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East Kalgoorlie Primary School ñAboriginal Innovation School
[Opens with images of the school and people with background music]
>>Nicole Hanna [Principal is speaking] East Kalgoorlie Primary School is focusing
on the early years and wrap around services around the early years. So what that means
is weíre focusing as much or our resources, our professional learning, our extra training,
our support staff training around the early years to give them the best possible curriculum
and delivery of curriculum for our contexts. So itís very needs-based and weíre really
looking for research backed strategies that work.
[Student participating in an activity with Speech therapist]
>>Rebecca Shaw [Speech Therapist is speaking] From a brain development point of view itís
really important we know that the first three years is when the most brain development happens
and then from three to six thereís is still a lot of brain development going on and also
children just by their nature are more easy to engage at that age.
>>[Person asking questions] What do you want to do when you grow up Neil? [boy student]
I want to be a ninja. [girl student] I could be a doctor [different girl student] I want
to be a shopping keeper when I grow up.
>> Rosalind Griffiths [Kindergarten teacher is speaking]
By getting them in early and getting a really good repour with other families and the kids
and having an environment where they want to come to school it teaches them a school
readiness. They want to be there. Like I had a little girl who stayed over at her auntieís
place so she could come to school because itís just what they want to do and this is
the optimal age for them to learn. Thatís why we do a bit of an extended program and
why we are looking to go a bit longer and thatís why we have the play group as well
weíre starting that conversation happening early, weíre starting the parentís involvement
in the school early.
>>Nicole Hanna [Principal is speaking] The way we want that to look is that from
next year our pre kindys through to our Year 1s will be viewed in terms of phases. Now
what that means is that what they come to school with is what we work with rather than
doing any sort of backward mapping or targets of a four year old should be able to do this
or a three year old should be able to do this and that information is very sketchy anyway.
What we are looking at is what are you coming to school with, what are your strengths, what
are you working on, youíll be in this group. So itís kind of a flat structure rather than
your traditional moving up according to your year. But of course most importantly is the
hub for health and family support services and the early intervention services.
[Classroom activity] Ok today we are going to go over our letters
and the sounds they make with the action ok. So if I give you the letter ìsî can you
tell me that the sound and action is? [students make the sound and show the action]. What
about the letter ìcî [students make the sound and show the action]. Is the letter
ìcî voice? [students respond no] No itís not because itís very ìccccî [teacher puts
hand to throat to demonstrate].
>>Eliza Paterson [Teacher is speaking] With cued articulation a lot of our kids have
hearing problems. This is great for the kids to see how you use your mouth. Is the sound
voiced or unvoiced and because theyíre quite little kids as well so giving them an action
to do and with the kinesthetics as well thatís also a great strength for this kids as well
to build their scaffolds on.
>>Nicole Hanna [Principal is speaking] Weíve had some visits to different schools
weíve looked at a lot of different models of teaching during this year. Tanya Tucker
is one of the teachers that teaches the 2-3 group and sheís always used the philosophy
that she wanted to teach the way she wasnít taught and she very much is a proponent of
the explicit teaching method and we wanted to look at that this year. [students in classroom
activity]. In one domain, in the writing domain, this year the grade threes have really spiked
in their writing and this is what this is focused at. So instead of most of them being
the percentage below, in the writing 75 per cent of the kids are at or above for that
one particular group. So we think we may be on to something here.
[Pictures of the school with children talking in the background]
Weíve taken a lot of time to look what services are out there that we need and now itís really
starting to gain momentum and the types of services are basically health and family support
services. So health is a major part because obviously if children arenít well they canít
learn and they canít attend school so itís a simple thing but itís a very important
thing. But on top of that weíre really focusing on family support as well. So as our health
and family support officer starts to go into homes and talk to families. Quite often thereís
a whole family that needs support to enable that child that is enrolled at our school
and maybe the other brothers and sisters that are enrolled at other schools around town
so that they can all get the help that they need to get on with what we need to get on
with, which is teaching and learning.
>>Frances Palmer [School Health and Family Support Officer is speaking]
I am a Health and Family Support Officer at East Kalgoorlie Primary School, a liaison
between the school, the teachers, the students and families and other extended service agencies.
>>Nicole Hanna [is speaking] Ok these are some of the things Fran does
and itís not exhaustive. Day to day health issues everyone comes to Fran, she does daily
head lice eradication and she is working on other whole school programs. She also manages
an ear health program on quite a massive scale and sheís delving into dental optometry and
also the other things that get left behind by population health so treatment for glaucoma.
[Classroom activity]
>>Nicole Hanna [is speaking] The other aspect of the service is our specialist
services like speech therapy, occupational therapy and our school psychology service.
So we work as a team with those people. Their part of our community as well, as well as
the parents and as well as the teachers all looking to extend their knowledge in probably
some non-traditional areas. So we look at our needs and then we focus our attention
and our resources.
[Bega Garnbirringu Health Services truck parked in yard and male nurse asking student if he
wants to look in the truck]
[Student and nurse in truck] Youíre from Kalgoorlie arenít you? My names Chris, Iím
a nurse at Bega, youíve met me before. Yeah weíve seen each other here.
>>Nicole Hanna [is speaking] A bit of a breakthrough we had the other day
was we had the NTP ( Ngunytju Tjiti Pirni) ear clinic come to school at the same time
as the Bega Clinic so two different agencies working with aboriginal families. We managed
to get half our student enrolment through the NTP clinic on a brief screen then moved
them directly over to the truck for a GP (General Practitioner) referral. Now thatís never
happened before and I donít believe itís happened anywhere else in Kalgoorlie either.
It meant that that GP referral which is often a stumbling block for us, oh you need to see
a GP [sound], stops there, goes no further. Well we just take them over to the truck and
the GPs there.
[Students singing the national anthem in English and in Wangkatha [local Aboriginal language]
>>Rosalind Griffiths [is speaking] Weíre here for them weíre not here for any
other reason, weíre there for the kids and to give them as many opportunities as they
can have to grow to succeed to become who they want to become. Itís, that is why we
are here. If we wanted to go and work somewhere else we could but we choose this school for
that reason because these kids should have as many opportunities and need as many opportunities
as we can give them and they need that support.
[Music and acknowledgement screen appears.] With thanks to Principal, Nicole Hanna, staff,
students and community of East Kalgoorlie Primary School who participated in this video.