Good Shepherd School believes that every child is created in the image and likeness of God and has the right to learn and to reach their potential.
Heather McLeod and Megan Dyer are our Good Shepherd School's Special Education Needs Coordinators (SENCO). They work closely with classroom teachers to identify and cater for students who need extra support in their learning. The school receives some support for special education needs programmes from the government, and has close working relationships with a number of external agencies, such as speech language therapists, resource teachers of learning and behaviour and a public health nurse.
The classroom teacher is responsible for each child's learning and when a child requires extra support this learning may be monitored through an Individual Education Plan (IEP), developed collaboratively by parents and whānau, school team and external professionals.
Also with differentiated classroom programmes, Good Shepherd School runs a number of evidence-based learning support programmes which are closely monitored and reviewed for effectiveness:
Reading Recovery
Reading Recovery is an early literacy intervention that provides one to one teaching for children who have made slow progress learning to read and write in their first year of school. It is an intense, individual reading programme that caters for each child's individual needs and helps them to solve reading and writing problems. We are grateful to have the expertise of Rosemary Lees to support our programme.
English Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL)
Programmes for our English language learners include specialist teacher and teacher aide support in classrooms, small group teaching and the use of ESOL-specific resourses.
In-class Support for Mathematics Programmes
Depending on current needs, extra teacher or teacher aide support is put in place to work with small groups of students.
Gifted and Talented Programmes - see seperate page on our website for details.
Interventions in collaboration with external professionals such as:
- RTLB - Resource Teachers of Learning and Behaviour
- RTLit - Resource Teachers of Literacy
- Learning Support - Ministry of Education
- Speech Language Therapists
- Public Health Nurse
Useful websites:
https://www.readingrecovery.ac.nz/reading_recovery/
https://parents.education.govt.nz/learning-support/
http://seonline.tki.org.nz/Links