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Meeting the needs of students with disability

Teachers are required to provide learning opportunities and choices for students with disability on the same basis as those offered to students without disability.

 

The Australian Curriculum supports this by providing a curriculum that can be used flexibly to meet the needs of all students.  

 

The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA) and the Disability Standards for Education 2005 outline the requirements for education providers to ensure that all students with disabilities can access education on the same basis as their peers. This can only occur when students and their parents or carers are consulted about appropriate adjustments. These adjustments can be made across one or more of the following:

The content, process, products and learning environment should be adjusted in response to student goals, abilities and interests.

Students with blindness or low vision

 

The South Pacific Educators in Vision Impairment (SPEVI Inc.) has prioritised the following:

* The South Pacific Educators in Vision Impairment (SPEVI Inc) is the major professional association for educators of students with vision impairments in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific region. 

 

Accessible learning environments

  1. Accessible physical spaces and adequate braille signage for access to physical spaces with the school environment.
  2. Braille production by trained braille transcribers and access to other tactile materials to support understanding of curriculum content.
  3. Assistive technology needs to be supported within school systems. This may include provision of digital materials to enable students’ immediate access to braille through electronic braille devices.

SPEVI Inc have provided a full statement which discusses training and resource priorities. Download the statement.

Underpinned by the Queensland Department of Education’s Inclusive Education Policy, the Queensland Braille Learning Progression (QBLP) has been produced to provide guidance to teachers to improve the braille literacy standards. These progressions may be used by other jurisdictions and school sectors under the following licence and attribution statement:

© State of Queensland (Department of Education) 2021, except where indicated otherwise. Excluding the Queensland Coat of Arms, State of Queensland copyright included in this document can be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial ShareAlike 4.0 licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

 

Download the progression document here:

Braille Literacy and Numeracy learning progression v2.0

From learning and development to boosting confidence and unlocking future potential, Vision Australia can help.

Resources include the document Supporting students who have vision loss 

The Queensland department of education has developed a free toolkit for teachers. You can find links to this resource in ACARA's professional learning hub https://learning.acara.edu.au/

  • Teachers must take measures or actions to enable students with disability to access the Australian Curriculum on the same basis as students without disability. This process should be done in consultation with students and/or their parents or carers. See the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD) for further information about reasonable adjustments. 
  • Not all students with disability require adjustments to all 3 dimensions of the Australian Curriculum. 
  • Students with disability who require adjustment/s to one learning area may not require the same adjustment/s to another learning area. 
  • Students with a similar disability do not necessarily benefit from the same adjustments as each other. 
  • Students may require various levels of adjustment over time to reach their potential. 
  • A student’s language proficiency impacts learning across all learning areas.  
  • The provision of manipulatives can help students who have difficulty understanding a concept. 
  • Some students require alternative ways to access learning materials; for example, multimedia, Braille, captioned videos or access to text to speech software. 
  • Some students require assistive technologies and augmentative and alternative communication to access curriculum content. 
  • Pre-assessment and ongoing formative assessment are critical to ensure that learning area content and adjustments align with student needs.  
  • When evaluating the adjustments made on behalf of a student, the effects of the adjustment on the following should be considered: 
    • the student’s ability to achieve the intended learning outcomes 
    • the student’s ability to access and participate in learning programs 
    • opportunities that foster the student’s independence. 

Note: Consultation is a requirement under the Disability Standards for Education 2005. Teachers must consult the student, or an associate of the student, to identify reasonable adjustments. Consultation provides an opportunity for the 3 dimensions of the Australian Curriculum to be considered in meeting the diverse abilities of students with disability. For further information about consultation, see NCCD. 

Refer to jurisdiction and sector specific information for more advice and policy direction.