Talbot Room 

The Talbot Room, named after one of the parents who spearheaded the proposal, has been a great achievement and a success for the school since becoming fully operational last year.

“The benefit to mainstream students and to a mainstream high school more broadly could hardly be overstated. It is heartwarming to see the level of inclusion across the school.

Mr Rennick absolutely loves to see the Talbot Room kids fully integrated into mainstream school, whether that’s at whole school events like the swimming sports, or at recess and lunch time when they are treated no differently to any other student and are welcomed into lunch time games, or in elective classes like home economics or PE and even core subjects such as science.

“For mainstream kids to experience differences, whether that’s disability, race or any other differences when they don’t normally get significant exposure to that in their lives is so important.

“In fact, with the kids from the Talbot Room, I don’t think mainstream kids now see great difference, the Talbot Room school kids are just that, Healesville High School kids,”

The students, presently capped at eight, are all progressing academically, socially and emotionally thanks to the specialist teachers and assistants, who he described as “heroes”.

“They are thriving. It’s a welcoming and safe space."

Sport

Recently Healesville High School applied for a sporting goods grant and were fortunate to receive $650 from Sporting Schools Australia.

We purchased a portable tennis net, low pressure tennis balls and various tennis racquets and bats for the students in The Talbot Room.

As you can tell from the photos, the equipment was well received and has already become a regular sight, set up on the down ball courts.

The use of this equipment helps the students improve their hand-eye co-ordination by doing cross-over patterning as well as teaching valuable social skills such as turn taking, waiting, encouraging and generally being a good sport.

Public Transport adventures

Our Talbot students went on their first public transport trip to Yarra Glen.  

 Students were very excited about using Myki cards and learning about safety while travelling.

We all enjoyed the park, including the skate park.