Slept in. Late on the road. As usual, school hard to find, but I suppose that it is the same at home for people trying to find Irish schools. Cóilín needs to get a hair cut and some pollyfiller for a tooth. No time for the dentist or barber. Next week, God willing. Feel like taking the morning off, but cannot disappoint the schools or the VPA who organised the visits.
Mount View School in a very salubrious part of Melbourne. 800 pupils in this middle-class school means that with a budget of $6 million, resources are not an issue. 75 staff, 55 teachers, 36 of them mainstream.
Some observations:
- One full-time art teacher
- One and a half full-time music teachers
- Two P.E. teachers in a massive gym. Before and after school sports provided. Teams entered in local and state-wide competitions. Every sport played on adult courts/fields-no concession to mini-games here.
- One performing arts teacher
- A school nurse, two hours a day, paid for by voluntary donations of $40 per family per year. 90% of families pay.
- They also pay $200 per family for admin, art monies etc.
- Principal, two Deputies and two Leading teachers are all "walking". They kindly agreed to meet and be interviewed by us, at length, as they did not have class teaching responsibilities.
- Lunch was nice, good tucker, as they say.
- Many children with special needs integrated eg 30 deaf and 14 others with a high level of special need. Each child attracts individual funding of between $8,000 and $40,000, but this has to cover the cost of teacher, SNA and all other related expenses. I think that we will keep our system.
Monash Special Developmental School: An extraordinarily moving experience, to visit a school of 140 children with very severe intellectual and physical disabilities. Some unable to speak, some unable to see, some unable to walk, some confined to their bed. The sixty three staff who work with these young people are extraordinary people themselves. Pupils start attending at 2.8 years of age and only leave when they are 18.
- 63 staff
- 22 of them teachers
- 30 teacher assistants
- 2 physiotherapists
- 1 O.T.
- 1 Speech Therapist
- 1 Social worker, one day a week
- 1 psychologist, one day a week
Low staff turnover, but difficult to recruit young teachers, for this type of school. A very humbling experience for both of us.
Nath na Seachtaine:
"You want me to kill some trees for that?" (Am I to photocopy all that?)
1 comment:
Looks like you are giving as good as you get!!
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