LEARNING DIVERSITY
I am so proud of all students for their continued resilience in these times of uncertainty and disruption. I know that there were varying degrees of student success over the past term, from students excelling to deep struggles during remote learning.
We are also very proud of the support we offer to our students at St Joseph’s College and our inclusive and collaborative processes. A few reminders for parents in case remote learning highlighted a need for new or more support for your child and you would like to discuss this.
- We offer after school tutoring in the library Monday to Thursday from 3:30pm to 4:30pm. Please contact me to via email msaleta@sjcmda.vic.edu.au to organise this if you wish.
- We have the Flourish Program available after school which can assist your child with organisation and study skills.
- We can complete baseline assessments and offer referral support for children under performing and who may need additional support to their learning program.
- We have speech therapy sessions on a weekly basis for students who need language support.
- We can support parents to seek information and support through behavioural assessment processes such as autism diagnosis or ADHD through their doctor and paediatrician.
PROGRAM SUPPORT GROUP MEETINGS (PSGs)
Program Support Group Meetings will begin from week 4 this term. I will be completing these by telephone or zoom. This will hopefully increase the likelihood of parents taking part in the meetings. I always look forward to these as I love talking with parents about their child and what more we can be doing for them. The meeting times will be sent to families through the PAM.
Personal Learning Plans are currently being constructed with teachers creating their Semester 2 goals and evaluating those from Semester 1. Once these are completed they will be emailed to parents. We are investigating ways to ensure you are able to sign these and return, look out for this over the next few weeks.
CLASSROOM EQUIPMENT
In the changeover of semesters to new subjects in Years 9 and 10, some students are without equipment. Please have a discussion with your child about their materials to see if they need more pens, pencils and writing books.
NATIONALLY CONSISTENT COLLECTION OF DATA (NCCD)
As some parents may well be aware, the way students with disabilities are funded is through the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data for students with disabilities (NCCD for SWD). The NCCD requests schools to list students for whom they are making adjustments in their learning programs with a much wider range of disability than has been previously captured.
The NCCD assists the government in knowing how many students in a school are being offered additional support to improve their learning, from extensive adjustments (such as having a 1:1 Learning Support Officer), to having a supplementary adjustment (such as a small and highly structured literacy support or Essential Mathematics class). The government then provides additional funding to the school for resource management and staffing.
There are also some students who require adjustments due to a medical condition, such as students with anaphylaxis. They are included in the count due to the criteria of the information guidelines. This funding method means more students who have in the past missed out on the opportunity to receive support can be considered. It also enables whole school training and opportunities. The NCCD Team have been working hard to ensure all students receiving adjustments to their learning program will continue to be supported in 2020.
For further Information about the NCCD please go to the website: https://www.nccd.edu.au/
Please see the attached letter to parents explaining our legal obligations under the NCCD and the information that will be shared. The Data collection is in August in 2020.
Ms Melanie Saleta
Head of Learning Diversity