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The Gonski Report – Implications for students with learning disabilities

The final report of the Review of Funding for Schooling, chaired by David Gonski, was recently submitted to the Federal Government and subsequently released for public comment and consideration. The review of funding arrangements was initiated with the specific purpose of developing a system that would be viewed as transparent, fair, financially sustainable and ultimately effective in promoting excellent educational outcomes for all Australian students. As part of this process the review team took into consideration issues of equity and disadvantage, evaluating the implications of the current model on disadvantaged students, including those with a disability.

 

It is frequently noted that education has the potential to transform people’s lives. Gonski makes this point early in the report, suggesting that:

 

High-quality schooling fosters the development of creative, informed and resilient citizens who are able to participate fully in a dynamic and globalised world. It also leads to many benefits for individuals and society, including higher levels of employment and earnings, and better health, longevity, tolerance and social cohesion (p. xiii).

 

Ensuring that all Australian students, including those with disability, gain access to high-quality schooling is an important target for both Federal and State Governments.

 

The report provides substantial evidence of the significant gap in and across Australian schools between the highest and lowest performing students. This performance gap is far greater in Australia than in many other OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries, particularly those with highly successful schooling systems, such as Finland, Canada, Korea, Hong Kong and Shanghai. Significantly, many of Australia’s lowest performing students are not even meeting minimum standards of achievement. The strong correlation between low levels of achievement and educational disadvantage is frequently well-documented and was clearly identified within the report findings.

 

Educational Disadvantage

Evidence from both research and practice suggest that there are five key factors of disadvantage currently impacting on educational outcomes in Australia. At the student level, these factors include: socioeconomic status, Indigeneity, English language proficiency, and disability. Students with learning disabilities, such as dyslexia and dysgraphia, fall within the disability category. At a school level, remoteness is viewed as an additional factor impacting on the educational outcomes achieved.

 

As a consequence of these findings, the panel identified the issue of equity as an important consideration if Australian educational standards are to be raised. The panel suggested that, in order to achieve greater equity, schools must have access to the resources necessary to cater for both the individual and collective needs of disadvantaged students. In addition, the provision of appropriate training to school personnel on the use and effectiveness of these resources was viewed as critical.

 

Factors Affecting the Impact of Disadvantage

 

The data collected from all states and territories demonstrates that the impact of disadvantage varies. For example, although there is a strong correlation between students’ socioeconomic background and their levels of achievement, effective instruction and additional resources will frequently reduce the impact. Unfortunately, some students experience multiple factors of disadvantage, sometimes referred to as compound disadvantage, which tends to result in significantly greater functional impact. An Indigenous student with a home language other than English, living in a remote (low SES) area of Western Australia is exposed to compound disadvantage. The same student may also have an underlying (perhaps undiagnosed) disability, a disadvantage that has been overshadowed by the existing – more obvious – factors. These students are, not surprisingly, at an even higher risk of poor academic performance, and require significantly greater levels of support to reach their full educational potential.

 

A final factor relates to the growing body of evidence demonstrating that the composition of a school’s population has a significant impact on the outcomes achieved by all students at the school. This is particularly significant in Australia in light of evidence that some parts of the schooling system are becoming increasingly stratified according to socioeconomic status.

 

Students with disability120

 

Education providers in all sectors are required by law to make reasonable educational adjustments for students with disability so that they can participate in schooling on the same basis as students without disability. There are significant differences in the levels of adjustment required for students with disability. Not all disabilities limit the educational achievement of students. Some students with disability may not require any adjustment. Other students, with minor or more significant educational adjustment, can achieve the same outcomes as students without disability.

 

In 2010, an Expert Advisory Group (in response to an agreement reached by the Council of Australian Governments – COAG) developed a model for collecting nationally consistent data on students with disability and the level of adjustment provided for them. All states and territories agreed to a trial of this model and the collection of data during the 2011 school year. Students with identified learning disabilities were included in this trial. The information collected included data relating to the level of adjustment provided, on an individual basis, to ensure access and participation. These levels were identified as being consistent with one of four categories: no adjustments; supplementary adjustments; substantial adjustments; and, extensive adjustments. Additional information is provided in the following table:

 

Varying Levels of Adjustment for Students with Disability

Category/Level Provided when… Examples of adjustments
no adjustments …students with a disability do not require any personalised adjustments. No specific strategies beyond the resources and services readily available for all students.
supplementary adjustments …there is an assessed need to provide specific strategies and resources over and above those already available within the school. Modified curricula and instruction, limited specialist teacher support, assistive technology, external support, separate supervision and extra time.
substantial adjustments …students have ongoing significant support needs, although they can generally access and participate in learning programs and school activities with the provision of extra resources and adult assistance. Extensive and frequent individual instruction, close supervision, a highly structured learning environment, regular visiting teacher, resources to address mobility, communication and safety needs.
extensive adjustments …sustained levels of intensive support are required at all times to address the individual nature and acute impact of the student’s severe disability. Constant and vigilant supervision, complex personal care and hygiene assistance, associated support for medical conditions, mobility and communication.

 

 

In the majority of cases, students with learning disabilities were provided with either no adjustments or supplementary adjustments, although feedback from schools suggested that in cases where no adjustments are provided it is frequently due to a lack of available resources rather than as a consequence of a deliberate choice.

 

One of themes presented within the report is that every school should be appropriately resourced to support every child and every teacher must expect the most from every child.

 

 

Effective Strategies for Improving Outcomes

 

The report examines current national and international research evidence relating to successful teaching and learning practices for disadvantaged students. A recurring finding points to the importance of teacher quality in improving outcomes for students experiencing disadvantage. High-quality teachers develop differentiated practices to cater for the variety of learning needs within their classroom, and are flexible in adapting and applying the curriculum in a way that is relevant to disadvantaged students. They diagnose problems with the development of skills at an early stage and select the best intervention strategies depending on the individual learning needs of each student.

 

The OECD (2011) argues that direct and student-oriented instruction methods are most effective for teaching disadvantaged students. Similarly, the Productivity Commission (2011) suggests that specialist components on appropriate teaching strategies for disadvantaged students be incorporated in to all teacher training courses, and that pre-service teachers should be given more opportunities to undertake their practicum in disadvantaged schools.

 

Beyond initial teacher training, skilled teaching is reliant on ongoing professional learning in both subject matter and pedagogy. Building the capacity of teachers and school leaders through engagement in quality professional learning is a key to improving the learning outcomes of disadvantaged students (Dinham, 2008).

 

Nationally Consistent Data on Students with Disability

 

In order to better support disadvantaged students the review committee recommended that supplementary loadings be paid in addition to the applicable schooling resource standard per primary or secondary student. In cases where students are experiencing multiple factors of disadvantage, additional funding for all areas of disadvantage should be provided. The review committee made it clear, however, that there were a number of statistical and definitional issues preventing the development and rapid implementation of this funding stream for students with disability. They were strongly of the view that this should be addressed urgently, prior to any new arrangements being finalised. It was felt that collecting more extensive and accurate data on both the incidence of disability in Australian schools, and the level and cost of educational adjustment required, will provide a good basis to inform the development of future funding arrangements for students with disability.

 

 

Review Recommendation (26)

The Australian Government and state and territory governments, in consultation with the non-government sector, should, as a matter of priority, progress work on collecting nationally consistent data on students with disability and the level of educational adjustments provided to them to enable national data to be collected and reported from January 2013.

 

 

Students with disability entitlement

 

Under the panel’s proposed funding arrangements, all schools with students with disability (regardless of sector) would be allocated the applicable schooling resource standard per student. The school would also attract any other applicable loadings, for example, due to location or other educational disadvantage. For some students with a learning disability, this recurrent funding may be sufficient to enable equitable participation. However, for many students with learning disabilities, additional funding is needed to make the necessary adjustments for them to participate effectively in schooling.

 

The review also examined the role of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, suggesting that it may cover the costs of certain goods and services used to support students with a severe disability, in the event that these goods and services are also required for everyday living. It is yet to be determined as to whether or not the NDIS will be available for students experiencing severe functional impact as a consequence of their learning disability. Initial reading of the document does suggest that these students and their families will be eligible to apply for funds through the NDIS.

 

 

 

Review Recommendation (27)

The National Schools Resourcing Body should work with the Australian Government and state and territory governments in consultation with the non-government sector to develop an initial range for a student with disability entitlement. The entitlement should be:

• provided in addition to the per student resource standard amounts

• set according to the level of reasonable educational adjustment required to allow the student to participate in schooling on the same basis as students without disability

• fully publicly funded and applied equally to students in all schooling sectors.

 

 

The Review of Funding for Schools is an important and potentially innovative blueprint for much-needed change in the Australian educational landscape. The desire by the panel to highlight the need for greater equity in our schooling system is evident throughout the report.

 

The recommendations discussed in this article may finally result in improved opportunities for students with learning disabilities. Up until this time the provision of support has been exceptionally poor with very few Australian schools offering appropriate intervention and accommodation. There remains some ambiguity as to the level of support likely to be available to students with disability generally but it is hoped that students with learning disabilities are not, yet again, removed from the equation and placed in the ‘too hard’ basket.

 

Mandy Nayton

DSF Executive Officer

 

For a full copy of the report and all references please visit:

http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/ReviewofFunding/Documents/Review-of-Funding-for-Schooling-Final-Report-Dec-2011.pdf

 

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Tony Piccolo MP Indicates Government’s Support to Help Children with Specific Learning Difficulties

SPELD (SA) along with the Dyslexia Action Group – Barossa, Gawler and Surrounds have gained some much needed recognition in parliament through Member for Light, Tony Piccolo. Below is a speech made by Tony Piccolo MP to the South Australian parliament on the 28th of March 2012.

Mr PICCOLO (Light) (16:09):

Today, I would like to bring to the house’s attention a public meeting
which took place last week in my electorate. The public meeting was organised by the Dyslexia
Action Group, Barossa, Gawler and surrounds. At the outset I would like to acknowledge the
wonderful work undertaken by Dr Sandra Marshall and Ophie Renner. Ophie was the Gawler Citizen
of the Year this year and also the South Australian Citizen of the Year. These two people, with a small
group of volunteers, have been very active in bringing the issue of dyslexia to the attention of the
local community and also ensuring that particular children with dyslexia are given a fair go in the
education system.
I had the honourand the privilege to be asked to chairthe forum, both last week and an
earlier forum late last year. The forum was attended by a number of parents, teachers and other
community members and both forums have had capacity crowds, so there are a lot of children in our
community, and obviously families who are concerned about their children’s development because
they have the disability of dyslexia.
The forum, apart from myself who actually chaired the session, was also attended by the local
mayor, mayor Brian Sambell, who spoke about some of the positive outcomes for young people in
addressing the issue of dyslexia. Ms Angela Weeks, the Clinical Director of Specific Learning
Difficulties of South Australia (SPELD), gave a presentation on the importance of goal setting for
students with dyslexia and also provided some explicit strategies that teachers could implement to
support those students. Ms Sandy Russo, a teacher at SPELD, presented information about assistive
learning technologies that were available to assist students with dyslexia to access and participate
successfully at school and also in the home environment. She talked about the use of MP3 players,
digital recording devices, computers, software, etc., which actually help students learn.
The local Barossa regional director for education, Kathryn Bruggemann, talked about the need
for teachers to have an understanding of dyslexia and the impact of the condition on their selfesteem
and learning outcomes for young people diagnosed with dyslexia. She spoke from personal
experience. She has a child who actually suffers from dyslexia, so she has quite a passion to address
this issue. Julie Aschberger, who works in the department, talked about some new initiatives that
the department was introducing to roll out a greater awareness of dyslexia in the classroom and also
how teachers can actually support students and how they can just change their teaching style, which
not only helps students with dyslexia but the mainstream class as well because those styles are
adaptable for both.
lngrid Alderton, again another person from the department, spoke about dyslexia-friendly
school packs, which is a UK initiative to support students with dyslexia in the classroom. The point
was made that education is actually managed differently in the UK, where local authorities have a lot
more say. Therefore, there is actually a different approach to students with disabilities. Mr Dave
Pisoni, the opposition spokesperson, also attended the meeting. He provided, if you like, a Liberal
Party’s opinion on where education is in this state, and I will let him talk about that more. I do not
need to use my time to discuss it here.
At the end of the meeting, as chair of the session, I was asked to have a discussion with the .
people present and talk about what sort of things they wanted at future meetings. The people who
attended indicated they wanted more information about other learning difficulties, ways of
supporting students with dyslexia and special provisions particularly around the SACE program to
ensure that their children have the best opportunities through not only education but also training.
There were suggestions about some smaller specific interest groups being formed to explore and
address issues and to build the knowledge of attendees. There were a number of parents who would
like to know what they can do to support their child in the home.
There was a really positive mood in the forum; in other words, a focus on what we can do to
help our young children, particularly with early intervention, how to support them and how to help
them maintain their self-esteem so they do not actually lose interest in their education, which has
been a problem in the past. Kids who have not coped with the mainstream program have actually
opted out, which is unfortunate because, obviously, those children would have had a lot of potential
which has not been realised.
The students also talked about how we actually help with transition because, in private
schools, children often have one teacher and, in secondary education, they might have multiple
teachers. A whole range of issues was raised but it was a very well-attended forum. I also indicate
the government’s support to help these children.

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Neil Mackay – International Presenter to Provide Great Opportunity for Teachers and Parents

AUSPELD will be proud to welcome Neil Mackay to Australia for a series of entertaining and educational workshops in 2012.

Neil Mackay is an educational consultant and trainer who created the concept of Dyslexia Friendly Schools in the UK. He is an experienced teacher who has taught for 26 years, working with children of all ages with a wide range of needs and abilities. There will be workshops for teachers in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth as well as parent workshops in some cities (TBA).

2012 Australian Tour Dates and Locations

WHEN

Brisbane – May 28th and 29th (visit www.speld.org.au for further details)

Sydney – June 1st and 2nd (visit www.speldnsw.org.au for further details)

Melbourne – June 6th and 7th (visit www.speldvic.org.au for further details)

Adelaide – June 9th (see http://www.speld-sa.org.au/images/workshops/neil%20mackay%20seminar.pdf)

Perth – June 12th and 13th (visit www.dsf.net.au for further details or register on-line today!)

Neil is known for his ability to bring the classroom into his training and for providing lively, entertaining and thought provoking opportunities for teachers and allied professionals to reflect on and develope their practice. He has written a number of books including the extremly popular Removing Dyslexia as a Barrier to Achievement and Taking the Hell out of Homework. Both books are available though AUSPELD, click here for info.

Click here for more info on Neil Mackay’s australian tour…

 

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The ‘Raising Children Network’ – A Great On-line Resource for Parents

This award winning website is targeted at providing assistance to parents of all children and contains some very useful information on how to help parents support children with learning difficulties. With interactive tutorials, discussion forums and an extraordinary amount of information this website will help any parent, not just those of children with learning difficulties, with the many challenges of raising children.

raisingchildren.net.au has already supported many parents, to see if it can help you please follow a relevant link below;

Learning disabilities: supporting your child

Helping your child build resilience and self-esteem

Learning disabilities in adolescence: FAQs

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Working Towards a Nationally Consistent Approach to the Collection of Information on Students with a Disability

A recent report produced by PricewaterhouseCoopers under contract of the Department of Education has provided some good news for those with learning disabilities.

In 2008, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) agreed to work towards a nationally consistent approach to the collection of information on students with disability. This approach took the form of a National Model developed under the guidance of an expert advisory group which met in 2010. The National Model was developed to gather comparable information about the numbers of students with disability and most importantly, the level of adjustment provided to students with disability.

This Model consists of a process to identify:
–  school students with a diagnosed disability, or a disability ‘validated’ by an Education Authority, as defined by the Disability Discrimination Act (1992), and then
–  information on the level of adjustment provided for these students. The adjustments are classified as – extensive,
substantial, supplementary or no adjustments
– Supplementary information on the type of disability under four groupings was also collected – physical, cognitive,
sensory, and social/emotional and the extent of adjustments (measures or actions) taken by a school or provider to
assist these students to access and participate in education on the same basis as students without disability. Collecting
information on student‘s disability is not the focus of the National Model, however, it provides more context to the
students‘ needs for adjustments in schools and provides a level of detail that will be valuable to educators and policy
makers.

To view the report in full please click here.

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Study into the Early Childhood Development Workforce By the Productivity Commission

SUBMISSION

 

Those in the ECD Workforce play a critically important role in potentially influencing the development of oral language, memory, fine and gross motor skills, pre-literacy and literacy skills of the children with whom they work. High quality, extensive training – detailing the knowledge, skills and understandings relevant to children’s early childhood development is essential. ECD workers need to have a well-developed understanding of the precursors to successful social, emotional and academic development across childhood. AUSPELD provides expert advice in the areas of literacy and learning and therefore comment will be made specifically regarding these key developmental domains.

 

About AUSPELD

 

The Australian Federation of SPELD Associations (AUSPELD) represents all state and territory SPELD Associations. These organisations, in turn, represent and support the many thousands of children and adults struggling with both learning difficulties and disabilities throughout Australia. In addition to providing advocacy and support for individuals with learning difficulties and disabilities, AUSPELD also promotes evidence-based approaches to teaching and learning for all children and adults. Over the last ten years a primary focus of the state SPELDs has been to prevent literacy failure, particularly amongst our most vulnerable children.

 

AUSPELD provides services to a range of professionals including early childhood teachers, education assistants, childcare workers, occupational therapists, speech pathologists and educational psychologists, as well as families and individuals. Through its state-based members, AUSPELD responds to in excess of 1,000 calls per week from community members and to a similar number of requests for information and support via email and website contact. State SPELDs also provides training, resources and support to over 30,000 teachers, principals and allied professionals working in schools and other organisations throughout Australia each year.

 

AUSPELD contributes to state and federal inquiries, forums and government departments on a wide range of issues related to improving literacy outcomes. AUSPELD is well-positioned to comment on the role of the ECD workforce on the development of children’s literacy skills. This submission will focus on the need to improve training in pre- and early literacy acquisition for ECD workers, the importance of an integrated approach to literacy and learning across early childhood service providers, and ways to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and quality of the ECD workforce.

RELEVANT TERMS OF REFERENCE

 

The Early Childhood Development Workforce and The Schooling Workforce

 

1. Factors affecting the current and future demand and supply for the ECD workforce, and the required mix of skills and knowledge, including:

 

(a) Delivery of fully integrated ECD services including maternal and child health, childcare, preschool, family support services and services for those with additional needs.

 

Perhaps one of the most effective ways that the poverty cycle can be broken is through education and children are most likely to achieve educational success if they become literate. The protective factors and risk factors for literacy success or failure are established in the early years and there are a range of ECD workers who, with appropriate training, could ensure that children developed the pre-literacy skills necessary for literacy success.

The Early Years Learning Framework – “Educators: Belonging, Being and Becoming” – published and distributed by DEEWR in 2010 provided a valuable framework for discussion and planning for members of the ECD workforce.  It was not (and did not pretend to be) a curriculum, syllabus or overview of the skills, knowledge and understandings that children need to acquire during the early years; or professional and strategic advice on how best these skills should be taught. In the past decade a great deal has been written, and there has been numerous international inquiries (NRP, Rose Report, Nelson, etc), clearly outlining the components of appropriate pre- and early literacy skill development and what needs to be provided to young children to ensure that their early language and literacy skills develop effectively. Unfortunately, very little of this information is ever provided directly and succinctly to members of the ECD workforce. Many ECD workers report a lack of confidence with respect to their ability to provide sound learning experiences to children to target the development of their early reading and writing skills and this is simply because they have not been provided with the appropriate skills.

 

Research suggests that children who become successful readers and writers are those who have been exposed to a language-rich environment in their early years. Children who are not provided with explicit instruction in vocabulary (building knowledge and understanding of words) and phonological awareness (the ability to distinguish and manipulate the sounds in spoken words) are at a significantly increased risk of struggling with literacy acquisition throughout their schooling. All children, but particularly, those children at greatest risk, require robust instruction in vocabulary, language comprehension and phonological awareness. They also require explicit, intentional, multi-sensory, systematic teaching of foundation-level literacy skills (such as a structured synthetic phonics program) from pre-primary (age 5 years).

 

There is strong evidence to show that there is a vast divide between the language experiences of children from different socioeconomic levels, and that these differences place children from low SES backgrounds at increased risk of academic and social difficulties. Graves and Slater (1987) found that year 1 students from high SES backgrounds had approximately double the vocabulary size of students from low SES backgrounds. Hart and Risley (1995) showed that not only do children from low SES backgrounds have reduced vocabularies; they are exposed to much fewer positive verbal interactions than children from high SES backgrounds.

 

The ECD Workforce has the opportunity to affect the volume and quality of oral language input children receive through the education of parents (by encouraging positive and appropriate parent-child interactions), and by intentional teaching of children. In order for parents to be provided with accurate and evidence-based information (including games, strategies, songs, etc) regarding language development, it is essential that the members of the ECD Workforce providing this information be well-informed.

 

Over the past thirty years the prevailing ideology in early childhood education and care has been that children learn best through play. This has therefore influenced not only policy and practice, but the development of resources, the physical layout of early childhood environments and the response to the needs of children demonstrating developmental delays. Obviously, the inclusion of play in early childhood centres is essential but for children with developmental disabilities, the lack of structure and the lack of intentional teaching have often added to their difficulties.  The fact that ECD staff have often not been trained in delivering programs that are more structured, sequential, intentional and responsive also means that when asked to do so, they feel both out of their depth and also uncomfortable from a philosophical point of view.

 

(c) The availability and quality of pre-service education programs, including through undergraduate and postgraduate education and VET, and consideration of training pathways.

 

AUSPELD is an expert provider of literacy training to educational institutions. It is our observation through providing professional learning sessions to school staff that many teachers and support staff lack confidence with respect to their ability to teach literacy skills. As indicated earlier in this submission, there remains a very strong focus on play-based learning in early childhood education and child-care facilities throughout Australia. This is promoted to the exclusion of other approaches and fails to acknowledge the wealth of research evidence that suggests that those children considered to be at greatest risk do not respond well to unstructured, open-ended tasks.  These children fall further behind their peers, become disenchanted with school and frequently display behaviour problems. Current pre-service education programs largely advocate for play-based, student-directed methods to the exclusion of any form of structured learning. As such, many teachers enter the workforce with little understanding of the science behind reading development and the strategies necessary to build strong literacy skills in their young students.

There is overwhelming support – both from current academic research and from practice – to support the view that all children benefit from teaching that is explicit, structured, sequential and multi-sensory. Pre-service training for ECD workers (especially teachers and teacher assistants) should focus on these key components in addition to the critical elements of effective reading instruction (Rose Report, 2006) which includes:

•      explicit and systematic phonemic awareness instruction

•      systematically sequenced phonics instruction

•      guided  and repeated oral reading with appropriate error correction and feedback to improve reading fluency

•      direct instruction in vocabulary and reading comprehension strategies

 

It is our hope that the inclusion of explicit skill teaching in the early years will help to prevent the high (52%) level of functional literacy problems currently experienced by Australia’s 15 to 19 year olds (ABS data, 2006).

 

 

 

We would be happy to address any of our comments in greater detail or respond to any queries from the Commissioners. Thank you.

 

Signed

 

 

 

 

Mandy Nayton

President

AUSPELD

30 January 2011

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Education Disability Standards Review Underway

MEDIA RELEASE –  15 February, 2011

The Gillard Labor Government is taking action to help remove barriers to educational achievement, with a review of Disability Standards for Education.

Minister for School Education Peter Garrett said recent figures show the numbers of funded school students with disability increased by more than 20 per cent in the four years from 2005 to 2009.

“Today I’m releasing a discussion paper inviting submissions to the Review, in a move to help ensure a more inclusive Australian society which enables people with disability to achieve their full potential,” Mr Garrett said.

“The Disability Standards for Education have been in place for five years and it’s time we looked at their effectiveness in giving those with disability every opportunity to succeed in the education system.

“School students with disability have steadily increased as a percentage of the total school population. In 2009 there were over 164,000 students with disabilities in Australian schools that received support by education authorities.

“It is central to Federal Labor’s belief that all students, regardless of their personal or social situations, have access to the very best education we can provide so that they can pursue their life’s aspirations to the fullest.

“This discussion paper will help us determine how effective the Disability Standards for Education are in practice and whether they need to be amended.

“I encourage people with an interest in improving the education and training experience for people with disability to make a submission to the Review.”

Senator McLucas welcomed the review of the standards.

“People with disability deserve the same opportunities as other Australians in their local community,” Ms McLucas said.

“The Disability Standards for Education help to ensure that people with disability enjoy the benefits of education and training.”

The Standards are designed to assist people with disability to access and participate in education and training opportunities and help eliminate discrimination in education and training.

The Standards also clarify the rights of students and the obligations of education providers, pre-school, school and tertiary, under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992.

The Australian Government is also conducting a broader Review of Funding for Schooling, which is examining all funding to all schools including funding allocations to ensure students with disability can access a quality education.

Information on the review, including the discussion paper, is available at www.deewr.gov.au/DSEReview .

As part of the review process, the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations will conduct face-to-face consultations with stakeholders in each capital city.

In addition, the department will engage in a series of broader consultations with schools-focused disability organisations on education issues affecting school students with disability.

THE HON PETER GARRETT MP

Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth

SENATOR THE HON JAN MCLUCAS

Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers

 

Minister Garrett’s Media Contact: Cameron Scott 0448 346 942

Senator McLucas’ Media Contact: Belinda Featherstone 0408 743 457

DEEWR Media: media@deewr.gov.au

Non-media queries: 1300 363 079

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Opportunity to Improve Support for Students with Learning Disabilities

In a recent media release The Hon Peter Garrett, Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth announced the formation of a working group to provide early advice on assistance for students with a disability. Minister Garrett is specifically interested in identifying strategies that could assist school students with special needs both in the classroom and at school generally. He indicated the working group will identify effective, priority approaches to improve the educational experience of students with disabilities.

At this early stage there is no specific mention of dyslexia, dysgraphia, or any particular disability type, within the working group’s terms of reference. It is, however, viewed as an important opportunity to raise the significant issue of students with dyslexia, and other learning disabilities, in schools and the current level of disadvantage they experience. In order to ensure that this issue is raised and considered by the working party, please send a submission (no matter how brief) to schoolsfundingreview@deewr.gov.au or write to:

The Secretariat
Review of Funding for Schooling
Location C16MT4
GPO Box 9880
CANBERRA ACT 2601

The closing date for submissions to the Review has been extended to Thursday 21 April 2011.

Alternatively, please send your comments, thoughts and suggestions to support@dsf.net.au and we will include your comments with our submission.

More information on the review of schools funding is available at
http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/Programs/Pages/FundingReview.aspx).

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Cynical Exploitation of Special Needs Children

Baroness Mary Warnock laid the foundations for special needs education thirty years ago. Here she reveals how her seminal report has been betrayed by schools who have exploited children to meet their own financial ends.

Thirty years is a long time in politics. It is high time that a Committee of Inquiry, or even a Royal Commission, were set up to recommend a fresh start on Special Educational Needs. This was the recommendation of the All-Party Commons Select Committee under Barry Sheerman in 2007 and it should be followed up now. This week’s damning Ofsted report is enough by itself to justify starting again.

When, as chairwoman of the Committee of Inquiry in 1978, I published what became known as the Warnock Report, things were totally different. It was only a few years since severely mentally disabled children had been deemed educable at all, and the concept of a continuum of educational needs, from the most severe and permanent to the relatively minor and remediable, was new. The educational cuts of the Eighties were a mere cloud on the horizon. We were still, just about, in the era when things could be recommended on the grounds of their educational merit, without too much calculation of costs.

So though the committee knew that its recommendations would not be cheap, it never thought that, as the Ofsted report appears to show, children’s supposed special needs would be exaggerated and exploited in order to attract more money for schools; still less in order to allow schools to slither out of their responsibility to ensure that as many children as possible achieved a respectable standard of literacy and numeracy, and a reliable understanding of how they ought to behave.

It was the idea of the continuum of needs that gave rise to the belief that the committee had recommended that all children, whatever their disabilities, should be educated in mainstream schools. What the committee actually recommended was that the large number of children with moderate learning diffculties already in mainstream schools should be identified, and their needs provided for where they were. We also thought that this would enable more children to be taught in mainstream rather than special schools because provision for their needs would now be better, and would become part of the recognised mainstream provision.

But the commmittee as a whole never proposed that all children should be taught under the same roof or that special schools should be abolished. This was, and remains, an extremist position.

We worked on the assumption (the figures being provided by the then Department of Education and never challenged) that about two per cent of school-age children had severe learning or other difficulties that affected their education. But that as many as 18 per cent more than these had educational needs that went beyond the “normal”. It was these children (briefly known as “Warnock Children”, rather to the dismay of my own five) who had hitherto been much neglected and who were supposed to have their needs met in mainstream schools by the provision of extra help and extra monitoring of their progress.

It was for these children that mainstream schools would be given extra money, for specialist teachers or for classroom assistants, for adaptation of school buildings or even for the setting up of units or withdrawal classrooms on the campus, for use by the mildly autistic, or what used to be called the “maladjusted”. We had been warned not to discuss the needs of the dyslexic, dyslexia being at that time widely regarded as a condition invented by the middle classes as a cover for the stupidity of some of their children.

Nor, unbeliveably, were we permitted to point to social deprivation as the cause of many special educational needs, though the link between deprivation and the development of language was as obvious then as it is today, and indeed the number of children eligible for free school meals was then, as now, taken as a rough indication of how many children in a school would have special educational needs.

This link between deprivation and educational failure or special needs struck me then as of the greatest possible importance. And in this respect things have not changed. We were not allowed to mention the link because the myth still persisted that social services and the teaching profession were two completely different sources of provision, dealing in completely separate things, or meeting totally different needs.

And though we on the committee continually urged the two services to work in partnership (what in Blair-speak became “joined-up thinking”) we failed, as did the Blair government, to make any difference to this insane dichotomy. If you believe, as I do, that education is the only way out of the under-class, then you cannot help believing in the link. But this also has a profound effect on the duty of teachers to engage their pupils in the educational process, and to inspire them with educational ambition.

By this I do not mean that they should encourage them all (or even half of them) to go to university, but that they should instil in them a desire to do things well, and understand them better and discuss them articulately. When pupils are thus excited by what they learn, not bored, they behave better, and can indeed be taught to do so. Linguistic poverty is a prime cause of boredom and of disruption and violence in the classroom.

Teachers have a huge responsibility for developing the language of their pupils, both spoken and written. I do not believe that teacher-training puts enough emphasis on this, nor on the connection between linguistic poverty and behaviour. Teachers have to tackle both together, and must be ready themselves to articulate the limits they will impose on rudeness, violence and disregard for the feeling and interests of others. If teachers are not explicitly to introduce, by precept and example, the basic rules of civilised, morally good behaviour, then they should quickly leave the profession.

But of course a teacher who teaches in this way, though she recognises that she will have far more difficulty with some children than with others, is fundamentally optimistic. She believes that most children can become engaged in and excited by the process of learning, can want to succeed, can like their teachers enough to want to please them, can therefore improve their performance, even if by halting steps and slow.

There will be some children who face obstacles too great for the ordinary teacher to remove, but these will be relatively few. For them, specialist help is required, either in the short or the long term. (For instance, only specially trained teachers can help severely dyslexic people, children or adults; without special training, a teacher may do more harm than good, but when she has had it, she may achieve wonders.)

Therefore it is absolutely necessary for the non-specialist teacher to be able to identify those children who genuinely need specialist help. Perhaps the greatest obligation of teacher-training is to make such identification central, a matter of routine but constant vigilance and good judgment.

But this is a far cry from the present trend, if the Ofsted report is to be believed. A good teacher believes in her ability to engage the imagination and therefore the co-operation of her pupils, however unpromising they may seem. A good teacher and a good school flourish on hope. A bad teacher gives up at the first setback and runs to the school Senco (special educational needs coordinator) asking for help. And now she is positively encouraged by management to do so, for the sake of a cash injection, and so that her pupils need not be counted among those whose examination results will be made public.

This is institutional pessimism, an institutional announcement that the pupils for whom extra is sought are, deep down, beyond hope and so little worthy of respect that they may be used merely as a means to an end.

The concept of special needs and its related statement (the supposed guarantee to a parent that her child will get the help he needs) must urgently be overhauled. It may have been inevitable from the beginning that these ideas would live on to be abused. At least from the 1981 Special Educational Needs Act, which made clear that no extra funds would be available for its implementation, we should have foreseen the future. However that may be, the Ofsted report suggests such a cynical reversal of the benign intentions of the original committee and the subsequent legislation that it cannot simply be overlooked. A fresh start must be made.

By Baroness Mary Warnock

17 September 2010

www.telegraph.co.uk

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Seeking a New Deal on Dyslexia

Australia can take some tips about learning disabilities from schools in other countries, writes Elisabeth Tarica. This article was originally published in The Age on May 31st 2010 and is reprinted with permission.

A nation as self-confident as Australia doesn’t expect to receive lessons in advanced education practices from such humble places as Irvinestown, a small village two hours west of Belfast in Northern Ireland. Yet that’s what Nola Firth found this year when she visited the 250 students at the village’s St Paul’s Primary School, where sophisticated and effective strategies were being used to deal with dyslexia. St Paul’s is one of many schools in the UK that have been awarded dyslexia friendly status by the British Dyslexia Association.

Dr Firth, a research fellow at the Royal Children’s Hospital’s Centre for Adolescent Health and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, travelled to the UK, the US and Canada to visit dyslexia-friendly schools as part of a Churchill fellowship. She found that in these schools students spoke freely and without stigma about having the learning difficulty, the hurdles they face and what support they need to help them cope. They had easy access to text-to-speech and predictive typing software and specially trained teachers.  Each school formed its own dyslexia policy. One of these set down that students with dyslexia would not be asked to read aloud, would have access to alternative assessment methods and would receive assessment that did not include spelling accuracy. ‘‘There’s an awareness that you don’t have to be necessarily doing things that are written down to show that you have knowledge,’’ Dr Firth says. ‘‘They were still getting the best of literacy but on top of that there was this awareness that there are some people who need other ways of expressing information and getting information in. It works for everyone, not just the kids with dyslexia.’’

Since the initiative was introduced at St Paul’s in 2007, literacy results had jumped higher than the Northern Ireland average. This picture is in sharp contrast to the way dyslexia is treated in Australia — where, apart from New South Wales, it is not legally recognised as a learning disability and debate still centres on whether the condition really exists. Used to describe a range of persistent difficulties with reading, writing, spelling and sometimes mathematics that result in a child performing significantly below their chronological age, dyslexia is a lifelong genetic condition that has a neurological cause. It is often referred to as an invisible disability because it manifests differently in each person. It is estimated that one in 10 struggle with dyslexia yet few are assessed and given support.

Experts say teachers have limited training to identify dyslexia and learning difficulties, and are generally unaware of dyslexia’s genetic and permanent nature. It is why many students arrive at secondary school struggling to read or write. Research shows that, without intervention, students with dyslexia risk developing behavioural problems at school, giving up, withdrawing socially and eventually dropping out and suffering delinquency, depression and unemployment. Most Australian schools do not have a tailored program to deal with dyslexia, which falls under the general umbrella of specific learning disabilities (SLD) and does not attract separate funding.

‘‘SLD/dyslexia teacher education is compulsory for incoming teachers in the US, Canada, and the UK but this is not the case here in Australia,’’ says Dr Firth. ‘‘Many teachers do not know that SLD is a particular phenomenon that is inheritable, independent of intelligence, so that children can also be gifted, and that it is often highly resistant even to skilled teaching, including synthetic phonics teaching.’’ Because it isn’t recognised as a disability, dyslexia’s isolated symptoms — such as problems with reading — are often addressed in reading recovery programs that do little to overcome the underlying problem. Dr Firth says Australia is being left behind in its response to the condition. ‘‘What really struck me is that it is recognised and specifically stated as a disability in America, Canada and England,’’ she says. ‘‘Policy and practice have followed from this legislation, most of which either do not exist or exist in a much weaker form in Australia. These legal and practical supports indicate significant commitment to giving equal access and opportunity for success for those who have dyslexia.’’ Compared with Australia, there is far greater acceptance and awareness of dyslexia in the educational and general community in these countries. ‘‘When I told a school principal and a teacher educator at the University of Toronto that in Australia we do not recognise specific learning disabilities, including dyslexia, as a disability, the surprise on their faces was memorable,’’ she says. ‘‘They were truly astonished because they think of us as a progressive country and we are . . . but they were truly astonished that we didn’t have dyslexia categorised as a disability and that these people were not being systematically found and supported.’’ The US and Canada, for example, have schools dedicated to students with SLD. ‘‘They cater for students who cannot be adequately catered for in mainstream schools and are dedicated and set up for people who have SLD including dyslexia not intellectual disabilities,’’ says Dr Firth. One such school, the Frostig School in Pasadena, Los Angeles, catered for 120 students, each with an individual education plan. There was a ratio of 10 students to one teacher, plus a teacher aide. Five professionals including a speech therapist, educational consultant, psychologist and counsellor, were on-site. Dr Firth says recognition of the problem and extra school support are urgently needed. She was a member of the national dyslexia working party that in January presented a report on the shortfall of services for people with dyslexia to the federal parliamentary secretary for disabilities and children’s services, Bill Shorten. It calls for national recognition of dyslexia as a disability under the Disability Discrimination Act through legislation at state and federal level and for the dyslexia friendly school model to be implemented in Australia. It also recommends mandatory teacher training to help in identifying and supporting students with dyslexia. The introduction of dyslexia-friendly practices in workplaces was also flagged. ‘‘I experienced the widespread and significant positive change these initiatives can make,’’ she says. ‘‘The dyslexia friendly school model is something that could be translated here easily . . . it is about teacher training and teachers are dying to know what to do about these kids. They know about these clever kids they’ve got who have trouble with their reading and spelling.’’

LINKS

www.ldaustralia.org/359.html

www.churchilltrust.com.au/fellows/detail/3340