Student Support

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.

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.

At Findon High School our Pastoral Care Worker (PCW) is Kathy Pivetta who offers pastoral and practical support to students, staff and the school community.

Our PCW promotes student wellbeing, engaging young people in activities that are preventative and which support early intervention and referral of mental health issues.

Our PCW does not promote or discriminate on the grounds of any particular ideology, but works to enable a supportive, inclusive and caring environment within the school for all students.

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.

Learning Plans

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 and Student Support

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

Programs to Support the Transition to Adulthood

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:

• Gain skills (e.g. relationship building, communication, organisation)
• Gain certification (e.g. SACE credits, drivers licence, vocational certification)
• Broaden horizons (i.e. learn about the world of work)
• Gain employment

Department for Education School to post-school options –

https://www.education.sa.gov.au/supporting-students/children-disability-and-special-needs/school-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

External agencies supporting students with learning needs

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

Learning Plans

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.

Programs to Support the Transition to Adulthood

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.