At Findon High School, individual support is offered to students who seek advice or are referred. This provides an opportunity for students to share concerns, learn and practice coping strategies and improve relationships through conflict resolution and restorative practices.
Students may also be referred onto wellbeing support services outside of the school to enable improved outcomes in the area of health, wellbeing, attendance and learning.
To support young people and their families referral to both school based or outside government and non-government agencies are supported by staff at Findon High School. Findon High School liaises with services including Support Services for the Department for Education, Centacare, Headspace, Uniting Communities, ARA, MAYFS and CAHMS.
Pastoral Care lessons or Life Long Learning is delivered every Monday afternoon in vertical groupings with the House Class teacher. There are two key areas for learning in 2019:
Findon High School has a Positive Education focus which is an approach that blends academic learning with character and wellbeing. Lessons explores the following six elements:
The mandated Shine and the Keeping Safe Child Protection Curriculum is also delivered in Year Levels and covers the following areas:
Additional Pastoral Care Programs are provided from outside services to our students including:
At Findon High School we offer students the opportunity to be part of our Reading Tutor Program, known as MULTILIT (Making up lost time in literacy). This is an intensive reading program based on phonics, word attack skills, sight word recognition and supported book reading in a one-to-one context. The MULTILIT program caters for students who have not yet acquired the basic skills needed to become functional readers. To ensure all students are put on the right level for their reading capabilities, students are tested to determine which section of the program they need to start on to ensure the program can be tailored to their needs.
Hi, I am Kathy, the Pastoral Care Worker here at Findon High School.
The role of the Pastoral Care Worker is primarily a support role for students, staff, parents and families promoting a sense of community and wellbeing. I really enjoy what I do and have been in this role for 10 years.
Over the years at Findon High I have worked to bring events and programs to the school highlighting areas affecting not only young people but the wider community. As a result, awareness and education concerning these issues have been presented to students.
I also work as an SSO in the school and have done so for many years. My role as an SSO has always worked in a complementary capacity with my role as the Pastoral Care Worker, as both roles work for the benefit of the young people in our school.
It is a unique privilege to be part of a great school like Findon High and it is my aspiration to support the needs of the community of Findon High School in any way I can through the work I do.
I can be contacted though the school or my email: kathy.pivetta6@schools.sa.edu.au
Pastoral Care Worker (PCW)
Our Pastoral Care Worker supports the school in the following ways:
Chaplaincy Services promote student wellbeing, engaging young people in activities that are preventative and which support early intervention and referral of mental health issues.
Access to the Pastoral Care Worker by students is voluntary and parents must give written permission for the Pastoral Care Worker to provide ongoing personal support.
QuickSmart is a structured Numeracy program tailored for middle school students (years 4-9). It is designed to improve student learning by developing their skills in addition, subtraction, division, multiplication and problem solving. QuickSmart lessons are conducted in pairs, 3 times per week and each session is 30 minutes.
The structure of the lessons provides deliberate practice of new number facts, combined with the use of appropriate strategies to enable the student to remember the facts and eventually automatically recall each fact. When students can automatically recall number facts, their working memory is freed up so that they are able to engage meaningfully with more demanding mathematical tasks (Simerr, 2019).
The QuickSmart programs have been developed by the SiMERR National Research Centre at the University of New England and are based on educational theory. The program is backed up with 15 years of data demonstrating its effectiveness at improving the learning of struggling students in a range of school settings.
Additional information about the program can be obtained from:
https://simerr.une.edu.au/quicksmart/pages/qsmathematics-intervention.php
To ensure that our senior students are on track and achieving the best possible outcome Findon High School has employed a ‘Traffic Lights’ system.
Traffic Lights are allocated to SACE students to identify their efforts and progress. The benefit with this system is that no assessment tasks have to be set and subject teachers can allocate Traffic Lights on students’ engagement, attendance, behaviour and work output during class time.
Quite simply a Green – means currently up to date with work and tracking well, Amber – has started some work but certainly room for improvement, Red – serious concerns due to not being up to date and/or falling behind.
The Traffic Lights are initiated every five weeks, followed up by the end of term report or semester report. Students who achieve ‘ambers’ and ‘reds’ Traffic Lights are followed up and contact is made with the parent/guardians to make them aware of the situation. 
Supporting students with learning disability and learning difficulties requires a team around the child approach, where the student is at the centre of the process for creating a learning plan. Findon High School is beginning to transition to the Department for Education’s One Child One Plan, which replaces the Negotiated Education Plan (NEP) and Individual Learning Plan (ILP).
In doing so, students at Findon High School who have a verified learning disability will have their plans updated as required by a team including the student, parents/caregivers, staff. This process seeks to communicate to teachers the students’ needs and sets the goals they are striving to achieve. This plan is intended to make sure that learning demands are appropriate, support needs are made available and that an individualised pathway through school is crafted.
Department for Education learning plans – https://www.sa.gov.au/topics/education-and-learning/curriculum-and-learning/learning-plans
Funding is provided by the Department for Education for students with verified learning disabilities, as well as a sum to be used for students with learning difficulties. This funding is used by the school for a range of intervention and support programs. Commonly this is used to employ Student Support Officers (SSOs) to work in classrooms with students to clarify and explain tasks. This funding is also used to support students, aged 15 and above, to engage with programs that support the transition to adulthood.
Department for Education funding for student support – https://www.education.sa.gov.au/supporting-students/children-disability-and-special-needs/disability-funding-reform
Students with verified learning disabilities have pathways open to them to support the transition to adulthood, in recognition of their specific developmental and learning needs. These include programs that help the students to:
Department for Education School to post-school options –
Youth Education Centre Short Courses – http://www.yec.sa.edu.au/pages/short-courses.html
Barkuma Transition Program – https://www.barkuma.com.au/supports/in-your-school/transition-program
Maxima Disability Employment Services – https://maxima.com.au/disability-employment-services/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIw9GE3-iK4QIVDCQrCh2EUAEbEAAYASADEgIPjfD_BwE
In working with young people with a learning disability, there are external agencies who can work with staff or students to work on specific areas of need.
Students with Autism, Asperger’s or on the ASD spectrum have worked with ASD Facilitators in order to gain skills related to their learning plan and goals.
Autism SA School Program – https://www.autismsa.org.au/school-program
Support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students is beginning to use the Department for Education’s One Child One Plan, which replaces the Individual Learning Plan (ILP).
In doing so, students will work with a team including the student, parents/caregivers and staff to craft a student centred learning plan for their own journey at Findon High School. This process seeks to communicate to teachers the students’ support needs, areas of interest for engaging with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. They then set the goals they are striving to achieve. This plan is intended to make sure that learning demands are appropriate, support needs are made available and that an individualised pathway through school is crafted.
Workabout Centre
The Workabout Centre offers a range of programs and services to support Aboriginal students to make a successful transition from school to work, higher education or further training. To be eligible for Workabout Centre services, students must be Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and enrolled in a public high school. Minimum ages may apply to some programs.
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During the current Covid-19 climate, The scheduled Group Principal Tours have been put on hold.
However, as every day is Open Day at Findon High School, individualised Principal Tours can be coordinated through
Uniforms may be purchased through our uniform supplier, Hambours, located at 2 Wilson Street, Royal Park
Ph. (08) 8447 2077 Open Monday to Friday 9am – 4.30pm or from their online store.
Ordering of house polo shirts and sizing for Soft Shell Jackets at Student Services.
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