Page 2277 - Week 07 - Thursday, 4 August 2016
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The structured nature of PBL requires that all members of the school community are involved. This in turn ensures that parents, carers and other community members will be aware that there is a significant action on behaviour support occurring in our schools. All sectors are working towards implementing positive behaviour for learning principles in schools. I look forward to sharing the outcomes of PBL with members of the Assembly as an increasing number of schools implement the approach.
Catholic Education’s case management framework has been further established in this reporting period. The case management framework is supporting teachers to identify and respond to the needs of all students including those with complex needs and challenging behaviour.
Demonstrating their commitment to building on existing reforms, improvements and initiatives across their 18 schools, where practical, the Association of Independent Schools of the ACT is establishing a sub-committee under the AIS board to focus solely on the schools for all. As the Minister for Education, I am pleased that there is such a shared and demonstrable commitment across the ACT to the recommendations and cultural reforms arising from the work of the expert panel.
Madam Speaker, the ACT government committed to providing additional allied health supports to public schools when the schools for all report was released. This commitment was increased in the 2016-17 budget, with $7 million being committed to increase additional allied health professionals, including senior psychologists and social workers. These additional staff will strengthen the capacity of the directorate’s network student engagement teams to provide a range of supports and guidance to school leaders, staff and students.
Additional funding is supporting teachers to participate in targeted professional learning in working with students with complex needs and challenging behaviours. A key focus of the schools for all report was the need to acknowledge the voice of students in influencing and directing their learning. To this end, I hosted a student congress on 28 July. The “Ask Us!” Student Voice in the ACT Forum was facilitated by the Youth Coalition to glean feedback from students across all school sectors in the ACT, with students and teachers from across all Catholic, independent and government primary and secondary schools.
This forum is contributing to the development of tools to assist all schools to meaningfully and regularly consult with all students about their experiences in schools and decisions that affect them. This is about really listening to the most important stakeholders, young people themselves, and hearing from them on how to have truly inclusive schools.
In this reporting period I have also held a stakeholder forum to hear directly from disability advocacy groups, Indigenous advisory groups, the Education Union and other stakeholders about their perceptions of progress to date on the schools for all implementation. Overall, the feedback on the early stages of implementation was positive and a number of constructive suggestions were provided. We will continue to
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