Murray Bridge Special School

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Site Information - Welcome To Our School!

Murray Bridge Special School is a Reception to Year Seven (R-7) specialist education public school.

The school is located on grounds alongside of Murray Bridge North Primary.  Together the schools are known locally as the North Schools.

Murray Bridge Special School provides a learning environment for learners with complex multifaceted disabilities who may reside across local school Partnerships.  Our learners travel from residential areas such as Murray Bridge, Tailem Bend, Mypolonga, Callington and Mannum to access the learning and personal care packages offered by the school.

Enrolment Eligibility

Decisions about enrolment and eligibility requirements into Murray Bridge Special School are externally managed by a panel process coordinated by the Department for Education Support Services Team. All enrolment enquiries are directed to the Special Educator at the Murray Bridge Education Office.  Telephone: 08 85 320700 

School Times

School personnel are not scheduled for duty before 8.30am.  Young people are not to arrive before 8.30am.  Learning facilitators are on duty from 8.30am onward.  School concludes at 3.00pm.

If your child is accessing the Transport Assistance Scheme then:

• At 8.30am taxis'/buses begin arriving and school commences immediately for young people as they arrive.
• From 2.30pm onward taxi/bus services begin to arrive to take young people home.  The last taxi/bus usually departs the school at approximately 3.10pm.  The arrival to and departure from school for your child will be largely dependant on the company providing the services schedule.  The company contracted to your child's taxi/bus run will provide more information to you once your child has been approved to access the service.

If your child is being transported to school by private transport:

• School commences from 8.30am onward and concludes at 3.00pm.
• Young people will not be received before 8.30am.

A later arrival time for your child may be negotiated with your child's Learning Facilitator.

Attendance - All Day Every day

We strive for all learners to attend all day, every day. Our learners need to attend school regularly in order to engage fully in the curriculum and gain maximum benefit from schooling.  Regular attendance enables our learners to access all areas of the curriculum provided, enabling them to reach their full potential.

We also acknowledge learning will only occur when certain physiological and psychological needs are met.  Our learners may have fragile unpredictable health concerns or require frequent ongoing medical assessments or appointments. It is important our learners attend only in appropriate circumstances.  For example if a learner is unwell or significantly stressed; is recovering from a recent illness; has had recent surgery or hospitalization, or requires a standard of health or psychological care outside of the duty of care abilities of teaching or school support staff, then it is not in the learners best interests to attend.

If your child is unwell or unable to attend school please contact us directly as soon as is practically possible so we can provide any support you may need.

If your child is continuously absent without explanation after 3 days you will be contacted by the school to see if we can assist in any way.

As adults lets work together for your child to attain maximum attendance for maximum outcomes.

Visiting Therapists

Staff acknowledges the highly complex range of physical, medical and intellectual challenges our learners deal with on a daily basis.  Doctors, specialists, therapists and clinicians are often a daily part of our learner’s lives, and yours as a parent or carer.

In recent years, there has been a large shift in Australia's Disability support network with the introduction of the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme).

This presents many challenges, particularly the number of learners accessing service providers from the scheme, and for each learner, the number of providers associated with their Plan.  Therefore it has been necessary to put in place a strict policy that service providers not visit learners at School.

There are reasons for this policy, for which we hope you will read on to understand and support our school.

·       Due to the number of learners who have many different service providers working with them, our resourcing and facilities are unable to accommodate the large numbers of providers which would come through the school.  To comply with duty of care requirements, all visitors must be in line of sight by a learning facilitator so this becomes difficult and may take learning facilitators away from the core duties of teaching and responsibility for other learners in the class.

·       Many learners are unable to effectively manage when visitors attend the school and/or learners are withdrawn.

·       Not all providers have their DCSI criminal history checks.  This means that they are unable to work with learners on the school site.

A suggested solution is if a service provider requests an appointment with your child during school hours, suggest to them it must be provided at their premises or ideally, appointments are made out of school hours.  School concludes at 3:10pm each day.

We sincerely thank you for your understanding and invite you to contact school with any further questions or to advise us of appointments for your child.

Term Dates