LEARNING SUPPORT

In most cases, a school learning support team is made of a head teacher and various support staff. This team will often include paraprofessionals or School Learning Support Officers (SLSO in Australia).

The team is responsible for ensuring any student at the school with a diagnosed or imputed disability is well supported. This support must comply with relevant legislation. Some examples of this legislation include: The Disability Standards for Education (DSE) in Australia, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in the US and the Equality Act in Britain.

The specific model of delivery for this support, however, will vary based on a number of ‘cultural’ factors: size of the school, number of support staff, types of disabilities and, most importantly, staff capacity.

I work with school learning support teams to streamline the processes for identifying, assessing, planning and collaborating with all stakeholders to support students with additional needs. This includes building contextual knowledge of the most common disability areas, working effectively with parents and refining the individual planning process.

This support is informed by structured, research informed frameworks including Response to Intervention (RtI), Muti Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL).

Acronyms aside, the themes are always the same:

• Every school wants to know that their most vulnerable students are thriving.

• Every parent wants to know that their child is happy and reaching their true potential

• Every school leader wants to know that staff are well supported and the systems that enable this support are optimised.

I’d welcome the chance to work with your school or discuss your needs in more detail.