Page 4094 - Week 13 - Thursday, 31 October 2013
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The government supports all recommendations and strategies in the report to ensure a best-practice response to the management of children and young people with learning difficulties, and I made that announcement in August of this year.
The following strategies have been agreed upon by the directorate under the key recommendations. For 2014 planning, the directorate will focus on meeting the needs of all learners, including those students identified as experiencing learning difficulties within programs for the school leadership teams. It is essential that strategies in building capacity are undertaken in partnership with school leadership to ensure whole-of-directorate ownership and practice. The directorate has commenced the review of the gifted and talented policy, which will include provision for twice exceptional students—that is, students who are gifted and talented who also present with learning difficulties.
The directorate is currently investigating early intervention models similar to and including the response to intervention model, which is a tiered approach to ensuring that students are receiving responsive, high quality instruction according to their needs. The directorate will assess the appropriateness of such models in the ACT context, including the identification of the support required for implementation.
Building staff capacity to meet the needs of students with a learning difficulty has commenced through the online learning course conducted by the directorate in speech, language and communication and dyslexia and significant reading difficulties. This provides a consistent directorate-wide approach.
Currently, 340 participants have completed these courses, including 36 trained tutors consisting of school-based staff, psychologists, therapists from Therapy ACT and office-based staff. School-based staff and network student engagement teams are working in a collaborative way with other professionals to develop skills to support the needs of students with learning difficulties. This common approach builds the groundwork for developing communities of learners across the networks of schools.
Nationally, these courses have been highly valued, with 89 per cent of those completing the courses still accessing the embedded resources three months following completion of training. Research indicates an online flexible environment with this structured interactive approach based on understandings and assessment of interventions is leading practice in professional capacity building. ETD will incorporate the tutor training and school participation into a comprehensive professional learning pathway within all schools for teachers and learning support assistants.
The directorate will continue to utilise the services of Ms Karen Starkiss from the Consultant Dyslexia Support Service based in Melbourne and previous principal and consultant in the United Kingdom. She has delivered an interactive workshop in the ACT for school based staff and a number of schools have indicated interest in whole-school professional learning with her.
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