Interdisciplinary Connections

This is a map of our school’s interdisciplinary connections. It shows the schools in our newly formed CoL, the school support Agencies we work most closely with, as well as the people and services we collaborate with in our local community. Each of these connections supports our students, teachers and whanau to achieve our school vision.

The Interdisciplinary connections I am going to focus on is the School Support Agencies. As our school SENCo and a classroom teacher, I work with a range of these agencies on a daily basis to support students to achieve at school.

When a teacher identifies a student who needs additional support either for learning, behaviour or social/ emotional difficulties the classroom teacher, discusses this student with their Syndicate leader and team. Together they decide if the school has the resources and knowledge to support that student in-school or whether they require more specialised support. If it’s the latter, the class teacher would then refer the student to the SENCO.

We hold Special Programme meetings each term in Week 5 for every class. At these meetings, we discuss students who are currently on our Special Programmes register and new referrals. The role of the SENCO is to facilitate these meetings and coordinate ‘Interdiscilinary Learning Teams’ for individual students. This usually happens in the form of an IEP meeting, once the team has been established.

Based on discussions at Special Programme meetings, the SENCO will consider the students needs and what agencies need to be involved. The SENCO then makes referrals to the necessary Support Agencies and is present with the classroom teacher at pre-referral meetings or initial information gathering meetings. Although the SENCo facilitates these meetings the class teacher is always the ‘lead’ professional in the interdisciplinary team. This is because they know the student best and is responsible for managing the IEP.

New referrals can be made at any stage of the term, but our Special Programme meetings are seen as ‘protected’ time.  This enables us to reflect on the needs of our students and the progress they are making both academically and socially, to ensure every student reaches their potential.

An example of the agencies that are involved in an Interdisciplinary Learning Team for one of my students is RTLB, GSE, SWIS, Public Health, IWS, Oranga Tamariki ( when they are involved with his whanau), Strengthing Families, Well Stop and Te Whare Marie. My job as SENCO was to get all of these agencies on board, advocate for the needs of the student and his whanau, coordinate and facilitate meetings, and hold everyone accountable. My role as his classroom teacher is to provide evidence of his needs, lead the IEP and implement, monitor and assess plans.

At our school, we also hold monthly interdisciplinary meetings with the liaison person from each key support agency that works regularly in our school. This normally involves me, our principal, SWIS, PHN, and RTLB. At these meetings, we discuss all students on our Special Programme’s register that is supported by more than one agency. This is so we all have a very clear about what each agency is doing for the child and what other supports/ resources we might need to consider getting involved.

Overall, I think our school has excellent systems in place to work collaboratively and effectively with School Support agencies to ensure our students get equitable access to the support they need to be the best learner they can be. This requires us to build strong professional relationships with each support agency and individual working in our school, and always have open, honest and respectful communication.