Youngtown Primary School teacher completed graduate certificate in inclusive schools at UTAS

Mr Colson, a teacher at Youngtown Primary School, has just completed an intensive graduate certificate in inclusive eduation at the University of Tasmania. 

The year-long course was condensed into six months, covering contemporary approaches to students with multiple disabilities, working with dyslexic students, and re-engaging students who simply don’t want to be at school.

Mr Colson joined 22 other teachers who took on the course as part of the state government’s Developing Our Workforce Strategy.

The course gave him and his fellow teachers particular training on identifying and working with students who have dyslexia, a condition that affects how people comprehend words.

Poor spelling and difficulty reading may be caused by dyslexia, which, Mr Colson said, is being studied further for its hereditary and neurological links.

“They’re looking further now how we can identify those kids earlier, at a prep level, and how we can help them,” he said.

“It’s gone back to looking at phonics and understanding how phonics work, and being able to hear and represent the sounds.”

Mr Colson said the training in re-engaging students who may not want to be at school focused on building communication and trust between teachers and children, giving teachers time to discover how best to motivate and encourage children.

“Across primary schools now we’re seeing more kids disengaged earlier,” he said.

“Partly it’s a societal view of education, and with some [parents] that were disengaged in education … kids come to school with that mindset already.

“Some of it’s because of unrecognised learning difficulties, and then school is hard and they don’t want to do it.”

Mr Colson said working with disengaged parents was important to help their children learn how to enjoy and apply themselves to schoolwork.

He said in the past he has worked with preparatory pupils who simply don’t want to be at school, which is when most attention is invested in pupils before their risk of dropping out increases as teenagers.

“Keeping communication open, and getting their input too, finding out what their school story was and trying to – not break the cycle – but change that view of education,” he said.

“Getting those kids to want to be at school, getting those kids to start to see it’s important – and that comes down to the relationship they have with their teacher.”