We want to share exciting news with you.
We are a part of the research team working together with Disability Strategy Implementation team from the NSW Department of Education.
This project aims to create tools that will allow students with high-support needs to talk about their school experience.
Who do we mean by students with high-support needs?
High-support needs is a term often used in Australia, and describes:
- Students who have moderate and severe intellectual disability and who need some support in their daily activities
- Students with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities who need a lot of support throughout each day and who have more than one disability.
Why is this exciting?
Students with high support are usually last to be thought of and included. They usually do not have much say in their education and school experience. This is also due to their limited communication skills, with some students not using words at all.
This project is important, because people with high-support needs in schools quite often do not have their needs met in the following:
- Transitioning from primary school to high school
- Transitioning from high school to employment, day program, etc.
- Having a say in what they want
- Learning confidence skills
- Having available resources that suit them individually
- Having a person centred plan that they agree with
- Feeling included
We are delighted that the NSW Department of Education values students with high-support needs. We are happy to see many current efforts to:
- Improve school experience of students with high support needs
- Give these student a voice about their school experience
What do we plan to do?
We will be working together with 22 special schools and two mainstream schools with support units from metropolitan, regional, rural and remote areas.
We will be using tools like:
- An Easy Read survey
- Photovoice and
- Body-mapping
We have already used these tools at Chalmers Road School. The students enjoyed the process and told us what they like about their school.
We cannot wait to hear from students with high support needs from the 24 schools that we will be working with.
Our team
Our research colleagues in this adventure are:
- Dr Joanne Danker (University of New South Wales)
- Professor Leanne Dowse (University of New South Wales)
- Dr Brydan Lenne (Disability Strategy Implementation)
- Amazing school team from Chalmers Road School – Michelle Davies (school principal), Natalie Anagnostopoulos and Brooklyn Smith (relief principals)
- Michelle Tso (University of New South Wales)
We will keep you posted about this exciting work!
It is such a privilege to be involved in this project, and to be able to give students a voice is such an amazing thing to be part of.
It’s good to see this project get going. I will be interested to hear how it goes and also how you need to adapt your methods for Covid-19 (I am doing research on the latter in the UK). I wonder if you will introduce the students to self-advocacy groups?
Mainstream schools in Indonesia do not accept students with high-support needs. So this is a great research and I am looking forward to reading the results. I am also interested in knowing more about the tools that will allow students with high-support needs to talk about their school experience. My research interest is in student voice and inclusive education in Indonesia. If there is an opportunity to collaborate that would be amazing!