What are other Special needs school doing with regards to collaboration??

 I was lucky enough to be able to catch up with 2 colleagues who used to work at Sommerville.

They have both continued on their career paths and are now working at different Special needs school.

Here is a synopsis of our conversation with regards to what collaboration looks like in their schools:

Donna is now at CASS:

What does collaboration look like in your school:

• APs: they go into the classes they oversee in the first block and just be present, support, meetings are in the afternoon, this is to build and develop relationships with the children and the staff so when they are discussing anything related to classes and children they are aware of who they are actually talking about, and know who they are.

• It was mentioned a few times that the size of the school plays a big part in schedules and structure implemented.

• There are 4 topics each year/ every term the topics are swapped around, rotated

• The therapists are included in the planning.

• Everybody works on Tuesday, so whole staff meetings are the whole staff, and also have team meetings on Tuesday so everyone can attend: an agenda is shared and decisions are made as

• There are 4 teams and roughly organised into age ban

• Zumba is done together

• Classes do combine and practice for big events like wearable arts

• Space is an issue that is needed for classes to come together and they don’t have it. A new build is starting, so maybe then

• In term 3 and 4 the aim was for teachers to visit 2 classes, they choose 1 and the SLT choose one and they go with the teacher. But COVID
• Collaboration is used for PD, up skilling, this is done by using people's strengths, who is skilled in certain areas and then they use this for up skilling others, mini groups are created to share
• PD opportunities shared weekly, 
• During PD sessions, questions are raised and brainstorming happen

Across 3 special needs schools combine to do different events e.g a ball for the older learners.

Johnathan is now at Oaklynn:

What does collaboration look like in your school:

• Recently been through PD re collaboration with our therapists.

• There is now a therapist on the SL Team.

• When teacher’s were out of the room, the therapist spent the whole day in a classroom alongside TA. This gave them a big insight into life in a classroom.

• Other collaboration that occurs is that teachers do observations during CRT time

• Shared expertise as well, e.g TEACCH is embedded in school and there is a teacher whose strength is in this area so she helps others.

• In one part of the school  in a satellite: there are 3 classes: where there is a lot of sharing going on between the class, e.g children going to different class for different activities if it best suits their needs, use of TAs across the classes (this is done through necessity re behavioural needs and )

• Space has played a part in the ability to collaborate. Found that teachers need to be flexible.

• Relationships play a big part in how well the teachers collaborate as well: develop communication, need to like each other, synergy, personality, valuing others.

• Other things to consider when discussing collaboration: Empathy, respect, open to suggestions, risk taker, give it a go, open and honest communication, be involved, working with people, time, understanding, space, trust

• We saw collaboration between all Special needs schools in Auckland on the Staff Only Day: this provided opportunities for up skilling of all staff and using people's strengths.

• There is some resistance to change: some staff have been there for a long time.

It was really insightful to listen to how other special needs school collaborate, reaching out to colleagues at other schools is a good way to gather up to date information as what is going on in schools.

The staff only day has proven that collaboration is possible on a large scale in order to draw on people's strengths to up skill staff.

It also showed that there is a focus on including and collaborating with specialists. This is a journey that my school is looking at and review as we speak.