Page 252 - Week 01 - Thursday, 13 February 2020
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Opposition members interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Members, allow the minister to finish.
MS BERRY: Thanks everyone; you are all being truly awesome. Madam Speaker, I cannot answer a question on a hypothetical circumstance that might arise in the future. The policy is clear. Ms Lee has read it out. That is the circumstance where the policy is implemented.
Suspensions are used in numerous ways to support children and families and the school community to ensure that every child, regardless of the circumstances that they come to school with, which may include some very complex and complicated circumstances that they are dealing with outside the school community can be integrated into the school. Our teachers and school principals have the expertise to be able to support these students to ensure that their integration back to school—if it is a student that has not behaved appropriately and where the suspension policy has been implemented—is towards making sure that restoring a safe learning and work environment for everybody in the school can be done in a timely manner.
A circumstance that I do not know about that could happen in the future is not something that I or anyone could possibly respond to. The policy is there and is implemented as it is required in the schools.
MR PARTON: What is the standard procedure or practice in dealing with students who witness attacks or bullying leading to a suspension, and what training has been provided to teachers to deal with this cohort of students when implementing this policy?
MS BERRY: The suspension policy is used to ensure that there is a safe return to a safe learning and work environment for the school community. In a circumstance where an issue has occurred within a school community, school teachers and school principals have the appropriate training and are offered additional supports, should the need occur, through the network of support officers who go out to schools, in particular in making sure that there are positive behaviours for learning programs in place in our schools and expanded across our schools so that these kinds of events can be minimised and addressed if they do occur.
The suspension policy is there as a tool to support families and children to return to school in timely way, to understand the kinds of circumstances or complex needs that might be occurring in a child or family’s lives, and to be able to support them and other people who are affected by those circumstances, by using not only this policy but also all the other tools and the professionalism that our school teachers and school principals are trusted with and deliver on every day within those school communities.
Education—phonics
MS LAWDER: My question is to the minister for education. Minister, in June last year during question time you were asked:
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