20 May 2024
Principal's message
Hello all and welcome to our Term 2 Week 3 newsletter.
As always, it’s been a busy start to the term. On Friday 3 May we participated in our annual Anzac Day Ceremony where students and our school leaders provided a solemn reflection recognises the efforts of our service men and women over the years. Thank you to all the families that were able to join us for this special event.
Success for Complex Learners - Update
The Hills School partners with Clarke Road School and the Far West Network of schools in a project that aims to develop school based supports for our unique learners. The project has for many years focussed on the pathways of assessment and teaching with a key tool being the development of the Passport for Learning. The Passport for Learning is a holistic formative assessment approach for students with complex support needs. Passport for Learning consists of four learning domains, known as CRES (Cognitive, Receptive, Expressive and Social skills). On the first day of May, the Passport went live to all specialist education settings in NSW public schools, including special schools and support units, providing tools for assessment. From Semester 2, 2024 the tool will be available to all 2209 NSW Public Schools. I would like to extend my congratulations and sincere thanks to all whom have been involved in this project both past and present. Special thanks to Ylana Bloom, Speech Pathologist, whom has been instrumental in the development of this body of work. A tremendous achievement indeed!
The next steps for this partnership has been focussed on families and how frameworks of practice can be developed to support families as vital partners in the education process. At The Hills School we are investigating this through the establishment of the Community Support Officer Role that Brigette is currently undertaking. A small snapshot of her work includes; the establishment of school based NDIS connection desks where families are actively supported to utilise NDIS plans and navigate the challenges presented by the system, supporting families to access services such as support workers, therapy and medical professionals and creating links with community partners such as The Hills School P&C and local organisations. At this stage, Brigette works in this role each Tuesday and is contactable through the school office by email or telephone.
Mark Gosbell
Ptincipal