Special Education

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• Provide resources to schools and Group Special Education to ensure the government meets its obligations to children with special education needs.
• Ensure that all students identified as having learning difficulties have access to free or low-cost professional assessment to determine their educational needs, and further ensure these students receive the support necessary to achieve at school.
• Ensure that blind children, as appropriate, are provided with Braille, low vision, and orientation and mobility instruction, and that deaf children are taught, as appropriate, New Zealand Sign Language and other communication skills and techniques.
• Allocate the Special Education Grant to schools based on the numbers of children with special education needs they have enrolled, and increase the ORS (Ongoing Resource Scheme) funding for students with the highest needs.
• Fund new Learning Support Centres for special needs students within mainstream schools. (more here)

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• Support children with special needs by providing up to 800,000 more teacher aide hours each year, at a cost of up to $18 million per year, over four years.
• Focus on supporting those whose needs have been identified locally by their school.
• Ensure all students benefit from having a teacher aide in the classroom to support the teacher. (more here)

• Work with the sector to develop funding and resourcing models to best meet the needs of all children including digital resourcing for those learners challenged by dyslexia, dyspraxia, Asperger’s and autism.
• Support true choice for parents of special needs students inside our public education system. Where possible, special needs units will be incorporated into mainstream schools.
• Review the funding model and the quantum budget for Special Education to ensure equity and consistency for all learners and communities.
• Review the Ongoing Reviewable Resource Scheme (ORRS) with a view to increasing funding to cover the 3 per cent of the school population identified by the Ministry of Education as high needs.
• Establish a national qualification and ongoing professional learning and development programme for Special Needs Co-Ordinators (SENCOs) with responsibility for full spectrum of special needs learners. (more here)

• Increase funding to the Ongoing Reviewable Resourcing Scheme (ORRS). Currently 1% of students receive some ORRS funding even though we know that one in five New Zealanders have some sort of disability.
• Review the guidelines used to determine if a student still qualifies for ORRS funding to ensure that future progress isn’t hampered by a reduction in allocation because the student has made progress.
• Allow schools to transfer unused ORRS funding in a particular year to other students in need within the school.
• Ensure that the professional development of teachers and staff working with special needs students is funded separately, rather than having to come out of the Special Needs Grant to schools as this reduces the amount available for direct support for students.
• Promote an increase of funding for early identification of children with special needs and disabilities with targeted systematic, intensive and high quality interventions. (more here)