At Goondiwindi State School we have access to a
variety of support services and programs available to the students of our
school. These services align with The Melbourne Declaration on Educational
Goals for Young Australians (MCEETYA, 2008) (Melbourne Declaration) which
provides the policy framework for the Australian Curriculum. It includes two
goals:
Goal 1: Australian schooling promotes equity and
excellence.
Goal 2: All young Australians become successful
learners, confident and creative individuals and active and informed
citizens.
The
following pages detail the support available to Goondiwindi State School
students.
The Goondiwindi Special
Education program is a cluster of resources, specialist teachers, and support staff. Our
school's special education program is dedicated to supporting the educational
needs of students in one or more disability areas.
Special education services available to support students and
children with disabilities by providing visiting or outreach support are:
-
advisory
visiting teachers
-
guidance
officers
-
registered
nurses
-
Physiotherapists
-
occupational
therapists and
-
speech-language
pathologists.
The Head of Special Education
Services (HOSES)
The Goondiwindi State School SEP
is overseen by the HOSES, Amanda Girodat (pictured above). The HOSES is a teacher and member of
Goondiwindi State School administration team whose work includes:
-
taking a
central role in the education team in curriculum planning for the student
-
teaching
students with disability
-
monitoring
the progress, performance and behaviour of students with disability
-
giving
advice and guidance to teachers and support staff
-
co-ordinating and managing the staff and
resources of the specialised program.
Individual Curriculum Plans
Teachers meet with parents/carers
regularly to identify Curriculum Access
Goals for each student. These goals
target skills that will help our students access the school curriculum.
Curriculum Access Goals include literacy skills, social and physical access
skills. The ICP also records each student’s Curriculum Implementation Plan,
which describes units of work within the Australian Curriculum Learning Areas that
their teacher are delivering, and other meaningful activities with which the
student is engaging.
In addition for students in the
Care and Protection of the Department of Communities, Child Safety, an
Education Support Plan is written and reviewed annually. This is recorded on
OneSchool.
Early Childhood Development Program
The ECDP caters for children from birth
to 5 years who have been diagnosed or have suspected developmental difficulties. The ECDP offers a playgroup once a week which
is conducted by one of the SEP teachers and an Aide. The aim is to make the eventual transition of
students to school as successful and stress free as possible.
Gifted and Talented
Giftedness can be defined as the
top 10% to 15% people with a particular ability in a specific field or fields of endeavour. Within this
group there are categories of giftedness, with each group progressively
becoming smaller as the IQ or ability level goes up.
Identification
The first step in being able to
successfully support the needs of gifted students is to appropriately identify
their educational requirements. Gifted students can be diverse in their
educational needs. In order to address these needs in the best possible manner
for the gifted student, a comprehensive and accurate accounting should be made
of student strengths, interests and weaknesses. A comprehensive evaluation of
student abilities should help to determine a successful outcome in schools
being able to appropriately cater to gifted student needs. There are some
characteristics that gifted students will often share, both positive and
negative, that also can help in the identification of these students.
For more
information please see: Able Learners http://www.ablelearners.com.au/
The Queensland Association for Gifted and Talented Children. http://www.qagtc.org.au/