National Reform Area - Extended School Service Models

View other videos | Read the transcript of this video

Australian Education Ministers' 2010 Biennial Forum

This video requires an up to date version of the flash player and javascript turned on.

This video has captions. Click on the CC icon in the top right hand corner of the video player to turn them on and off.

Transcript

Challis Parenting and Early Learning Centre is a joint initiative of the Western Australian Government’s Department of Education, and is an example of an extended services school model project. The Centre is located on the grounds of the Challis Primary School in Armidale. The objectives of the Centre are to improve access to physical and allied health support for the purpose of improving children’s transition into school. This is achieved at the Centre through enhanced learning, social, emotional and behavioural development as well as coaching to enhance parenting skills.

The project could be best summarised as being a hub of integrated services all delivered from the grounds of Challis Primary School and Challis Early Childhood Education Centre. So we’ve co-located a number of services that are particularly relevant for the parents and the children within our school community. We chose to implement this very unique program on school premises for two main reasons. One, our data that we were receiving from our kindergarten children indicated that they weren’t entering school with the school readiness levels and skills that they needed in order to take advantage of the learning that the teachers were offering. Secondly we realised that our families weren’t accessing all of the services and support programs that are available within our wider community, they weren’t accessing them. So we needed to make the services more accessible, and bringing them onto school premises indeed solves that dilemma.

Thanks for coming in today. So the aim of the session today is just to check in with how Dylan’s going with his speech sounds. I’ll do a bit of a review and see if his speech sounds still need some work, and then give you some ideas of things to do at home if he still needs that. The assessment showed that Dylan had most of the sounds you would expect for his age, there were just a few that need monitoring. This one, this one’s a lake, can you say lake? Lake. Beautiful. Okay, I’m looking at my pictures today. Be Cookie Monster.

Since we’ve implemented the project there have been numerous planned and unplanned outcomes that have resulted in benefits for the community, but for the children specifically. They would include smoother transition from home to school, so the children have more understanding of what’s required of them when they enter their first year at school. Better connectedness for our parents with the schooling system, and higher attendance and engagement rates of parents accessing all of the services that we provide on school premises. I suppose there are two key pieces of advice that I would offer to any Principal who wants to embark on a project such as this one. Firstly make sure you understand the needs of your children and of your school community. Secondly, before you attempt a project like this I would suggest that you do your research and find out what evidence based programs exist within your community, and access them first. It’s vital that Government departments, and non-Government organisations work in a co-ordinated and integrated manner so that families, and children in particular, don’t receive a fragmented service that currently exists in some particular areas. It’s important that they get co-ordinated and integrated service delivery, and they get it in the most accessible place possible. And to my way of thinking, that’s on school premises.

Other videos

TAS

NSW

VIC

WA

SA

ACT