Victorian Auditor-General's Report 
29 August 2012 

Programs for Students with Special Learning Needs
Audit summary
Background
Students with special learning needs have disabilities, difficulties or additional needs that make it harder for them to learn than their peers. Although the exact number of students with special learning needs in Victoria is not known, it is commonly accepted that about 20 out of every 100 students have additional needs of some sort. These needs vary significantly.
Four out of every 100 students have a specific identified need and receive individual support through the Program for Students with Disabilities (PSD). However, the majority of students with special learning needs (16 out of every 100) have less significant needs that can be met by some form of adjustment or modification, targeted intervention or support. 
The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) expects schools to support these students from within their school budget. Figure A shows an approximate breakdown of students in government schools.
Figure A 
Distribution of needs in an average school of 100 students

Source:	Victorian Auditor-General’s Office.
Having systems in place to identify and support these students in a timely and equitable manner is critical to maximising their educational and life outcomes. This can be complex and challenging, requiring well defined strategies, strong leadership and effective governance. 
Measuring outcomes for students with special learning needs is also difficult. Traditional methods such as the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy and the Victorian Essential Learning Standards are of limited use for many of these students, and long-term individual measures of performance are required.
Schools are under growing pressure from increasing numbers of students with special learning needs. DEECD provides an outsourced assessment service for Intellectual Disability and Severe Language Disorder applications at no cost to schools. Despite this, schools are undertaking more assessments and preparing more funding applications than ever before. This has limited the direct support that Student Support Services Officers (SSSOs) can provide to students. It has also required teachers, integration aides and education support workers to manage an increasing numbers of students with complex needs.
DEECD’s role is two-fold:
·	to develop and deliver policy, guidance and support that enables schools to support students with special learning needs
·	to monitor and oversee the performance of schools and determine whether the educational outcomes of students with special learning needs are being maximised. 
The objective of the audit was to assess whether DEECD has effectively fulfilled these roles.
Conclusions
DEECD has developed policies and guidance to help schools support students with special learning needs. It also provides funding to support students with the highest levels of need through the PSD. However, it does not monitor how schools use the funds nor does it adequately oversee the educational outcomes of students with special learning needs. Schools are not implementing DEECD’s policies consistently or effectively. As a result, the quality and type of support provided to students with special learning needs is not equitable.
Since 2006, DEECD has distributed more than $2.6 billion to schools through the PSD. However, DEECD does not have the information it needs to determine whether PSD funding is being used efficiently and effectively. Concerns raised about this by VAGO in 2007 still have not been adequately addressed and instead of having five years worth of high-quality data about the program, the department still knows very little about its impact on the educational outcomes of supported students.
DEECD has developed a comprehensive suite of tools to assist schools to identify students with special learning needs. It has also established clear guidelines and eligibility requirements for accessing additional funding through the PSD. As a result, students with the highest needs are being identified and supported through specifically funded programs.
More broadly, DEECD does not know how many students in Victoria have unfunded special learning needs. It cannot identify these students, nor can it determine if they are being adequately supported by schools. While DEECD is implementing new strategies that will better allow it to track students with special learning needs and monitor their performance, it is too early to judge their effectiveness. 
Findings
Identifying students with special learning needs
DEECD has provided schools with the tools, assessments and staff that collectively should enable them to identify students with special learning needs. Despite this, students with similar needs are receiving very different levels and types of support across different schools. 
DEECD’s new Abilities Based Learning and Education Support program will help to bring more uniformity to the approaches of schools by enabling teachers to identify students' needs and develop effective learning programs that address these needs. Abilities Based Learning and Education Support has been used with over 6 500 students to date, but it is unclear how DEECD will assess the program and how wide reaching its impact will be.
Changes to the management of SSSOs should provide schools with more flexibility to use them to address local demand. However, there is a risk that schools that are not well organised or are less influential may not have equitable access to SSSOs. 
Support for students receiving additional funding
PSD funding is provided to schools to support students with recognised disabilities. In 2011, DEECD allocated $533 million to schools to support 20 883 eligible students through the PSD. Total PSD funding has increased from $359 million in 2006–07 and the number of students accessing PSD support has almost doubled since 2000. 
The PSD application process requires schools to dedicate and coordinate considerable resources to address the PSD funding criteria. In 2011, 92 per cent of applications for PSD funding were successful. However, success rates vary considerably between categories of disabilities suggesting that DEECD could do more to clarify and/or simplify the eligibility criteria around some of the more complex conditions such as severe language disorders and autism spectrum disorders.
In 2010, 1 592 Year 6 students had their PSD funding reviewed. Of these, 15 per cent had their funding withdrawn, 31 per cent had their funding downgraded and a further 11 per cent had their funding level increased. Funding levels were maintained for the rest of the group. Analysis of these patterns suggests that schools are making better use of the higher levels of funding provided to students with more severe needs.
While schools can use PSD funding as they see fit, DEECD requires them to provide two specific types of support:
·	establish a Student Support Group (SSG)—responsible for identifying the student’s needs, planning their educational program and reviewing the student’s progress
·	develop an Individual Learning Plan (ILP)—used to identify and record the needs of students, their desired educational outcomes and strategies to support them.
While the intent and purpose of having SSGs is sound, not all audited schools used them in a manner that maximised their value. Similarly, few of the ILPs reviewed clearly detailed student needs or their educational goals and strategies. DEECD does not monitor the practices of SSGs or the quality of ILPs, even though these practices are potentially compromising the quality of support provided to PSD students.
Support for students that are not eligible for additional funding
While the 92 per cent success rate for applications suggests that schools understand the process for applying for funding well, the resource intensive application process and limited availability of SSSOs are discouraging schools from applying on behalf of borderline students. 
This was a great source of frustration to parents interviewed who had no other way to have their child assessed for additional funding short of enrolling them in a different school. Although none had been explicitly refused access to a school, many of the interviewed parents reported that they had been discouraged from enrolling in particular schools because the principal did not believe the child would be eligible for PSD funding. 
DEECD does not monitor the support provided to students who have been refused PSD funding, nor does it monitor their long-term educational outcomes. It also does not know how many students with special learning needs are being supported in schools or how effective the support is. 
DEECD has provided policies and guidelines to cover most areas of supporting students with special learning needs. However, these are not always specific enough to meet teachers’ needs and are not being consistently implemented. Further, there is only a limited uptake in the small but growing number of teacher training opportunities to support students with special learning needs. DEECD has limited records of who or how many staff have undertaken training. Neither aides nor education support workers receive specific training to support students with special learning needs.
As a consequence, the quality of support can vary considerably from school to school. This is causing unnecessary confusion and stress among parents.
DEECD has taken steps to begin addressing skills issues in classrooms, by revising the delivery model for SSSOs, issuing new guidelines on specific issues and providing additional professional development opportunities around autism spectrum disorders, learning difficulties, dyslexia, speech and language disorders, and hearing impairments.
Accountability and oversight
DEECD does not identify and monitor the achievement of educational and broader outcomes of students with special learning needs and therefore does not know how effectively its policy and resource commitment is working. 
DEECD has not adequately addressed VAGO’s 2007 audit report Program for Students with Disabilities which recommended that it establish performance indicators to monitor and evaluate the program’s outcomes.
Complaints information should be able to be used to identify areas of concern. However, DEECD's complaints system is inadequate for this purpose.
Recommendations
Number	Recommendation	Page	
	The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development should:		
1.	develop processes to monitor and report on the learning and progress of students with special learning needs, including both funded and non‑funded students	20	
2.	monitor the effectiveness and impact of programs to support students with special learning needs including which schools are using them	20	
3.	provide clearer guidance and training for teachers on how to get the most from Student Support Groups and how to develop and implement meaningful and effective Individual Learning Plans	31	
4.	seek feedback from schools about the clarity and usefulness of critical policy and guidance material and act to address identified deficiencies. In particular it should focus on:
·	restraint and seclusion practices
·	parents paying for external support delivered in school
·	the circumstances in which full time access to school can be restricted	31	
5.	set and implement measurable performance indicators for the Program for Students with Disabilities.	31	
Submissions and comments received
In addition to progressive engagement during the course of the audit, in accordance with section 16(3) of the Audit Act 1994 a copy of this report was provided to the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development with a request for submissions or comments.
Agency views have been considered in reaching our audit conclusions and are represented to the extent relevant and warranted in preparing this report. Their full section 16(3) submissions and comments are included in Appendix A.