Guest Packard Gang Posted March 6, 2008 Share Posted March 6, 2008 Hi - just wondered if anyone could help me with this....its really playing on my mind and not not sure where to start...... We are moving to Brisbane area at the end of August 08 (sooner if the house sells !) so our son will not be returning to his Secondary School in September after the six week holidays and our daughter will not be starting full time school either in September. Getting mixed reports from Kallum's school.. they seem to have washed their hands of him already .. with the attitude of 'well he's leaving so why bother with him' !! Wasnt invited to his school target day because it wasnt worth us going!!! And people wonder why we are leaving the UK ????? :arghh: Who do I tell that the kids wont be at school and why ??:unsure: Thanks for any info, having sleepness nights worrying about it! Debs x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quoll Posted March 6, 2008 Share Posted March 6, 2008 Oh dear, that is sad but not unexpected - you'd probably get the same response here too! The schools dont need to know until the last minute really - just in case you change your mind! Give them time to organize a farewell (for little kids) and that's about it. I'd just write a letter to the principal a couple of weeks before you leave saying that your child wont be returning - you dont even need to tell them why if you dont want to. Thank them for the trouble/time/expertise etc and wish them well. If you want your child to have continuing contact with their classmates then perhaps a nice note to their teacher and a thanks for looking after him type gesture and query if contact can be maintained. In HS the kids can organize that for themselves usually. Unless your child has special needs, in which case you will need to be armed to the teeth with assessments and reports, you wont need anything special from the school. When you enrol at a school here, all they will be concerned about is your child's residence status, their age (so take passports) and their vaccination records. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ali Posted March 6, 2008 Share Posted March 6, 2008 How awful, My experience was slightly different, My daughter was due to start secondary school - I notified the school at the first meeting - at that stage we didn't know when we'd be going. They treated her like she was staying forever when in reality she did 3 months. My son was at primary school, the school were great, I told his new teacher on the first day of term that he would be leaving at Christmas, she produced a folder with examples of his work, his reports and also the curriculum he was studying that term for me to hand into the school. He also emailed his teacher (with help from me) regularly, the classes all had interactive white boards so they could see his email in class and they used it as part of a lesson in writing questions to ask him and tell him news. This did drop off after the end of the year in the UK as his class mates got a new teacher who was also new to the school and didn't know Tom. Ali Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jo&Rich Posted March 6, 2008 Share Posted March 6, 2008 We contacted the local education authority, who in turn notified the school (although we had spoken to them already). This meant that my sons place could be re-allocated to anyone on the waiting list. My son was only at nursery, but they too gave us a portfolio of work he had done to take, and some lovely photos. My daughter's pre-school (she was 2) also gave us a collection of work/pictures she had done. Both gave us progress reports, and an idea of where the children were up to, to pass on to their next providers if we wanted. Good luck with your move, Jo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikci Posted March 6, 2008 Share Posted March 6, 2008 Hi Quoll, Sorry, don't mean to hi-jack this thread but you mentioned reports etc for special needs children. My son does have special needs but is not statemented. He receives extra help in class and attends special lessons. Am I right in assuming that I will have to get his school to give a full report on his needs etc and what can I expect from the Oz education system for him. He is currently in private school. Thanks. Nikci Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calNgary Posted March 7, 2008 Share Posted March 7, 2008 Zaks school and Jodi nursery both made up hand over files to give to the relevant schools here,they just contained school reports and some of their work.The school even gave us their email incase we had any problems once here.Zaks new school did photocopy some of his old work but not much.If your school is being arsey try not to let it spoil things for you especially in the last few weeks ,,you never know they are probably jealous your doing something with life!!!good luck Cal x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quoll Posted March 7, 2008 Share Posted March 7, 2008 Hi Quoll, Sorry, don't mean to hi-jack this thread but you mentioned reports etc for special needs children. My son does have special needs but is not statemented. He receives extra help in class and attends special lessons. Am I right in assuming that I will have to get his school to give a full report on his needs etc and what can I expect from the Oz education system for him. He is currently in private school. Thanks. Nikci All the states have special ed support for children who have disabilities (not difficulties) and they would need to be thoroughly assessed before they receive any support. I would guess that if your son is not receiving special ed support in UK then he is not going to be eligible for it here. However schools use their "learning assistance" points in various ways and some schools may have remedial classes, others may provide one to one tutoring and others may just have occasional aide assistance in the classroom. If he does have special needs it is always good to come with a portfolio of current assessments - psych, educational, therapy - and an indication of his current level of functioning. If he doesnt meet the criteria for disability programs then it will be up to the school to see what they can offer. Disabilities can include cognitive, physical, pervasive developmental disorders, speech/language, vision and hearing deficits usually in the bottom 2% range. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie 2 Posted March 7, 2008 Share Posted March 7, 2008 Children in NSW , who have learning difficulties, not disabilites, have access to extra help via the STLD programme. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikci Posted March 7, 2008 Share Posted March 7, 2008 Hi Ellie2, Thanks for your post. We are heading for NSW - Central Coast. What is STDL ? My son was originally told he was extremely dsyslexic/dyspraxic but with a huge amount of work/support from myself, the school and my son he was recently reassessed and we are now told he is only moderately dsyslexic. I am not a huge fan of labelling children as I think that they all learn at different rates but obviously I am in the minority and the education system likes labels and putting people into little boxes so I go with the flow to a certain extent - any advice you have for me in sorting things out for him would be very much appreciated. Again sorry to have hi jacked this thread. Thanks, Nikci Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quoll Posted March 7, 2008 Share Posted March 7, 2008 STLD would be the school based learning support (support teacher learning difficulties) which is a level above disabilities. "Dyslexia" wont entitle him to high level disability support unless he has an associated intellectual disability so the STLD program would be his best bet but it wont give him a huge amount of support as they are stretched really thin and the idea is that they are more a resource to staff than to individual students - I guess it all depends on the school as to how they use the resource. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikci Posted March 7, 2008 Share Posted March 7, 2008 Hi Quoll, Thanks for the info. To be honest I am happy to to continue the way that we are at present. David does get extra tution but the "help" he gets is not as much as it used to be - will just have to see what happens when we get there. I am grateful for your help. Nikci Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Packard Gang Posted March 7, 2008 Share Posted March 7, 2008 Hi everyone. Thank you so much for your replies. Made me feel much better.x Im going to write a letter to the Head of Year just to express my concerns cause Kallum is doing really well at the moment and I dont want lack of enthusiasm from his teacher to knock him back. He is really excited about the move and I want him to carry on feeling that way. ' Every child matters' is that not Government Policy.! Anyway, Im not going to dwell on it, i think youre right Cal, maybe they are a bit pigsick that we are doing something to improve our Kids lives.....! Maddie's Nursey have been really good and are going to do a portfolio for her, she's had to have speech therapy because she had to have grommets last year and her speech was not good for her age, but she's come on leaps and bounds these past couple of months. Cheers for the info. Debs:wubclub: x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie 2 Posted March 8, 2008 Share Posted March 8, 2008 Hi Ellie2, Thanks for your post. We are heading for NSW - Central Coast. What is STDL ? My son was originally told he was extremely dsyslexic/dyspraxic but with a huge amount of work/support from myself, the school and my son he was recently reassessed and we are now told he is only moderately dsyslexic. I am not a huge fan of labelling children as I think that they all learn at different rates but obviously I am in the minority and the education system likes labels and putting people into little boxes so I go with the flow to a certain extent - any advice you have for me in sorting things out for him would be very much appreciated. Again sorry to have hi jacked this thread. Thanks, Nikci Your child will be assessed in school and have either individul help in class or will be removed for small group tution depending on how the school uses its STLD and STLA staff. The amount of hours a school receives for STLD/STLA depends on the number of students they have who require this extra help. Each school applies to DET(Department of Education and Training) for extra staff to enable this programme to function. I suggest that you enquire at the school of your choice as to the possibilities of your child having access to these programmes. The school where I teach,which has an excellent reputation but not on the Central Coast, has 3 teachers running these programmes. One 5 days a week, the other 2 are employed 2 days a week. Although we would always like more the help available is much better than it used to be. Hope this helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikci Posted March 8, 2008 Share Posted March 8, 2008 Hi Ellie2, Thanks for the info - am finding the education system a bit of a nightmare to be honest - am a little bit too used to the private sector in the UK. Suppose I shall have to grit my teeth and go along for the ride! Once again thanks for the info - it is really useful to get it from someone on the ground who knows their way round. Am going to contact the school on the central coast and see what they suggest. Thanks again. Nikci Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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