SCHOOL OF SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS: BEHAVIOUR AND ENGAGEMENT
285. Hon TJORN SIBMA to the Minister for
Education and Training:
I refer to the
Department of Education's behaviour management program in the Busselton
area.
(1)
How many students in the electorate of Vasse or the City of Busselton, as
appropriate, have been referred to and then taken on by the School of Special
Educational Needs: Behaviour and Engagement in the past 12 months?
(2) What is the
process following referral to SSEN:BE?
(3) What is the
justification for exclusion from the school environment and engagement within
SSEN:BE?
(4) What is the
success rate of students referred to SSEN:BE and how is success measured?
Hon SAMANTHA ROWE replied:
On behalf of the
minister, I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question. This
answer has been provided by the Minister for Education and Training.
(1)
Twelve students have been referred, six of whom have been provided with
intensive support by the School of Special Educational Needs: Behaviour and
Engagement.
(2)
Information is collected from the school, the school psychology service and,
where applicable, regional, department and/or other external services, to
assess the specific needs of the referred student. A tailored response or
intervention is then developed and implemented.
(3)
Students with complex and challenging behaviour may require an intervention
that provides direct support delivered on a SSEN:BE site for a time. This is determined
in consultation with all relevant parties, including the student's
parents. Reasons for supporting a student off-site may include the risk they
pose to the safety of others, risk to their own safety, fear and/or high
anxiety, or the need to assess the student's needs away from the
environment that triggers his or her negative or extreme behaviours.
(4)
Each intervention is tailored for the individual student through a needs
assessment. Individual goals form the basis of the intervention plan and success
is measured against these defined goals. Hence, no one metric is used to
measure the overall success of SSEN:BE's interventions. One measure
SSEN:BE monitors for students with the most challenging of behaviours is
suspension history. The cohort of students who received the highest amount of
intensive SSEN:BE support in the 2016 and 2017 school years have had a significant
reduction in suspensions. Average suspension data for this cohort in 2015 was
20.42 days, but in 2017 this dropped to 5.04 days. SSEN:BE also surveys school
principals every two years. In the most recent survey, 86.6 per cent of
principals who had accessed SSEN:BE services indicated they would continue to
do so to assist meeting the behaviour and engagement support requirements of
high-needs students.