Students with disability

Nicole:

Inclusion is important in ACT public schools because our schools represent our community. So, if we have inclusive schools, then we're creating a society that is inclusive and a society where kids can grow up and know that they belong and they are able to participate in all aspects of life.

Sarah:

Inclusiveness helps us all. It helps us in our lives, it helps us in our communities, it helps us in our families. It's just the most important part of education.

Rebecca:

Inclusion allows us to create equity and access for everyone. Inclusion means that every student can actually be met at their point of need.

James:

Everyone joining in together creates a great classroom culture where everyone's a valued member of the community. To see everyone fully participating in the learning and having success for their own needs is really fulfilling and I suppose it's why I became a teacher and why I love doing the job.

Price:

I think inclusion is making all parts whole in order to have a society that functions well.

Sebastian:

It makes me feel safe - being included and it makes me feel like a better person being included.

Yashvi:

The best thing about being in this school is that I can learn new things. I can run around, do things I haven't done before. It's like an opportunity for me.

Lars:

Being included at school is a good thing because I’m learning and I feel like I belong.

Paul:

He's entitled to an education the same as every other child in Australia and inclusion is the best way to do that. To have him in his classroom with all the other kids from his community.

Kimberly:

There's a saying, it takes a village to raise a child. For kids with additional needs: there's a village, there's a team, and then there's a really good school.

Felicity:

I think it's really important for him to have peers that are able to see his needs and meet his needs. We've certainly had some significant friendships with other children that truly see Sebastian as an individual who's a friend, not just a child with special needs.

Murray:

Inclusion is a journey, not a destination. It's the aspirations we have for all of our students to feel a strong sense of belonging, participation and achievement in learning in our schools.

Jenelle:

Inclusion is about creating freedom from fear, from anxiety, from discrimination. It's a true, meaningful belonging as opposed to just feel like they're fitting in.

Nicole:

Inclusive education will look like, it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from, you have a place to belong, and that your learning is tailored to your needs. That your teachers have high expectations of you and really believe that you can achieve anything.

Rebecca:

For us being a brand-new school, we are really intentional about asking ourselves the question around how do we ensure that we have inclusion at the centre of the planning that we’re doing. So, that means whenever we set up systems and structures here at the school, that question is challenged within that design process.

Jodie:

How students can use the skills that they have to access information. So, whether that might be having it up on the board in multiple different ways, breaking down tasks into smaller steps and moving around the space, mixing up skills so they can help each other, having things accessible and so everybody has access to those same things.

James:

The students love routine. All the classes I’ve found try and keep those strong routines. Schools are busy places so sometimes they change, but trying to keep some sort of routine is good.

Jenelle:

We use peer mentoring and support. Everybody can learn from everybody. Universal design for learning. We use hands-on manipulatives. Just meeting the sensory needs.

Nicole:

We've actually been each term going into a different school and looking at their inclusive practices. What's been really powerful is seeing that it is those really tiny changes that are actually making a big difference. It’s things like looking at their timetable or looking at the way they move students around the school to participate in different activities. It’s the way they use things like keyword sign to make the school more inclusive and just being able to go into those sites and learn from each other has been really powerful.

Kimberly:

The adjustments that they’ve given him are for his timetables, they use visuals as opposed to words in little boxes because that’s just too much for him to decipher. And adjustments around self-regulation. So, they have a breakout room for him and it is crucial for his success and he takes pride in learning.

Jodie:

The impact I can see on the students is their voice in what we do - a big focus on student agency. So, we're including the students in that planning, so that means that they have opportunities to show what they know in the way that's best for them.

Kimberly:

Both the teachers, LSAs, and staff he has at school, they believe that he can learn and the expectation is that he will learn and that combination of the support and the challenge has really done amazing things for his self-confidence, his resilience, his self-esteem.

Nicole:

And really, that's where the great practice is already happening. Many of our schools are doing it and doing it really, really well and we can learn from each other in that process.

Jenelle:

There are so many benefits of including all students. That sense of belonging strengthens when everybody’s feeling like they can be the person that they are, not who they should be, but who they just are.

Nicole:

Inclusive Education Strategy is a 10-year reform program. It's really looking at how we make all of our ACT public schools more inclusive so that students with disability have every opportunity that every other child has in our schools. So, we know it's going to take time to achieve and there's a lot of great work already happening in our schools and this is really about how the system can support schools to do that even better and make sure that kids have what they need to learn.

Jodie:

In practice, when we're doing our planning, we think about how do we make a lesson or an experience engaging for everybody from the start, because really, whatever is going to work for somebody that needs something extra usually will help everybody else in the classroom.

James:

We use a lot of assistive technology with Chromebooks, noise-cancelling headphones, the students have a variety of workspaces, movement breaks, fidgets, visuals on the board and then we do a check-in each morning to meet their wellbeing. As the teacher that sets me up for success to meet their needs on any given day.

Sarah:

Having regulation spaces where students can go and regulate themselves and get back into a space ready for learning. Whatever your needs might be, we're going to be able to help you to move forward.

Paul:

We have ILP meetings a few times a year where we plan and strategise for educational goals as well as his safety and well-being goals. We have a dedicated little comms channel, engaging with us and co-designing as we go, maximises the benefit to him.

Felicity:

Every single year we've had a great deal of thought put into which class will Sebastian be in, how will his needs work in that classroom? They've all been very open to additional training for staff. There's just been really no limits, in terms of the approach.

Yashvi:

They help me by making sure I can hear the instructions. I feel included. I feel happy that I can do things, a lot of things.

Mathisha

It made her life completely different at home as well. She became very confident, independent. She started researching things on her own. If she is curious, she starts asking questions.

Price:

How you learn is very important if you want to develop. If you’re not taught in the way that you learn, then education is kind of separate from you and then you have this big gap between people who are educated, people who are not educated.

Kimberly:

Supports my child receives at school is very meaningful relationships that see him as more than his disability. They don't see him as a problem to be solved. They see the entirety of him and that has made all the difference.

Jodie:

I have students that communication was probably one of their biggest goals to start off with, just actually being able to advocate for themselves, to be able to be clearly heard. And now they’re some of our most confident communicators and then they can reflect on all the things that they've achieved, and they see their accomplishments as the focus rather than what they can't do.