02. Successful schools
Many schools are already very successful at meeting the full range of student needs, but some schools struggle to succeed in educating all students, especially those with special education needs. Helping schools succeed within existing funding means making sure schools and teachers have the extra knowledge and skills that make teaching and including children with special education needs easier and more successful.
Ultimately, schools and teachers need to be able to successfully teach and include every child in their school. Achieving this could mean looking at teacher education and school support programmes to strengthen schools in these areas so they can identify students’ needs and successfully address them. Also, if schools are more capable, it follows that they will also have more positive and welcoming attitudes towards students with special education needs. They will also be in a better position to respond to the full diversity of the communities they serve.
Teacher education
Building school and teaching capability by strengthening teacher education programmes is critical. We know there are no consistent expectations about what teachers in training must learn about teaching students with special education needs before they graduate and are registered.
As well as ‘pre-service’ teacher education, all qualified teachers are required to participate in ongoing professional education to retain their registration. However, there is no requirement to keep learning about special education, despite the rapidly changing nature of the field.
For example, technologies keep changing, which impacts fields such as computer-aided learning. Another area of ongoing development and interest to teachers is the area of curriculum design and delivery. Setting up ongoing professional education in special education for qualified teachers is therefore another option to strengthen schools.
When you respond to this document and question 1a, you may wish to specifically comment on how teacher education could be used to increase the capability of schools to succeed.
We would also like your views on those fulfilling specialist roles (such as in the speech-language field) having specific qualifications in special education.
Para-professional training
Para-professionals play an important role in special education and include teachers’ aides. There is no requirement that para-professionals have any special qualifications or training and yet they work very closely with children and have a big impact on their lives and learning. If training was provided to those workers then it is expected that outcomes for children would improve and overall outcomes in the classroom may also improve. This training could be separate from that included in school support programmes (discussed below).
School support programmes
Schools need support to get ready for students with special education needs and may need further support once those children are enrolled.
Whole-of-school programmes aim to build the capability of the school as a whole, including teachers, principals and support staff, via training, education and the provision of information. They can be used to improve how students with special education needs are supported in school. This would have a positive impact on how welcome students feel at school and increase the choices of schools for parents.
Whole-of-school programmes could be offered and be ongoing. Such programmes were offered at the introduction of Special Education 2000 and were highly successful, but funding was only for a set time and the programmes have not been offered since.
In addition to whole-of-school development programmes, schools may benefit from structured ongoing supports. For example, support programmes to assist schools with students who have autism could be introduced and be ongoing.