12/12/01
Students of Mosman Park School for Deaf Children will move to the local primary school next year, Education Minister Alan Carpenter announced today.
Mr Carpenter said that following agreement between all parties including parents and staff, the school's 16 students would relocate to the nearby Mosman Park Primary School from the WA Institute for Deaf Education campus in Cottesloe.
"Families and staff have been talking for a number of years about the possibility of children learning in a mainstream environment and, given there is space and enthusiasm at the primary school for that to happen, I'm very pleased to be able to endorse that move," he said.
"Research shows that both students with special needs and their mainstream counterparts benefit when they have the opportunity to interact with one another in a supportive environment.
"Academic, social and emotional behaviour of deaf children improves significantly in a regular classroom and begin to follow the patterns of development of hearing children.
"The proposal to join the schools was approved by the Mosman Park Primary School community at a meeting at the school in September.
"I would like to thank the staff and parents at Mosman Park Primary School for their support for this very important change."
Mr Carpenter said the deaf students would study in a mix of mainstream classes and classes only for the deaf, depending on their needs.
Students would be supported by a teacher of the deaf or an Education Assistant while taking mainstream lessons.
The separate classes would be taken in modified classrooms that will be divided into two tutorial-type areas allowing for group and one-on-one work.
The students use Australian Deaf Sign Language - Auslan - as their first language and learn English as a second language.
"Being relocated to the same site as the Mosman Park Primary School will enable the children who are deaf to use and enhance their English language skills by being associated and learning with hearing children every day," Mr Carpenter said.
"It is planned that the hearing children will learn deaf sign language and deaf culture and eventually that the school will adopt Auslan as one of its languages other than English subjects.
"This will not only create greater opportunities for communication for the deaf students but also give the hearing students another very important and worthy skill."
Mosman Park School for Deaf Children Principal Annabella McKern and her staff will move to modified facilities at the primary school prior to the start of the 2002 year.
Minister's office: 9213 6800
