by Pag » Thu Sep 01, 2016 4:58 pm
I'm a teacher at a primary school in the northern suburbs (Playford Council area). My two cents:
*There are various programs/rooms for all types of children in a school, not just Indigenous
- Ab Ed (which is what is being referred to in this discussion). Our Ab Ed teacher and ACEO (Aboriginal Community Education Officer) work in this room. Our Ab Ed Teacher works with the Indigenous children in each class (of which I have five) for a lesson or two a week, around learning. This will be in the area of Literac or Numeracy, depending on the students and input from the classroom teacher. The Ab Ed teacher also runs two cross-age lessons per week, taking a mix of R-7 students and looking at the cultural aspect of their lives, in which the older students are able to mentor younger students. Works extremely well. The ACEO is responsible for all non-curriculum aspects, including dealing with families eg chasing up low attendees etc. Our ACEO is an Indigenous woman and has a great rapport with our students. For our Indigenous kids, this room is a home-away-from-home at school and they do feel comfortable in there. At times, the room can be used to re-engage students who have lost their way for whatever reason. Sitting them in an office or empty room writing lesson has no effect whatsoever on helping them re-enter the classroom. We, as classroom teachers, will send the work over to the room and the ACEO may sit with the student for 10-15 minutes to re-engage them in the task before sending them back to the classroom to continue their day.
- We also have an EALD (English as an Additional Language/Dialect) Room, with EALD teacher, in a similar set-up. The EALD teacher will take the EALD students from my room (of which I have 7) for a lesson a week of intense Literacy, and again, two cross-age lessons per week looking at culture with students with backgrounds from the same part of the world. Lots of parents of our EALD students have no-very little English-speaking ability themselves, hence the need for the support. We also have BSSOs (Bi-Lingual School Services Officers) who will come into the school and support students with whom they share they the second language (eg Swahili, Afghani etc). This service is there again, because the support is needed.
- Our school also has a Centre for Hearing Impairment, catering for kids in R-7 with varying levels of deafness, a Regional Special Class for students with sever intellectual disabilities, and has plenty of students who receive support in mainstream classes who have also identified as having a learning disability. We also have Student Social Workers from UniSA who work with students with social/emotional issues, Speech Pathology students from Flinders Uni who work with Junior Primary students with communication issues, and a Garden Mentoring program for students (mostly boys) who need a break from the classroom and prefer kinaesthetic activities (hands-on eg planting, digging, composting etc) to engage with. We also have a new program each term run by NACYS (Northern Adelaide Community Youth Services), with a different focus each term. Last term was around Cyber Bullying, the students with issues in that area received that support. This term it's called 'Girls Club' with a focus on they way girls talk to/interact with each other, and again, the female students who the school deemed to need support in this area received that support.
In short, the answer at our school would be 'Each person at our school gets the help he/she needs for their situation'. If a child at our school is involved in none of these programs, and deals with none of this disadvantage in their day-to-day lives, then they are in the luckiest 30% of our school population and should be informed accordingly.
Last edited by
Pag on Fri Sep 02, 2016 10:09 am, edited 1 time in total.