Jacana School for Autism Newsletter

Assistant 

Principal News Flash 

Stephanie Torchia & Dan Moloney 

Stephanie
Dan
Stephanie
Dan

 

Hi everyone!

 

Our 2023 school year has nearly come to an end. Our students have shown greater ability to both engage with their learning and demonstrate such commendable progress. 

 

Our students have shown us that, as they always do, 'if they are honoured their voice in their learning they will have the confidence to share their strengths with us and achieve great things.

 

Our 2023 AIP focus was to 'Strengthen Learning and Wellbeing'. Since having undertaken our 4-Year School Review earlier this year, our School Improvement Team (SIT) was designed to assess and monitor our school performance in those 2 key areas: Learning and Wellbeing. Based on our AP portfolios, Dan led the SIT team for 'Learning' and Steph led the team for 'Wellbeing'. in saying so, we would both like to share the AIP End of Year outcomes we achieved at JSA this year as below:

 

Learning Goal

Our JSA Learning goal is to ‘maximise the learning growth for all students’. Within this broader objective, in 2023, we focussed on 2 of our 3 Key Improvement Strategies, as below:

 

2a. Develop, monitor and embed a whole-school approach to formative and summative assessment

2c. Build teacher capacity to implement autism specific strategies

 

Our 2023 AIP Targets included measurement of IEP goal attainment across key curriculum areas:

  • Maintain the Number & Algebra IEP Goal Attainment level at 68% (2023 – 70%)
  • Maintain the Reading & Viewing IEP Goal Attainment level at 66% (2023 – 68%)
  • Maintain the Writing IEP Goal Attainment level at 60% (2023 – 66%)

Notably, the school wide average for IEP goal attainment for Semester 2 was 79%.

Other measures include positive endorsement of a range of factors within the 2023 School Staff Survey, resulting in an overall increase of 12.2% in endorsement across all factors.

Last Wednesday, our School Improvement Team met to complete our scheduled End of Year Monitoring session to ‘reflect upon and celebrate’ these data sets. Key ‘Learning’ activities and milestones reviewed include:

 

KIS 2a.

  • Establishing a process for collecting and monitoring school-wide data (75% complete)
  • Establishing a school-wide literacy and numeracy scope and sequence (75% complete) 
  • Establishing a school-wide Assessment Schedule (75% complete)
  • Embed school-wide data filters to review student performance ad curriculum success (75% complete)

KIS 2c.

  • Deliver professional learning about Autism and the provision of individualised autism-specific strategies, embedded within the induction process (100% complete)
  • Embed the annual Classroom Team Meeting cycle in order to enable regular discussions around classroom Tier 1 practices.  (100% complete)
  • Develop a regular ‘Autism’ item in the weekly staff bulletin to develop a common language and practice based on our Autism practices. (50% complete)
  • Provided a range of weekly activities/challenges to engage staff in sharing and learning Autism knowledge and practices. (100% complete)

 

Wellbeing Goal

Our Wellbeing goal is to ‘Maximise the personal and social capabilities of each student.’ Within this broader objective, in 2023, we prioritised on 2 of our 3 Key Improvement Strategies, as below:

  • 2a. Promote and engage students in programs to develop their mental and physical health and social–emotional wellbeing.
  • 2c. Embed positive mental health approaches across the school.

Our 2023 AIP Targets included measurement of 12 Month Targets, as below:

  1. AIP Target 2.1:  The percentage of students demonstrating within-band growth on the personal capability dimension: Self–awareness using the Victorian Curriculum teacher judgement assessment tool will maintain at 66 per cent (2023)- 97% by the end of this year. Whilst this is a significant result, we are mindful that this data does not depict incremental growth within a level. Therefore, we will be liaising with Accelerus in 2024, to explore ways to monitor and report on incremental growth within a learning level. For example., tracking growth from one scale score to another for each IEP goal. 
  2. AIP Target 2.2:  The percentage of students demonstrating within-band growth on the personal capability dimension: Social awareness using the Victorian Curriculum teacher judgement assessment tool will maintain at 62 per cent (2023)- TBC. At this stage Accelerus does not have the capability to track social-awareness growth. We will be liaising with Accelerus to allow this data to be accessible by Term 1 2024. 
  3. AIP Target 2.3: By 2023 70 per cent of students will achieve the self–awareness goal on their Individual Learning Plan (ILP) from 66 per cent in 2022 - 73% by the end of this year. 
  4. AIP Target 2.4: By 2023 62% of students will achieve the social awareness goal on their IEP - 67% end of this year. 

Key ‘Wellbeing’ activities and milestones reviewed include:

KIS 3a: Promote and engage students in programs to develop their mental and physical health and social–emotional wellbeing.

  1. Provide professional learning about the P&SC curriculum. - 75%
  2. Establish a whole-school community events per term. - 100% 
  3. Coaching conversations have a focus on the P&SC curriculum. - 25% 2024 LS teaching PSC as a specialist will be using out of classroom hours to coach and support classroom teachers to build their capacity.
  4. Implement a tool to track and monitor student wellbeing- YRS. – 100% 
  5. Provide professional learning to implement the P&SC assessment tool to inform goal setting and monitor student progress. 0% Priority for 2024. 
  6. Adapt and implement the YRS Survey tool to assess and report on the resilience of our cohorts of students from years 4-12 in terms of their strengths, life satisfaction, hopelessness, anxiety and depression, coping style and risk and protective behaviours. -100% 

KIS 3c: Embed positive mental health approaches across the school.

  1. Expand whole-school wellbeing data to formulate a mental health and wellbeing referral pathway for students. – 75% 
  2. Provide Trauma-Informed Professional Learning to Leadership and Wellbeing Staff in preparation for whole-school training in 2024. -100% 
  3. MHWL and MHWO to lead Tier 2 mental health and wellbeing interventions to cohorts of students who require additional support in the areas of social-emotional learning. – 100% 
  4. Implement Canine Comprehension (therapy dog program) as a Tier 2 wellbeing intervention for a cohort of students. -100% 
  5. MHWP and MHO provide Tier 3 interventions to support students and families in receiving individualised internal and external services. -100% 

 

Steph and I both thank all JSA families for their support and goodwill afforded to all of our staff to support the learning and wellbeing needs of your children this year. 

 

 

 

We wish you all a safe and restful summer's break hoping that your children return to JSA or head on with their desired post-school options in 2024.