At Footscray Primary School, we value the importance of documenting the individual strategies and supports that assist children with additional support needs to achieve success. As we learn about what works for each child through our observations and practice, and through partnership with families and allied health teams we have two different ways to record these supports; an Individual Education Plan (IEP) and a Student Support Plan (SSP).
Individual Education Plans (IEPs)
An IEP is a written statement that describes the goals, adjustments and strategies to meet a student’s individual educational needs so they can reach their full potential. An IEP helps to plan and monitor student progress towards prioritised goals. IEPs are also known as individual learning plans, individual learning improvement plans and Koorie education learning plans.
IEPs are required for
Students requiring IEPS are also supported with a Student Support Group meeting each term.
More information can be found here: https://www2.education.vic.gov.au/pal/individual-education-plans-ieps/policy
Student Support Groups (SSGs)
An SSG is a partnership between schools, parents/carers, the student and relevant agencies. The group works together to plan and support the educational, health, social, cultural and emotional wellbeing of students with diverse learning needs.
At FPS we offer SSG for the following students:
At FPS we release our teachers once a term to have an SSG with families and care team members. These 30min sessions can be attended online or face-to-face, and will be facilitated by a Principal Delegate. You are welcome to invite members of your care team to these meetings. If you are unable to attend, the Principal Delegate will facilitate the meeting and send you the minutes. The English teacher will attend Term 1 and 3, and the Italian teacher will attend Term 2 and 4.
Reasonable Adjustments for all students
Schools have an obligation under the Disability Standards for Education 2005 to provide reasonable adjustments for students with disability regardless of individual disability funding eligibility. Schools must consult with parents/carers about reasonable adjustments.
At FPS we use a Student Support Plan to document and record the reasonable adjustments we provide for students with disabilities and those who require additional support, but who don’t meet the criteria for an IEP.
Student Support Plans (SSPs)
For all students who require adjustments and do not meet the above criteria, we have a school-designed one-page document known as a Student Support Plan where we document the following information:
SSPs are a wonderful way of ensuring reasonable adjustments are passed onto CRTs, Specialists teachers, and future classroom teachers.
Care Team meetings
We value working in partnership with your Allied Health Team. As such, we offer the opportunity to meet for a care team meeting once per semester. This is a wonderful opportunity for everyone to meet and discuss support and reasonable accommodations for the student.
Allied Health onsite at FPS
Education is a collaborative pursuit and we value the partnership of Allied Health professionals. We do our best to support requests for NDIS funded allied health support on site at Footscray Primary School (FPS).
All NDIS therapists must be able to demonstrate their suitability to work with children onsite at FPS through provision of:
Additionally, Department of Education Policy requires all NDIS funded therapists to enter into the following prior to providing therapy at school:
An NDIS Request Form must be completed for each student receiving therapy, with signed consent from family/carers.
To ensure our partnership remains strong and effective, we have some parameters to what partnership looks like within the constraints of our setting. Schools have limited resources in relation to finance, physical space, and time. Our teachers work tirelessly to meet the competing demands of their role and our stakeholders. In our bilingual setting, teachers share two classes and this involves the planning, assessment, reporting, communication and wellbeing caseload of 50+ students each. We ask Allied Health to be respectful in all of their interactions with our staff and to be mindful that time is a very finite resource for them so that communication needs to be limited.
We have created detailed guidelines for Allied Health working in partnership with FPS to ensure we can continue to offer this opportunity to our families and to maintain our high expectations for child safety. These guidelines are also accessible on our website.
Wellbeing Assessment Requests
Any assessment requests need to be forwarded to the Inclusion and Wellbeing Leading Teacher jenny.campbell@education.vic.gov.au so that teachers can be given time release to complete them. We require a minimum of two weeks to complete these forms so please provide as much advance notice as possible.
Disability and Inclusion Funding (Tier 3)
Disability Inclusion is a tiered funding model to help students with a disability take part in their education on the same basis as their peers. While this funding model is much more supportive and inclusive than previous models, a student with a disability does not automatically meet eligibility criteria for individualised funding (Tier 3) and our school triages applications based on a range of factors. An attendance criteria and annual registration date has also been introduced in 2026. The School Principal is responsible for determining how the Disability and Inclusion funding is allocated.
The school is responsible for determining which students will undertake the Tier 3 funding application process. Students must receive 3 extensive or 8 substantial levels across 31 activities. This can be viewed at the Department of Education Disability Inclusion webpage - https://content.sdp.education.vic.gov.au/media/disability-inclusion-functional-needs-domain-table-1417
Detailed information around the DI model is provided here
https://www.vic.gov.au/disability-inclusion-extra-support-children-disability.
