Newsletter three:
Inclusive classrooms and classroom learning
In this Newsletter for our Families for Inclusive Education Project, we want to draw your attention to our upcoming learning modules/zoom workshop discussion and resources which have recently been launched.
Due to COVID-19, we were unable to complete delivery of our workshop Working Effectively with your Child’s School and we cancelled events in eight locations. As an alternative, this workshop will now be delivered in 8 modules which will be live on our website late next week. We will promote further when the modules are live, but we are also scheduling an online workshop discussion scheduled for Wednesday 17th June at 10am to specifically discuss two topics:
- Communication Skills
- Setting Goals
We are pleased to announce that the Classroom Learning page on our CRU website is live.
On this page you will find videos, articles, booklets, websites, checklists and podcasts. There are four focus areas.
- Inclusive Strategies for Teaching and Instruction
- Adjustments – What’s Reasonable?
- Using Technology Well
- Making Sense of Curriculum, Policy and Implementation Requirements
Meet Jacob and watch the video on how adjustments have been made and learning goals achieved. In this video, you will see the benefits of inclusion on his class and the staff at the school.
You can also listen to a podcast focused on Steven, a Grade 3 students with Autism and hear how he finds school and some of the common adjustments that mum Claire talks about to support him in his learning.
This is from a series of podcasts on adjustments found on the NCCD adjustments page. On our website page, you can read more about what the NCCD or the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data whereby information is collected every year about all students in Australian schools, and also its role as a tool that is used in some states to provide adjustment based funding.
And you can read more about Adjustments in the Adjustments – What’s Reasonable? section.
For example, we often hear about adjustments that are made for our children, but what does this mean?
"Adjustments are measures taken to level the playing field by dismantling barriers to access and participation”
Graham, L. (Ed.). (2020) Inclusive Education for the 21st Century
Reasonable adjustments are required by law to ensure that all students have access to the curriculum and learning with their same aged peers.
For some time, CRU has been encouraging families to think more about reasonable adjustments to ensure that adjustments that are proposed are not just reasonable but are most likely to promote inclusion. It can take a bit of thinking to move from a short list of default adjustments to a broader range of adjustments, let alone to be thinking will this adjustment also promote engagement with peers and other goals towards inclusion.
To assist families and educators, CRU has developed this new resource to prompt thinking on what’s possible and whether the adjustments made for your child are inclusive.
There are some new resources on assistive technology.
Other useful links on this page include a link to the Queensland Curriculum & Assessment Authority which oversees education for students in all Queensland Schools. Read their article on reasonable adjustments providing guidelines for teachers when implementing the Australian Curriculum.
Finally watch the video about a university in San Francisco who includes students with disability through making adjustments using the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles.
We hope you will find those resources valuable.
We also want to remind you that since our last newsletter we have had to go online with everything we do!
Our second webinar Communication with School: Building a Foundation for PartnershipsOpens in new window is live
Families who are thinking about 2021, may also be keen to review our previous webinar, Planning successful transitions: Top tips for parentsOpens in new window.
Stay connected, and we look forward to promoting other website resources in coming weeks!
With best wishes
The FFIE team.
This project is proudly supported by the Queensland Government through the Department of Education.
The Department of Education website outlines its commitment to Inclusive education through its inclusive education policy.
