What does this descriptor look like at different levels?
Strategies to support full participation of students with disability is the sixth descriptor of the first standard of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.
This descriptor covers specific strategies for supporting students with disabilities. While other descriptors under this standard covers students with different abilities working at different levels, this descriptor is a little different. This descriptor specifies adjustments beyond simple learning task differentiation, such as accessibility, supporting full participation and adhering to legislative requirements.
See more: Australian Professional Standards for Teachers Terminology Explained
Graduate
What does it look like?
At the Graduate level, teachers are expected to demonstrate broad knowledge and understanding of legislative requirements and teaching strategies that support the participation and learning of students with disability.
Teachers working at this level will need to know about what their requirements are in the classroom in regard to supporting students with disabilities. They need to know what their responsibilities are around inclusion and be able to list some strategies that they could use to ensure that all students are able to participate in their lessons. Again, this isn’t necessarily around learning.
Examples could be making sure that students have access to an immersive reader or voice-to-text software, that their font sizes are large enough and a visible colour, or that their classroom layout reduces tripping hazards and is accessible for those students with mobility issues.
What evidence can I collect?
At this level, teachers really only need to demonstrate that they know some strategies; they don’t necessarily need to have implemented them yet. To graduate with a teaching degree in Australia, you will need to demonstrate that you have reached this level of each descriptor. Because of this, your university will give you plenty of opportunity to demonstrate your understanding through your university assignments.
If you did your teaching degree outside of Australia, you should still be able to use uni assignments to demonstrate understanding of this descriptor. If you have been teaching for a while, you may have evidence of going beyond this level of this descriptor.
Proficient
What does it look like?
At the Proficient level, teachers are expected to design and implement teaching activities that support the participation and learning of students with disability and address relevant policy and legislative requirements.
As with every standard, at the Proficient level, you need to demonstrate that you are actually doing this. It isn’t enough to just know how.
teachers working at this level of this descriptor will know about the relevant legislation and be able to differentiate to allow all of their students to participate in the learning activities in their classroom.
What evidence can I collect?
The key elements of this standard are understanding and adhering to the relevant legislation and designing activities that encourage full participation of students with disabilities. To provide evidence for this standard, you should NOT provide plans for alternate tasks for different students, as this does not show that your students can access your learning activities in lesson. Instead, annotate your lesson plans to show how you have made whole-class activities accessible to all students and so adhered to relevant legislation.
Highly Accomplished
What does it look like?
At the Highly Accomplished level, teachers are expected to work with colleagues to access specialist knowledge, and relevant policy and legislation, to develop teaching programs that support the participation and learning of students with disability.
At this level of the standard descriptor, you will be expected to start taking the lead on whole-school improvement. You will need to identify areas for improvement regarding the accessibility of learning programs and devise a plan for a team of teachers to address them.
What evidence can I collect?
Because the Highly Accomplished Teacher level requires you to work collaboratively, lead and plan, you will need to have evidence that you have done this. Minutes of meetings are great evidence, as are emails between teachers and external professional learning providers.
You will also need to make sure that you collect evidence of your impact. This could be as simple as the learning program before and after you’ve worked on it, but data around the rate of engagement with the activities in the program would be very valuable in proving that you are working at this level.
See more: How to Present a Great Professional Learning Workshop
Lead
What does it look like?
At the Lead Teacher level, teachers are expected to initiate and lead the review of school policies to support the engagement and full participation of students with disability and ensure compliance with legislative and/or system policies.
This standard has little to do with actual teaching. In fact, it doesn’t even explicitly mention learning programs or any of the work done in the actual classroom.
If you want to work at the Lead teacher level, you need to ensure that the programs and activities at your school are accessible from the foundation of the policies. This isn’t an opportunity given to every teacher, so you need to make sure that you use this opportunity when it arises.
What evidence can I collect?
Evidence for this descriptor level will come from the policy you are reviewing and changing. You will need to provide evidence of your justification for the decisions that you are making, as well as evidence that you initiated the change yourself.
It isn’t enough to be in a group or team reviewing policy, as this doesn’t provide evidence that you initiated and led the review. Comments or communication from your team (if you are working with a team) or other stakeholders being consulted is another great piece of evidence you can collect.
Learn about the other focus areas and descriptors for Standard 1:
1.1 Physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students
1.2 Understand how students learn
1.3 Students with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds
1.4 Strategies for teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students
