Oberon Primary School

Location: Greater Geelong

Oberon Primary School, located in South West Geelong in the suburb of Belmont, is a small school of 154 students with families generally from a low to mid socio-economic background. The school’s enrolments have tripled in the last six years and there is no doubt that some of the increases in enrolments can be attributed to the success of programs that Gonski funding has enabled the school to implement.

How Oberon Primary School has used Gonski funding:

The Gonski funding (around $47,000 in 2016) we have received so far has enabled our school to employ an extra teacher to work in a 0.5 role, targeting students who need further assistance with literacy and numeracy. We have also been able to employ a speech pathologist one day a fortnight to work with around 20 of our students. We are quite a small school and these 20 students equate to about 12% of our entire student body.

How Gonski funding has made a difference for students:

Our speech pathologist works closely with our newly enrolled prep students and classroom teacher to help identify and assist in any early intervention work that may be required. The speech pathologist also works with a number of students across various year levels, recommending and implementing more effective teaching strategies alongside classroom teachers to cater for the needs of particular students.

The extra staff member we have employed allows the classroom teachers to work more closely with smaller numbers of students in their grades, enabling staff to personalise and differentiate lessons to more effectively target the needs of their students. This staff member also works extremely closely with at risk students to improve students’ numeracy and literacy levels within the school.

What School could do with Gonski funding in the future:

Gonski funding would allow us to continue to implement our existing programs as well as invest further in employing our Speech Pathologist for a longer time fraction. Further funding would enable our school to employ a specialist numeracy coach to not only work with students but to support and upskill our teaching staff and make them more effective teachers.