Page 3369 - Week 09 - Thursday, 24 August 2017
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Education Directorate are developing an external inclusion and wellbeing web page for use by the wider education community.
To further support inclusive practice in our schools, the award winning everyone, everyday program is being implemented though cross-sectoral collaboration between ACT Education, Catholic education and the Association of Independent Schools ACT. This program was developed by Disability ACT’s community development team and won the National Disability Award in 2014. It is a comprehensive teaching resource for mainstream primary schools and focuses on the concept of inclusion. The program was developed by educators, following extensive consultation with people with disability, family members, advocacy groups, curriculum advisers and academics. The program aims to create a cultural shift in community attitudes towards disability, with the underlying assumption that we all benefit when the environments in which we work, live and play are inclusive and that we all have a role to play in creating inclusive communities.
This cross-sector work initiative has seven facilitators and 80 trained staff from across the ACT, and new facilitators will be identified from these trained staff to extend the reach of the program. We are collaborating with our partners across the sector, government and community to jointly support better outcomes for our students and their families. Acknowledging the challenges that face our students, the Association of Independent Schools of the ACT is partnering with CatholicCare to provide counselling and psychology support to their schools that need it.
To support children and young people in out of home care at school a collaborative agreement between the Community Services Directorate, ACT Education, Catholic education, the Association of Independent Schools of the ACT and ACT Together has been established. This agreement provides a framework to establish communication channels and promote effective information-sharing between each organisation. This in turn will help to meet the child or young person’s wellbeing and educational needs and improve their educational outcomes.
From these examples, members can see the significant progress made to implement the schools for all recommendations. This is to be the final progress report presented in the Assembly. Future schools for all reports will still be made publicly available on the ACT education website. Our focus is now on the future.
The government is committed to an equal chance for every child to have a great education and to be prepared for a bright future regardless of their circumstances, characteristics or background. As members would be aware, the government has been facilitating grassroots community conversation about the future of education in the ACT to make Canberra’s education system even better. This stems from a fundamental belief that every child deserves a great education and the life chances which flow from it. My particular focus is on improving equity. Like other high-performing education systems, we must make clear our goal of improving equity and access to quality education for each and every student.
The consultation is happening in a number of ways including sitting down with students, parents, teachers and the community to listen to their views about what they
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