[Daniel Dew, Principal, Patterson River Secondary College]
Patterson River Secondary College is a co-ed government secondary school situated in Bayside Melbourne, we’re in between Mordialloc and Frankston, just near the bay. Medium to big size school, we’ve got 1250 students coming from a diverse background.
When the Tier 2 Funding came in, we were already having a look at a review of our wellbeing and learning support programs here at the school. For us it was about what do we often feel is missing when trying to support our students here at the school? What do we often look outside of the gates of the school to be able to support the students? And we completed a gap analysis to then work out what we thought was needed here at the school to best support our students.
So after we completed the analysis of what we felt was best needed here at the school, we went and employed a range of different teaching staff in relation to time release, learning specialists, leading teachers, but then also allied health.
So here at the school we employed a full-time social worker. We employed a speech pathologist which is shared with a local primary school. We employed two behaviour intervention specialists who were classroom teachers by background. We also employed an inclusion leader, a wellbeing leader and also an inclusion profile leader.
Two main big things we were trying to achieve with these roles. One is obviously supporting the students, but to do that at that Tier 2 level, the biggest and most important piece of work is assisting our teachers and building their skill sets. To ensure a consistent culture of inclusion within the large secondary school, I think the most important thing is at the leadership level, both the language and the behaviour of the leaders within the school is inclusive.
Probably the most important thing outside of that general symbolic leadership is around staff professional development, for the staff so that they can support the students at the school
[Allira Lang, Inclusion Leading Teacher, Patterson River Secondary College]
So we start that process at early transition in grade six. We gather as much information as we can to support these students, and then we turn that information into what we call student adjustment tables. So every start for every form, there's a list of adjustments and students who are required to have those. Because that's so easy to access, and staff have got access to that from the beginning. It means that students are getting those adjustments and supports right away.
So myself and the student intervention learning specialist Jen, we will present at staff meetings regularly to those, which is fantastic. It just lifts the profile of inclusion at the school, but also upskills staff to ensure that they feel like they've got the tools in their toolkit to support the kids that are in their classes.
Because it's so much a broader team now. The speech pathologist giving advice around students with dyslexia or students with language disorders, behaviour support intervention talking about different strategies to engage with students who present with challenging behaviours. So, it's great because you're really relying on people's expertise and then upskilling staff. They've been really receptive to that, which is great.
Our speech pathologist has run a lot of social skills groups and pragmatics groups, providing expertise there. Tier 2 funding has allowed us to have some even more avenues for support.
If I think about this year in terms of connection to our programs in VCE VM, so success in TAFE, success in work placement, success in completing outcomes, it's meant that there's someone who's really focused on that particular group of students and therefore meeting targets a little bit more readily. We've had great outcomes this year from that Pathways Coordinator working closely with families. It might be around having conversations with families about what the goals are for the next for the next stage or some support around work experience and how to get that work experience. So that's been really fantastic.
[Daniel Dew, Principal, Patterson River Secondary College]
My vision for Inclusive Education here at Patterson River Secondary College is that every single staff member at the school feels like they've got the skills to deal with every type of learner that can walk into their classroom and that every student and family feels like they have the ability to reach their potential here at the school.
[On-screen text]
Disability Inclusion, Education for All
Education State / Victoria State Government / Education logo
Authorised by the Victorian Government, Melbourne.
[End transcript]
Updated