Special Education

The Federation is pursuing improvements in Special Education as one of its priority demands for the State Elections. You and your colleagues can help to secure these improvements.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

• Hold a meeting to consider the support and resourcing needs of special education students in your workplace and, in consultation with your organiser, develop and implement appropriate political and/or industrial strategies to secure improvements in your school.
• School staffs are authorised, in consultation with their organiser, to take action to address potential and actual breaches of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, and to prevent educational disadvantage to students. OHS matters that should be considered include teacher workload and student violence.
• Let the Minister, local members of parliament and the DET know about your concerns. Pro forma letters are included to assist with this.
• Use the attached resource material to assist you with action in your school.

The Federation acknowledges that there have been a number of significant improvements in support for Special Education in NSW public schools in recent years. These have included the establishment of additional special education classes, especially Autism and ED classes, the establishment of behaviour schools and units, and the appointment of an additional 700 teachers aides special. In most cases these have been secured as the result of action by the Federation and action by members in particular schools.

Nevertheless, significant areas of concern remain. These include the increasing of special education class sizes to fund the provision of a full-time teachers aide for every special education class, the continued integration of students into the mainstream without adequate resources and support, the failure to apply the secondary staffing formula to SSPs with secondary students, the failure to adequately address OHS concerns, especially where those have arisen in relation to violent students, the removal of STLA allocations where a significant need continues to exist in a school, the inadequacy of integration funding support and the inadequacy of counselling and therapy services. Some of these issues arise because the DET�s cost-neutral approach to areas of support (e.g STLAs) leads to the withdrawal and reallocation of support from schools with a continuing need.

Workload continues to be a problem for teachers both in special education and integrated settings. Much of this is related to day-to-day care, assessments, preparation, individual learning programs and individual health plans and coordinating work with teachers� aides.

Matters being pursued by the Federation with the state political parties include:

(a) the restoration of special education class sizes to pre-2005 levels with the maintenance of an aide on each class

(b) secondary staffing supplementation for all SSPs with secondary age student enrolments

(c) the provision of additional teaching staff where necessary to ensure that teaching staff are always available to intervene in crisis situations

(d) inbuilt relief for ED/BD classes and schools, in recognition of the difficulties experienced in attracting appropriate casual relief

(e) additional school counsellor support for ED/BD schools and classes

(f) improvements in integration funding including full funding for transportation of all SSP students to and from their homes to the schools where integration takes place

(g) significant improvements to the provision of speech therapy and occupational therapy for special education students, including those integrated into mainstream classes (h) adequate provision of ED/BD classes in rural and remote settings

(i) the provision of special transport for all SSP students to and from their homes to respite cottages and to and from their respite cottages to school

(j) funding to support NESB students with learning difficulties, behavioural and any other special needs.