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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.