Politics

For real, she says they take up to much of he teachers time.

Yeah but, ā€¦ you know, . itā€™s Hanson.

Onya Richard! ā€¦ :sigh:

Just this week 2 teachers I know have said exactly that.

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hmm i was listening to her speech live. Firstly ā– ā– ā– ā–  she is hard to follow , she can barely string a sentence together.

What I thought I heard listening to the whole thing is that it seemed she was saying (in a poor way), that autistic kids are taking up a lot of the teachers time compared to the time they can give other kids, and those autistic kids should have more specialised classes just for them so they get more proper attention and the teachers in ā€˜normalā€™ classes can give more attention to non-autistic kids. She hoped the extra Gonski funding would lead to this.

As a parent of a child who is on the spectrum, if that is really what she meant, then I kind of agree. (shudder)

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Not to get these kids out of class, to get more in school assistants.

By sheer virtue of the fact that she even suggests you can categorise all autistic kids in the same policy means she has zero understanding of the condition.

Thatā€™s how I read it too & like you say it does make sense that teachers are struggling to teach all their students when they have special needs kids in the class. Some have aids but even the funded kids are only being allocated a few hours per day with the aid. There is also a lot of kids who donā€™t fit into the very narrow funding window or have not yet been diagnosed so schools piggy back these kids off the funded kids. This often means a teacher has multiple special needs kids in the class but not all are even funded for any extra resources. The system is failing kids with special needs & there must be some level of impact on the rest of the class. If Hanson can at least get the issue some attention then its gotta be a positive.

I listened to what she said, and in my view her intent was exactly as you said.

It was too easy to twist the words and the journalists are scum, and those who took the polo all opportunity should be kicked.

Donā€™t like Pauline much but she didnā€™t condemn autistic kids to the scrapheap. Fark I hate journalists,

ā€¦ and the Greens.

Not you Benfti, but you do need Counselling.

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A 20+ year teacher I spoke to about 2 hours ago said that he didnā€™t think special needs kids, particularly with behavioural issues, could be effectively taught in the same class as other kids without a negative impact on the rest of the class. He believes that the best solution would be more specialised schools like those that already exist where teachers are trained better & facilities are catered for.

Now I know full well why its called the autism spectrum & as Iā€™ve said to a Vice-Principal ā€œif youā€™ve met 1 kid with autism, youā€™ve met 1 kid with autismā€ but I can see some merit in the idea that the current system is not working. Many special needs kids are falling further & further behind & this is a compounding issue for them. I donā€™t think teachers are trained or resourced well enough to cope with what seems like an ever increasing amount of kids with special needs.

The main problem is that the diagnosis window to eligible for FAHCSIA and for schools to apply for HCWA funding is 6. This presents a major problem. Most kids donā€™t start school until after they turn 5 and to get an autism diagnosis through the public sector can take months. In my region the wait list if your GP or teacher had suspicions of possible ASD was 13 months. So by the time they have had an offical diagnosis usually the funding window has closed. This is when as JBomber says schools piggy back the support from kids who have recived the funding. There are a lot of hoops that need to be ticked off before that funding comes into play. So kids need more help in schools and more spent on earlier detection in pre school.

But fundamentally socialisation with main steam children is critically important to the development of the children who have recived a level one diagnosis (high functioning). I agree they need the support but all th evidence suggests that the main stream schooling has benefits that extend past th child themselves.

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fake news

The FAHCSIA funding is different to the schools funding for things like in class aid time or sensory tools. FAHCSIA goes to the parents & its meant to help pay for things like Psychologists, OT (many on the spectrum have motor skill issues) as well as anything required for the home. Usually its spent on the expensive trampolines & a new Ipad - its a batshyte stupid waste of money that for some reason assumes the kids donā€™t need any help after they turn 7.

The schools have separate tests (called something like ADAR) & this is a standard disability test that covers every possible disability. Basically if the kid scores above a certain score for ability they donā€™t get any funding. This means autistic kids donā€™t automatically get any extra funding regardless of diagnosis. High functioning kids in particular or kids with behavioural conditions like ADHD or ODD often get no funding even though they desperately need it.

Thereā€™s actually some good work being undertaken as part of the education state in Vic. All VIT teachers have had to do 20 or so hours PD about disability and schools are being pressured to be more inclusive.

If you care at all about the student with learning differences then you would know this 'generally ā€™ has the best outcomes and pathways at its heart.

The concept of behavior issues is where my work is st the moment and the techniques to work on them are the same as we use with kids effected by trauma and grief and loss.

There are great special schools but not that many that have a good integrated system for life after school. Also, the rights of parents to send their child to faith based or independent schools.

I would be interested in anyoneā€™s experience otherwise taking into account the availability of special schools across the state and the focus being on the individual child.

No doubt there are pros and cons for integration versus specialist schools, and it provokes the argument on the rights of minorities versus what is best for all.

In the dark days that I taught maths and science to a group of 15 year old boys from working class and ethnically diverse background, there was a range of characters, abilities and temperaments. The brightest students required much less time to get through the work than did others, and I was always torn about who to help the most.

Kids with no interest, with learning difficulties need to be given special treatment and encouragement, but the system in 1974, only allowed for the average, so the brightest did not get support to excel, and the poorest were left to sink.

I had hoped times had changed, but maybe not. Any teachers out there, who can give a 2017 perspective ?

My girlfriend is a teacher and former integration aid. I asked her last night on her thoughts on the Gonski 2.0. Surprisingly she hadnā€™t heard anything about it, so she got online to read about it. She saw the headline re: Hansonā€™s comments, and got the high horse saddled up and ready to go. But after watching the video she said, ā€œyou know what, sheā€™s on the money here.ā€ But as you said Incoming, just didnā€™t articulate it well. Couple that with reactionary headline b-s and now a bunch of people are going to think itā€™s some evil scheme now that ON supports it.

Speaking from my gfā€™s perspective again, thereā€™s resources available (integration aids, assistants, etc.) that work well for the lower end and allow the higher end to thrive. Just not enough of them.

She rolls on fine without them because she was an integration aid for 5ish years before getting her education degree and so knows her sht, but she says the majority of teachers have (and I quote) ā€œno fkn idea how to cope without oneā€ which means the kids suffer a bit.

If it was 1974, then she would have been talking about me, and it is absolutely true.

As an aside, I recall back then that the Whitlam Government had a ā€œdisadvantaged schoolsā€ programs and poured lots of money into better gear in our science department, but no training programs for teachers or kids and much of the equipment was never used. Not really blaming the Federal Government but more teachers and better training would have been better; my class sizes were about 40 kids. Might have been OK for the best teachers, but I was very average; hence I did the right thing and quit.

Slight deviation: I spent two years in an American high school, with two levels for many of the classes. Like many other aspects of that country, it perpetuated differences.

If they genuinely want to assist then they need to be raise the age for funding eligability from 6 to 7. People also need to be aware that only kids with a level 1 diagnosis go into main stream schooling. Level 1 is what used to be referred to as high functioning and as Aspergers. These kids mostly are not uncontrollable loose cannons, they just need a bit of extra help.

For starters there are currently 164,000 ASD kids in Australia, special schools would be over run

Itā€™s a ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā–  stupid idea

Get better early screening programs or raise the age, then hire the right amount of people

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Iā€™m not sure where you are getting your info from but its wrong, at least for Vic. There are loads of kids in mainstream schools who are nowhere near high functioning. Like I said you are confusing Fahcsia funding which is allocated to a child diagnosed with ASD before the age of 6 & must be used within 12 months. Its to provide treatments & supply aids for the child at home. This is not supplied to the school particularly because many kids are not starting school till they are nearly 6-7. The schools do their own testing to apply for extra funding (I believe they do it at the start of PS & again in high school). This is a standard cognitive test & basically for the kids to get any funding they have to have a low IQ, low functionality or some physical disability. Many of the kids on the spectrum, particularly those with average or above average IQā€™s & verbal capabilities do not qualify for any extra funding. School funding & diagnosis are not linked. Schools can apply for extra funding based on behavioural issues but this is difficult & requires a lot of documented incidents. This is again why many kids on the spectrum, many kids with ADHD,ODD,PDD do not get any additional resources allocated to them through the Gvt & the schools are left to try to manage them as best they can - this is the major issue I believe. I know of parents who have deliberately sabotaged their childrenā€™s testing (take them off meds, keep them awake all night, coach them to fail) so that they make sure their kids get the school funding. Its a disgrace that parents have to resort to those levels.

Qld, itā€™s the same in NSW too, Iā€™ve spent the last two years as a family support worker working with people and families with mental health and disability challenge, Iā€™ve gone through it about 50 times in the last 2 years. Plus I helped my sister through it with my niece in Victoria, Level 1 diagnosis, average IQ, got an aid via the school for 25 hours per week, plus in school speech therapy in addition. this was just last year.

Her development being in main stream schooling with an aid for the past 18 months both socially and scholastically has been outstanding FWIW,

You are right though, we coach families who had kids with early diagnosis of global developmenal delay or pragmatic language delay into how to get the help in schools because neither of those conditions whilst still impacting children in a very similar way to ASD in school, qualify for aids.

Itā€™s about outcomes for children, I donā€™t give a ā– ā– ā– ā–  about the politics.

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