Transitioning to secondary school can be overwhelming for any student but for students with disability it can create greater anxiety. Previously students with disability often had to wait until the end of Year 6 to know where they secured a placement for secondary school, making it difficult for them and their families to prepare for the change.

Starting in 2019, Access Requests for students transitioning from primary to secondary school will commence when the student is in Year 5. The goal of this change is for students and their parents to have more time to discuss with schools the learning and support needs and transition from primary school to secondary school.

To give effect to this change, this year Access Requests for the current Year 5 cohort will be submitted by Week 2, Term 4 (Friday, 25 October, 2019). For applications submitted within this timeframe, student placement notifications should occur at the earliest opportunity possible in 2020.

We have been working hard to prepare for students with disability moving in to Year 7 next year in 2021. We will continue to keep parents and carers updated around requests for a support class placement for their child next year. We appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding as we work towards contacting all parents about the outcome of applications.

As part of our commitment to improve the learning and support journey and reducing administration for school staff, we've made a temporary modification to the Disability Confirmation process for the transitioning primary school cohort. Students with existing department disability classifications of autism, severe intellectual disability, physical, hearing or vision and who have a Disability Confirmation Sheet (DCS) will not require an updated assessment and/or diagnosis to be updated unless a change in student need is determined through the review process. We will monitor the effect of this temporary modification during the change period.

With the support of School Services and Assistant Principals Learning and Support we are confident that this transition period will achieve better outcomes for students and schools. We encourage you to reach out to your local School Services team if you have any questions, concerns or require support to implement this change.

For more information and resources click here.