In 2023, 38 per cent of all students in Years 1 to 10 were absent for more than 20 days a year – which is considered chronically absent – and with these numbers showing no sign of decline, specialist schools that cater to these kids are growing in number and importance.
MacKillop Education Waranara School, in Sydney’s inner west, is an independent special assistance school established in 2015 that supports students in Years 9-12 who struggle to learn in a mainstream school environment.
In the Gadigal language ‘waranara’ means ‘to seek’, which is fitting given students in the school are simply seeking an equal opportunity for an excellent education.
“All of our students are not attending school when they are referred to us, and it’s for quite a variety of reasons,” principal Rachael Peet tells EducationHQ.
“For some, it’s access to learning and not being supported with their learning and getting enough differentiation within the classroom in a mainstream setting.
“For many it is due to mental health and sensory needs that are not able to be catered to in a mainstream setting – for example, the school’s too big, with lots of transitions, so moving around between classes, lots of students, noisy, unpredictable, with not as much consistency.”
Peet says some students have severe complex trauma and being in a mainstream large environment is hard for them to manage.
“And then we’ve seen more, in the last few years, students on the autism spectrum who are quite high functioning, so they don’t fit a support unit within a mainstream school, but they can’t manage mainstream school in terms of the social aspects and the environment and the sensory needs.
“For others it is around the bullying that has taken place in mainstream schools and things that have happened on social media and so on, which is a battle for all schools.”
Peet arrived at Waranara in 2017 as a Year 11 and 12 PDHPE teacher, before quickly becoming the school’s curriculum coordinator in the same year and then in 2018 undertaking the Teach to Lead programme with Teach for Australia.
Following the previous principal’s resignation at the end of 2019, Peet was acting principal for 12 months before securing the role from the start of 2021.
She explains that in the school’s early days, the main goal was to get students in the door and engaged, however over time Waranara has increased expectations of learning outcomes.
“Yes, they might have had lots happen to them and very difficult lives outside of school or in school, but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve the best education,” she says.
One parent says her daughter senses that teachers care at Waranara. “She feels seen, and appreciated just as she is. I believe my child will finish Year 12 and that this would not have been possible in other schools.”
The Annandale school’s 88 students are supported by 18 staff, including specialist teachers who are trained in trauma-informed education.
“We have specialist wellbeing staff who help students to manage the school day, help them to regulate, develop regulation plans and tools to help them attend and feel safe at school.
“And then we have specialist learning support staff that are in classrooms supporting students along with the teacher to access the learning.”
Every student has an individual learning support plan that involves meetings with parents and carers, along with the students, so they are involved in decisions around the learning and wellbeing supports given within the school.
“There is quite an acceptance that within our culture every kid here is working on different things and needing support with different things, that maybe one student might not need, but another student does – and there is much more of an openness to help and support here that can sometimes maybe draw feelings of shame in the larger context of mainstream schools.
“We also have simple things like there’s no uniform, we break the barrier down between staff and students by referring to each other on a first name basis, and we provide food for students at the school so they can make their own lunch etc," Peet says.
Students start the day at 9am and finish at 1.45pm, which means a shorter school day, but also, importantly, that catching buses does not involve overlapping with mainstream school students.
Years 9 and 10 students have a compulsory rows of subjects and an allocated classroom, which means they don’t move from that class and the teachers come to them.
“It just removes that transition time that students find really stressful and noisy and loud and overwhelming,” Peet explains.
“And then within our school building we have dedicated quiet rooms, wellbeing rooms, different learning spaces and acoustics and sensory items and tactile toys, weighted blankets and so on to help students feel regulated or become regulated at school.”
Year 11 students undertake a compressed model of study, where they choose three subjects at the start of the year and complete Year 11 in those three subjects halfway through Term 2 and then start the HSE straight away.
They sit their HSE exam in October and the following year choose three new subjects and repeat the process.
“That allows them to have reduced assessment tasks,” Peet says.
“They’re only focusing on three subjects at a time as opposed to six, so it’s less overwhelming.”
“Our aim is to re-engage students with school through a trauma-informed and individualised approach..., so they can achieve their RoSA and HSC whilst improving their wellbeing," Peet, pictured above left, with deputy principal Will Lutwyche, says.
Success, Peet says, is quite individual for each student and depends on a range of factors, including their starting point at the school, and what Waranara is hoping to achieve for them.
“Some students have not been at school for years,” she says.
“We’ve had students come to us who have never learnt to read, and so what we’re looking at when they finish with us, I guess, is really dependent on the things they’re trying to work on.
“For some it’s certainly around improving academically in their subjects and in learning and engaging in learning and being in class wanting to learn and completing tasks and their assignments and things like that, assessments.
“We also are looking for success around their wellbeing so that they are much more regulated, that they understand themselves and what they need and are able to communicate and articulate that, and help them to be reflective around what would trigger them or upset them and how they can manage that."
Peet says for many, it’s developing self-confidence that they can, when they leave Waranara, apply for a job and go to TAFE.
“We’re obviously conscious that this is a very, very, very nurturing environment here, where they’re getting so much support, so it’s also preparing them. It’s hard and different when any student leaves school..." she says
“We’ve had students go off to university, a few studying to be teachers.
“We had a student come fourth in the state in English studies for the HSC a couple of years ago.
“That student was a Year 10, never going to class, highly, highly anxious and really struggled with focus.
“So there’s I guess a path and a journey and success is different for different students.”
While Waranara is clearly doing great work, the extensive waiting list to get into the school is indicative of a major societal issue requiring far more attention.
Many parents are at a point of absolute desperation.
“Obviously there are serious issues around students and young people’s mental health as a whole,” Peet concedes.
“The addictions to social media and technology and gaming are serious problems that impact students’ sleep and then being able to come to school, their ability to socially interact and function in a face-to-face world."
Peet says many more schools like hers are needed.
“It’s not that mainstream schools are doing a bad job – they are under enormous pressures themselves…”
But for special assistance schools to survive, they need government funding, and at present out-dated data gathering methods are providing a frustrating stumbling block, the school leader suggests.
“At present, if you don’t have both parents’ background data, then you get less funding,” Peet says.
“Most of our students have a parent that they have never met or have never seen, and that then means the school doesn’t get funded because it doesn’t tick a box that’s required in data collection – and that’s not equitable. It’s putting up barriers that are not necessary.
“Governments need to ensure that they have data collection processes that are equitable in terms of specifically asking the right questions in wanting student background data.
“It’s things like that that really need to change to ensure that we are supporting these students who are so vulnerable.”
