Maya’s positive attitude teaches us

Students with disabilities need to be given much more support if they are to achieve their dreams, writes

AS a teacher, you meet some extraordinary kids who leave a lasting impression.

For me, one of those was Maya, a student I taught who lived with Down syndrome.

Obviously, life with disabilities created challenges and wasn’t always easy.

But Maya had the same dreams of a successful future as other kids – and she wasn’t about to let her challenges get in the way of that.

The thing is her positivity didn’t just affect her life. It had an impact on those around her and left its mark on them too, as well as demonstrating the importance of inclusion.

I recently saw just how much of an impact Maya had on those around her when I visited her, with a group of teachers, in hospital after a pretty serious operation last year.

I wasn’t the only one. Maya is an adult now, but some of her old friends and classmates popped in for a visit as well.

Maya has clearly made a difference in their lives. These are kids who grew up valuing diversity. They learned from Maya that if you focus on what is possible life opens up opportunities.

It was an important lesson for her classmates and for me as a teacher. Maya reaffirmed the importance of striving to give all kids the best start in life.

This is not just a personal viewpoint, it’s a fundamental human right, set out in the United Nations conventions on the rights of people with disabilities and the rights of children.

On the rights of people with disabilities, the general principles include nondiscrimination, full and effective participation in society, and equality of opportunity.

On the rights of children, the UN recognises the right of disabled children to special care, with appropriate assistance – free of charge where possible – with effective access to education, training, health care services, rehabilitation services, preparation for employment and recreation opportunities.

That’s why reforms such as the Educational Adjustments funding model for students with a disability have Labor’s full support.

The model is a needs-based funding model, introduced in Tasmania’s state school system in 2020, allocating resources and adjustments in teaching practices based on individual students’ needs.

But alarming new figures on school suspensions have shone a light on ongoing problems impacting students with a disability and their access to education.

The statistics, released in response to my question on notice at budget estimates hearings, show an astounding 937 students with a disability were suspended from Tasmanian schools last year, including 194 students aged 10 and under, and nine prep students.

Under further questioning last week, it became apparent that the number of incidents was more than double that,

with 2164 suspensions in 2021.

This is not the fault of our schools or hardworking teachers, and I think everyone understands that it’s not possible to prevent all incidents across all schools.

But it is not acceptable that we are suspending kids with a disability in prep and the early years in such high numbers.

It does nothing for their development or their families and will only create more problems down the track.

What is needed is leadership, capacity building and resourcing to implement government policy successfully.

Schools clearly need more professional learning and support for staff, more specialist disability education teachers, speech pathologists, school psychologists, social workers and teacher aides.

So, while Labor supports the funding model, we would like to see a planned review of its implementation brought forward in light of these shocking suspension statistics.

It’s not good enough to have a best-practice model in place if it is not working to its optimal level.

A Productivity Commission report on government services released this year showed Tasmanian students with a disability were at a distinct disadvantage when compared with the rest of Australia.

The report showed that even though Tasmania has higher disability rates than the national figure, we have by far the lowest number of students receiving an education adjustment due to a disability – at 13.8 per cent, well down on the national average of 20.3 per cent.

These figures, combined with the alarming suspension statistics, show there is still a long way to go in supporting all students to achieve their full potential.

Inclusion policy, when implemented well, works for every student. But we must ensure it is being implemented well.

Like all kids, students with disabilities deserve every opportunity to achieve their dreams.

And, just like Maya, with the right support they can make a huge difference in people’s lives.