rather than dropping one child off here and then having to go to a separate special needs school.”

Each classroom features a withdrawal room designed as a retreat for students when they're not coping.

"The withdrawal rooms make a big difference because autistic children can have meltdowns when they are overstimulated or when not coping in social settings,” Mr Knobloch

said.

"We have withdrawal rooms between the classrooms, they have glass windows so the teacher can see what's going on but they can go in there and chill for a while until they're ready to go back into the classroom.

"Each student has different ways of letting the teacher know when they're not coping, some show flapping hands, some hold their ears, some freeze and some throw themselves on the floor.

"They're all different ways of showing they're having an emotional meltdown and that's when we take them to the withdrawal room.

"A lot of the time the kids just want to be out of view. We can also then use them as alternative learning spaces.”

Mr Knobloch said the children were responding well to their new learning environment.

"They love the small class sizes with 10 students in each class,” he said.

"Last year we were renting rooms off Pacific Coast Christian School but now we have our own

rooms, staff room and toilet block.

"We have 17 staff and we've got one teacher and two teacher aides in each classroom.

"We've got a school councillor, an occupational therapist and hopefully next year we'll be able employ a speech therapist.”

For more information about Pacific Hope School, visit www.pacifichope.nsw.edu.au.