wildbriz

Hi

We spent 18 years in Brisbane and have three children, one of which is autistic. We found the schooling (mainstreaming / inclusion) in Queensland was very poor. We did did some research and came to the conclusion that our son really needed one on one help in a mainstream school situation.
The maximum one on one seemed to be around 20 minutes a day in Queensland and similar in the other states and territories.
We moved to the UK to help my son (wife and myself originally from UK) and now he gets 20 hours one on one a week and is doing very well.
The problem is that my wife, and I (to a lesser extent) are homesick for Australia as the lifestyle is wonderful but wouldn't want to put my son through the same dreadful experience he went through at his previous school (in Waterford, Queensland)

Can any parents with autistic children currently being educated in Australia let us know what level of help is available in their area(s)? Recommended schools, states suggestions etc would be most welcome.

We are all dual citizens so visa are not a problem for us fortunately.

Also if we can help anyone else with our experiences in Australia please let me know.

Regards
Tom

Sleeping Beauty

this is only my experience....... i was a special needs teaching assistant in the UK, working with a boy with aspergers. we have now been in australia (nsw) for 18 months, and i have found it nigh on impossible to get a job in a school. i have had to revert back to my old career of working in travel. it seems to me that teaching assistants/aides are not used as much here in australia and they are in the UK. when you tell a school/school teachers thats most classes in the UK have at least one teaching assistant per class, sometimes two, they seem to be astounded. the whole concept of having teachers aides to assist the children on a one-to-one basis, seems like how the UK was 10 years ago. i think that (hope thet ) in time, Australia will realise how important to the children that need one-to-one classroom help, teachers aides can be. children who would normally be sent to designated schools for special needs, could be intergrated just as well into mainstream school and would benefit more both socially and academically. they take the pressure off the teachers, which enables the class to work more as a whole. some days i could allow the boy i worked with to be more independant, other days, he just wouldnt have it , but the flexibility was there, as the teacher had back up with the teachers assistants. i am sorry i havent got an answer for you, from the outside looking in, it does seem harder over here to get even a few hours one-to-one, but i cant speak from experience. i know there are some parents on here that have got children with special needs. try doing a search, find out who they are, and then PM them.

as i've said, this is just my opinion.

wildbriz

Hi

Thanks for your comments, I can't say we are surprised by your experiences and hope that you find work as a teachers aide in the future as they are definitely a great asset to children with special needs.

There seems to be serious problems with the provision of resources to schools for children with special needs requirements in Australia. Added to this, many of the teachers don't have the training to deal with special needs students.

We are hoping that there are some schools, maybe more regionally based, that are better geared and have a stronger community attitude towards SE kids.
The child you worked with in the UK sounds similar to our son. He works independently some days but other days he has to have the help all day long.

Regards
Tom

Sleeping Beauty

sorry, forgot to say tom, welcome to BE.

use the search key at the top, go to advanced search, and type in key words such as autism/special needs etc. there has been quite a few posts. from memory, not are all bad reports. some parents have been happy with their childrens progress over here, and the schools that they are in. if you can find such a post, contact the poster and ask them questions. how old is your son? have you any other family/ties over here? if not, then theoretically you could go anywhere, hence it will open your options and chose an area specially if you know that that partically school will be good for your son (sorry, i'm just speaking out loud so to speak, i know that you already know this ). how old are your other children?

wildbriz

Hi

Thanks, I had a look at some of threads and will look further.
My children are 12, 11 (autistic) and 7, all boys. We have my wifes parents in Brisbane but we are willing to go where ever we can get the best schooling for him.
The hard part is getting accurate information as it may well come down to individual schools and teachers, something that might be eaier to find out from other parents with special needs kids, hopefully.
The UK is very good and would most likely be impossible to beat so it comes down to finding the best option over there and getting or giving him what extra help he would need to make up for the difference.
regards
Tom

northerner

My wife is a speech pathologist working in Sydney (having done 5 years in UK also) and says that the funding for special needs teaching etc is much better in Victoria.

Not got any details I'm afraid but may be worth looking into? It's certainly not brilliant in NSW anyway.

Graham

northernbird

There was an autistic boy in my daughters class in year 2, he had a 1 on 1 teaching assistant. That is here in WA.

Gems

Hubby works in WA as primary teacher. He has special needs experience, and his last class here in WA he had a couple of children who needed one to one help. They had their own special needs assistant most of the time. However think they had to be assessed for this. But WA can offer 1 to 1.
One of the parents said they came to state school in WA rather than private catholic to get the extra help for the child.

However we are fairly new to WA so dont know all the full requirements but it may be possible for your child to get the extra help they need.

GEMS

PepaPig

Hi

I am currently training to be a Teachers Aide in WA. There is a huge shortage of aides, especially special needs. The WA education system is geared towards inclusion. There are a couple of kids at my daughters school (public) who have one to one. My understanding is it is down to the willingness of each individual school and the parents to work together to get funding for an aide. I believe it is similar in the private sector as one of the other students on my course has secured a full time job looking after a student whose main needs are personal care and mobility.

I'm surprised and disappointed to hear there are difficulties in finding work as a teacher aide in other states as we are probably moving to Queensland with my husbands job and I will be looking for work!!

Sleeping Beauty

[QUOTE]I'm surprised and disappointed to hear there are difficulties in finding work as a teacher aide in other states as we are probably moving to Queensland with my husbands job and I will be looking for work!![/QUOTE]

..........as rare as rocking horse poo where i live (semi-rural NSW), but that's here. i believe once you are 'in', then life does get easier, but it's the getting in that is the hard part. they do have them in the schools, but they seem to be thin on the ground. i dont know how hard it is to get funding for your child here in NSW.

Josie1100

We moved over 7 weeks ago and have Moved to Maroubra NSW. Our son has Aspergers and mild cerebral palsy. We have had a couple of problems getting a school out of our catchment area. We have now been offered a lovely school and we have just had a meeting to get funding in place for him. He will have support (teaching aid) in the classroom and he will be having more assessments once he starts the end of January.

We didn't know if he would get any help and have been very surprised at the amount of support and help they are putting in place for him. It is now a case of waiting to see how he gets on when he starts. After 3 months out of school when he starts I know I can do with the break!!!!

Sleeping Beauty

sorry for all the questions...........how old is your son josie? have you been advised how many hours he will get one-to-one? i miss working at my old place and i had become attached to the boy i looked after (even though he drove me crazy some days ). did you have any problems with your medicals? i bet you cant wait for him to start back at school again, and get him back into a routine.

Stitch

Hi,

We live in Qld (Bayside) and have a 6 year old daughter who has autism. She attends a mainstream school and has been verified which allows her 4 hours per week (20 hours per term) of teacher aide time!!! She is also meant to be supported with an AVT (Advisory Visiting Teacher) but that has been sporadic in her first year. It has been a shock to the system as we thought through reading all the info that this was a really good way to educate. I feel she has suffered in her reading and writing but are perservering. I do not think your son will be able to have the contact her currently recieves although I may be wrong. However you also have to weigh up what is right for you as a family.

Tough one but if there's any other info feel free to get in touch.

Cheers

Ginny

wildbriz

Hi
This sounds promising, I do get the impression that Queensland does lag behind on support for special needs kids, infact our experience was quite shocking. We had some good SEU teachers but some the mainstream teacher(s), by their attitude(s) really didn't want SEN kids in their classrooms. The resources, training and will were not there, but I'm sure there are better schools in Queensland than my sons old school. They were the only school in Queensland to refuse a visit from Autism Queensland. A free (paid for by us) non obligatory advisory visit aimed at helping the teachers work with kids with autism. The sad thing is here my son gets on and works very well with the teachers here in the UK, he's very popular. We felt what he experienced in his old school was bordering on abuse. This has given us a very negative impression and I can't believe that he would get so little help in most other schools but it is very hard to establish what help he would get. It seems to be almost on a school by school basis. If we can find the State that will provide more help we can then work our way through the schools. Given the right school, we would most definitely move back.

Does anyone out there work on a one on one situation with their own special needs children in a state school? I'm not sure if this would be allowed?
This was an option were thinking about where my wife might spend the day at school with my son and help him in the classroom.

We would love to hear more from people in all states and territories who have any experiences in this type of problem.

Thanks for all the responses, they are very much appreciated!
Regards
Tom

rebnatoli

Not strictly a state school, mine go to a Catholic school (less than $2K a year for both and we're not Catholic) and I was pleasantly surprised that they were more than happy for me to go in and help my son on a one-to-one basis, when I suggested this in the UK I was told it couldn't happen but here I go in on a Monday morning and help my son with writing (he hasn't got Autism but milder learning disabilities) and the teacher was very encouraging. Two children in my son's class did receive one-to-one support from a teacher aide although I'm not sure on what basis.

We have had fantastic support from the special needs teacher, the school counsellor and the class teacher and they make me feel very much that our son is a valued member of the school.

I think it will come down more to the individual school rather than the state you go to. It must be a very difficult decision if your son is very happy where he is in the UK.