Special educational needs
The QSA is committed to equity in education. The needs of students with specific educational needs must be considered in a proactive way - to design inclusive learning and assessment programs, and to provide opportunities for alternative assessment arrangements.
Students with specific educational needs include but are not limited to:
- Students with disabilities that have a physiological basis
- Students with educational needs arising primarily from socioeconomic, cultural and/or linguistic factors where there may be some form of educational disadvantage
- Students whose difficulties in accessing learning do not appear to be directly or primarily attributable to educational disadvantage arising from impairment, or to socioeconomic, cultural and/or linguistic factors or psychological needs
- Students with identifiably different patterns of educational development and orientation.
Inclusive strategies
Inclusive strategies enable a learner with disabilities to participate in learning experiences on the same basis as a learner without disabilities.
A teacher makes required adjustments to teaching, learning and assessment to enable a student with disabilities to demonstrate knowledge, skills or competencies and makes these available (Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and Disability Standards for Education 2005 Cwlth).
It is critical that consultation happens at the beginning of the curriculum planning so that adjustments are incorporated into the entire teaching, learning and assessment cycle.
Resources
Resources have been developed to support teachers of students with special educational needs. The document What are inclusive strategies? and Planning for adjustments are found in the assessment bank. After logging on to this site go to the search for Resources and select Special School in the Phases of schooling for these and additional resources.
Other resources:
- Table - Ways to gather and record evidence from a variety of sources (DOC, 363 kB)
- Using a framework to plan for adjustments (PDF, 130 kB)
More information
More information on supporting and planning for students with diverse learning needs may be found on the Equity page. Guidance for using the Australian Curriculum with students with special education needs is available on ACARA website.
Last updated: 24 February 2011