Scenario:
The NSW Department of Education has asked all early childhood education, care settings, and schools how they will contribute to the achievement of the roles and responsibilities. Your manager/principal has asked you to select one role/responsibility and develop a position paper that sets out how your team should achieve the selected role/responsibility in your context (educational setting). The principal/manager has said that each setting must provide a response to the Secretary, NSW Department of Education and it is intended your position paper will be submitted as evidence of what needs to be done to contribute to the achievement of this role/responsibility in your context
(educational setting). It is important that the response considers the issues at a local level.
You will prepare a 1,500-word position paper advocating an appropriate and thoughtful response to ONE of the roles
and responsibilities under Teachers in relation to your area of teaching (early childhood, primary or secondary). The position paper will have 4 aligned components:
1. Title: Role/responsibility and Teaching Area.
2. Your position: The statement clearly identifies what needs to be done, by your educational setting, to achieve the role/responsibility you have selected (what needs to happen if this role/responsibility was to be achieved).
3. Your Justification: Justify this position (this identifies the current issues, that is the barriers, challenges, and possibilities to achieving the role/responsibility, and therefore this is the right way forward) for your educational setting.
4. Two specific recommendations: (this is what your team will specifically do to contribute to achieving this role/responsibility. It must not be vague. The recommendations must be actionable in your educational setting
and supported by evidence that they will achieve the stated role/responsibility by your team.
PREPARATION
– This assignment often takes more time to prepare as you will need to think deeply about your response. Allow sufficient time to develop your argument and edit your work.
– Review the information available on the government website https://education.nsw.gov.au/policy-library/ policies/pd-2005-0243 in particular, read the Summary of Inclusive Education for students with disability policy that can be found on the website. There will be a link in the Assessment 2 folder.
– Select one of the seven roles and responsibilities to focus on for your position paper. 13
– Identify which educational setting you will focus on.
– Review the resources in the vUWS Assessment 2 folder.
– Undertake your own research about the current issues, challenges, and possibilities in Australia in relation to the implications for inclusive education in this role/responsibility. Investigate examples of best practices.
– Write a statement, that reflects your position on the selected role/responsibility, and then justify your position by elaborating on the key issues, referencing the literature to support your argument. Write two recommendations that align with your position statement and justification.
– Check that your position, justification, and recommendations align. Is the argument logical, credible, and based on evidence?
– When undertaking your research ensure your references are current (the majority should be less than 5 years old), mostly Australian; relevant to your (early childhood, primary or secondary) context; and peer-reviewed literature and not websites. It is wise to reference your text.
– Remember this is not an opinion piece, it is a formal position paper responding to policy, which will be read by the relevant Departmental officers, and consequently it should have a succinct and formal tone. A good starting point is to reflect on some of these questions as you explore the complexities of your response:
– How does the role/responsibility influence the implementation of inclusive education?
– Why should we care about the role/responsibility?
– How realistic are the roles and responsibilities, do they go far enough, or do they go too far?
– What are some of the underlying issues and barriers to achieving this role/responsibility?
– How likely is it that the achievement of the role/responsibility will influence the way children/students with disabilities and their families experience inclusive education?
– How do the issues or barriers influence the achievement of the role/responsibility?
– What does the research say might ameliorate these barriers? What can we learn from international practices?
– What other measures and mechanisms will promote the inclusion of children/students with disability in education and learning?
