Rural and Remote Education - SA
Rural and Remote
Education - SA
Meeting at Port Lincoln Special
School, 10 August 1999 - notes
The Port Lincoln
Special School is situated at the Lincoln Gardens Primary school. It is
the only special school in Eyre district - an area that reaches from Port
Lincoln to Oak Valley.
The large catchment
area has implications for communication and service coordination. Hub
meetings involve the participation of High, Primary, Junior Primary, Area
and Small schools. This makes networking extremely difficult given the
number of participating schools.
The student numbers
at the school determine the number of staff. Sixteen students attract
a staff allocation of 1 principal, 1 full-time and 2 part-time teachers.
The 4 staff members are responsible for the effective running of the school
as well as occupying the following positions: the South Australia Certificate
of Education Representative; the Vocational Education and Training Coordinator;
the Area of Study coordinator and the Work Experience coordinator. The
range of mandatory administrative tasks shared by a small staff team vastly
increases their workload.
Special schools must
cover the spectrum of curriculum offerings in much the same way as a primary
school and have the added task of adapting individual programs to suit
the specific learning needs of each child.
Rurality has an impact
on the extent to which special schools such as Port Lincoln can have contact
with expert organisations. The Autism Association and the Down's Syndrome
Association come to the school twice each year. Education Department speech
pathologists visit once a term to assess the students. Since the students
do not know the various experts, the assessment is not always accurate.
The speech therapy service in Port Lincoln has had various difficulties
attracting and keeping staff. The position has been vacant for long periods
of time and there has been high staff turnover. This has meant that the
value of the service has been limited.
Specialist services
are very limited in Port Lincoln. The school does not have access to an
occupational therapist even though this service should be available to
the children once per week. Support services will not come to places like
Port Lincoln for one child because of the cost. This means that the parents
must travel to Adelaide for specialist treatment. The costs can be prohibitive.
The relatively small
student numbers also impact on the social options available to the children.
Low numbers of children in each age group with similar communication skills
means that natural friendships are limited. Activities such as sport and
recreation (SPARC) are not available to rural children and this limits
social contact. Variation between students in each class is huge and many
different programs must be coordinated to accommodate the various educational
levels.
Port Lincoln is distant
from other rural communities. While Whyalla, Port Augusta and Port Pirie
are able to coordinate common sporting and social activities, Port Lincoln
is too distant for such cooperation.
Port Lincoln has
no overnight respite care or long-term accommodation facility for people
with disabilities. Families either leave Port Lincoln when the child has
reached post-school age, or the child is sent away from the family into
long-term care. There are no post-school options for disabled children
in Port Lincoln unless they are able to find work themselves. The Special
School is currently facilitating a steering committee to address this
problem. Given the relatively small numbers of children with disabilities,
it is difficult to attract recurrent funding to any activities within
the town. This makes planning very difficult for both the educational
facility and for the families.
The special school
has its own difficulties in attracting teaching staff to the town. This
is particularly difficult when staff are required for short-term contact
work.
Despite these drawbacks,
the school is delivering a Vocational Education and Training horticulture
course at an annexe of the school. School enrolments have increased by
30% in the last year and community links are being developed through initiatives
such as the accommodation for the disabled steering committee.
Last
updated 2 December 2001.