What is the Every Student, Every School (ESES) project about?
Our specialist schools and settings have developed deep knowledge and understanding of learners with additional learning and support needs. Expertise in specific areas of learning and support for students with disability are often intensive and focused in these specialist settings. We need to strengthen opportunities for schools with specialist expertise to collaborate, develop and share their knowledge more widely across the school system and between special and mainstream schools.
Outline of our school's project
We have been working on increasing our expertise in using assistive technology by extending our use of ICT at the Crescent School. We have now installed interactive whiteboards in each of our classrooms and have also implemented an ipad program throughout the school. We have been working on using these technologies both independently and in conjunction with each other. As part of the Every Student, Every School Project we are developing a 'product' in the form of expertise in the use of ICT. In addition, we have been developing resources suitable for both group work and whole class settings where an interactive whiteboard activity is the basis for other multimodal learning experiences. These resources will provide practical ideas for teachers to both enhance learning through ICT and also plan for inclusive experiences for students with disabilities.
These resources aim to enable students to:
- have greater access to the curriculum
- improve their communication skills.
Teachers to:
- plan digitally rich experiences for students with disabilities
- effectively manage their classrooms when using ICT.
The product will be offered to schools in The Crescent School Hub in the form of demonstrations, training of teachers and the availability of resources to support the program.
The rationale for our project – students with disabilities require assistance to participate in education and training. Reasonable adjustments are measures of actions taken to assist a student with a disability to participate in education or training on the same basis as other students.
The provision/use of assistive technology is considered to be one reasonable method of adjusting the learning environment to provide opportunities for equitable participation for students with a disability.