Disability Inclusion - The Impact of New Tier 2 Funded Roles at Patterson River Secondary College

https://player.vimeo.com/video/889346823

[Daniel Dew, Principal, Patterson River Secondary College]

The difference Tier 2 Funding has made here at Patterson River has been huge. We went and employed a range of staff, including classroom teacher staff and allied health. That included a social worker, a speech pathologist, a learning leader, wellbeing leader, inclusion leader and two behaviour intervention specialists.

We’ve seen year on year improvements in our NAPLAN results, achieving our best ever NAPLAN results last year. Things like student attendance, survey results have gone up, classroom behaviour, collective efficacy, have all risen, during the time of using our Tier 2 Funding. But I think the most important things anecdotally, staff feel much more supported.

[Jennifer Redman, Inclusion Learning Specialist, Patterson River Secondary College]

So as a Learning Specialist, I oversee the intervention across years 7 to 10. And part of that involves working with staff to build their capacity in how to support students with learning difficulties and additional needs. And then also with students directly, their families.

One of the things that we’ve done is I’ve created student adjustment tables. And from that, it has all the students who we’ve identified as needing either substantial or extensive or even just occasional support. And I’ve created sort of some documents there with just some strategies for each of those students, that teachers can just refer to. It’s also a really live document, so teachers have the opportunity multiple times throughout the year to contribute.

Through doing my masters, I’ve learned about a whole range of different learning, supports and strategies and everything’s evidence based. So that’s what I’ve been able to bring into my role here and also in our student adjustment tables.So I think teachers really value that.

I also work in our Tier 2 intervention space, which means that I do work with small groups of students as well that have been identified as needing additional support. Every five weeks we do a review of student’s learning and the growth that they’ve made. So we do GAP reviews regularly. We’ve also implemented a software program that enables us to keep track of their literacy and numeracy progressions.

[Erika Blazely, Social Worker, Patterson River Secondary College]

My role within the school I guess, comprises 1 to 1 support for students. I consistently work with teaching staff, leading teachers, coordination teams to, I guess, tailor my work with the kids.

I provide support to disengaged students, whether that is as a result of mental health, disability, family circumstances. So I spend a lot of my time working on how to best support them and reengage them with education.

One of the unique things about my role is providing tailored support with NDIS applications. So I run a small group every term to help students up skill and build their connections within the school. And I also support the wider team in presenting professional development to teaching staff.

[Peter Zahra, Behaviour Intervention Specialist, Patterson River Secondary College]

One of the main aspects of the role is to create behaviour support plans for students. I spend a lot of time visiting the students who I am charged with, just checking in, seeing how they’re progressing. I also do a lot of work with families, keeping them informed about how their children are progressing. Working with staff to implement routines and practices that are ultimately going to help them with better managing their classes and individual students.

The response has been really favourable. The teachers have appreciated the support that we are able to provide. Students are responding really well to the support. We’re seeing the students in our care attending school regularly. Our students are very actively engaged in learning opportunities, both in the classroom and in the broader school community.

[On-screen text]

Disability Inclusion, Education for All

Education State / Victoria State Government / Education logo

Authorised by the Victorian Government, Melbourne.

[End transcript]

Updated 12 February 2024

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Disability Inclusion - The Impact of New Tier 2 Funded Roles at Patterson River Secondary College

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