Green Square School

Location: Waterloo, Sydney

Green Square is a short to medium term program primarily for students experiencing challenges with their behaviour in a mainstream setting.

Intake for our school occurs each term, through a referral process initiated by individual public schools.

Our school aims to support students through an individual case management approach to integrate successfully back into a mainstream school, or develop skills that will enhance their ability with their education to positively engage in the wider community.

How has your school used its Gonski funding?

We have created a multi-discplinary team of health/allied health & educational professionals who offer innovative solutions and support to families with complex histories of trauma. Students enrolled into our program are offered comprehensive personalised learning plans that maximise their capacity to reengage with learning and perform better across academic social and emotional domains.

This network of support and innovation is being developed as a centre of expertise where our community of primary and secondary schools in the aree can access professional learning and one-on-one student support. Without the funding in place to train our team of teachers, occupational therapists, speech pathologists etc to work from a common patterned language, our students and families would not be able to benefit from the significant and ongoing level of support in the areas of curriculum and wellbeing.

How has Gonski made a positive difference for students?

Students are reporting increasing feelings of wellbeing, a better understanding of factors contributing to their mental health and also producing increased periods of sustained academic work as a result of the interventions used across our multi-disciplinary team.

We will be unable to 'scale-up' this program to offer support to neighbouring primary & secondary schools without the third phase of Gonksi funding. The initial phase of innovation is the direct result of Gonski

What could your school do with Gonski funding in the future?

The program we are developing will be used as a model of best practice within the department of education to improve students' access to curriculum and develop their long term wellbeing. It will prevent the need for schools to refer students to 'behaviour' schools' because hey are able to access specialist support for teachers and students at the school, drawing from our multi-disciplinary team's capacity to support other schools. This is not possible without future funding. This health/allied health/education partnership is the type of 21st century innovation that our education system needs in support of students with disabilities.

<<< BACK


More Gonski Success Stories

Barrack Heights PS is located in Shelharbour, 16km south of Wollongong. It has an enrolment of 250 students, most of them from low-income backgrounds.
Forest Lake State High School in outer suburban Brisbane has an enrolment of around 1450 students from diverse backgrounds.
Ulladulla High School, located on the NSW south coast, has an enrolment of about 1200 students, 70% of whom are from low-income backgrounds.
Yarrabah State School is a three campus Pre-Prep to Year 10 school in the Far North Queensland community of Yarrabah. The community faces complex inter-generational challenges including high unemployment and families living in poverty.
Morayfield State High School has a current enrolment of approximately 1500 students. The majority of students are from low-income backgrounds
Mansfield State High School is a large high school of about 2,200 students from diverse income and ethnic background in southern Brisbane.
Darlington Primary School, in Adelaide’s southern suburbs, has an enrolment of about 300 students from diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds.
The school opened in 2011 and has three campuses co-located on one site: Girls’ Education, Co-Education and Special Education.
Milton Public School, a K-6 school on the south coast of NSW, has an enrolment of 650 students about half of whom are from low-income backgrounds. Around 40 students are from non-English-speaking backgrounds, and about 5% of the students are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.
Minimbah State School has a stable enrolment of around 800 students. A high number of students are from low-income backgrounds.
Casino Public school is a P-6 school of 700 students, located in rural north coast NSW.
Windaroo State School in the Mount Warren Park area of Logan City has an enrolment of around 930 students. A significant number of students are from low-income backgrounds. Approximately 50 students are Indigenous and 80 students are from non-English-speaking language backgrounds.