Jodi Walters, Principal, Swan Hill Specialist School:
At Swan Hill Specialist School, our philosophy is that every single student can and will learn, if we give them the right supports and provide the right environment.
Swan Hill Specialist School takes every opportunity to work with the schools around it. There’s the old adage of it takes a village to raise a child. We certainly believe that the community around us adds value to what we do here.
Phil Cox, Principal, Beverford District Primary School:
Hi, I'm Phillip Cox, and my role is, I’m the principal at Beverford District Primary School, which is a really small school 15km from Swan Hill.
Yeah, we have a very strong partnership with the Swan Hill Specialist School. One of the features in that or the strengths of that is the use of the Inclusion Outreach Coaching, the IOC. Mandy has visited our school numerous times and worked really closely with our staff to build the capacity for us to be as inclusive as we can for these students.
The benefit of working with all of the schools in our community is that sharing of expertise. We have a really strong network in Swan Hill and the Swan Hill Specialist School is a huge part of that, and they obviously lead the way with inclusion.
We've also worked really closely with Joel Campbell, who's a staff member at the Specialist School. Joel has come out and designed with some Koorie elders from our area, a rebound wall that is just an absolute feature of the school.
It's got our totem animal, at Beverford is a platypus. We're quite close to the Murray River. All of our community, but certainly our Koorie community are very proud of that showcasing at our school.
Joel Campbell, Indigenous Support Officer, Swan Hill Specialist School:
Phil Cox from Beverford was like, can you come and do a painting for us? So I was like well, we are talking about doing painting with some kids in the school. So that's how Mural Mob probably started.
It got from me designing it by myself to kids actually putting the input and designing it with the Procreate. And now that can have Procreate and go bang, this is how I want the mural. And now I look at it, and go alright, we’ll take this bit, this bit and this bit. And then we put it all into one.
As we got on with the project, kids started actually taking pride in not getting paint on themselves. And they started looking and seeing the results in what they were doing, and once it was finished they stood back and went, wow, I done that.
Phil Cox, Principal, Beverford District Primary School:
We're a small community and it really builds that collective efficacy. So, you know, the kids at the Swan Hill Specialist School, the kids at Lake Boga or wherever they might be. They matter to my staff at Beverford.
We all play sport and see each other on the weekends and we really take care of our kids. And it doesn't matter what uniform that they wear during the week.
Jodi Walters, Principal, Swan Hill Specialist School:
Our vision for the future here at Swan Hill Specialist School is that we continue to grow and learn ourselves, as educators, and that we continue to educate those around us.
We're really blessed. you know, we've got 24 schools in our network, in the Southern Mallee network that all work together to give the best outcomes for the kids.
[On-screen text: Disability Inclusion, Education for All – Education State / Victoria State Government / Education logo – Authorised by the Victorian Government, Melbourne]
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