Australian and New South Wales (NSW) legislation protects the right of students with disability to a quality education, free from discrimination, and describes specific obligations of education providers to these students. Exhibit 1 outlines the key legislative requirements.

Source: Audit Office summary of relevant legislation.

For public schools in NSW these obligations are reflected in several key documents published by the Department of Education (the Department) including the:

• Inclusive Education for Students with Disability policy which provides direction and guidance on supporting the inclusion of students with disability in NSW public schools, and associated personalised learning and support procedures.
• Inclusive Education Statement for students with disability and associated practice resources including professional learning.
• Achieving School Excellence in Wellbeing and Inclusion, which aligns key frameworks to the Disability Standards.

The legislative provisions outlined above mean that all students are entitled to enrol at their local public school and attend mainstream classes. There are no criteria related to disability type or level of support needs which impact this right. All principals and teachers have legal obligations to ensure that students with disability can participate in education on the same basis as their peers at every stage of their school life.

In 2019, through the release of the Disability Strategy, the Department committed to building a more inclusive education system in which all children thrive academically, physically, emotionally, and mentally, and develop skills to live independently. The Disability Strategy focuses on four key reform areas:

• investing in teachers and other support staff
• developing new resource models and support to meet individual student needs
• streamlining processes and improving communication and access to information
• building an evidence base to measure progress.

According to Departmental figures and projections by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, nationally the number of children with disability is increasing and was predicted to grow by 50% between 2020 and 2027.

In the NSW public school system, around one in five (or approximately 158,000 total) students were identified as having a disability in 2018. In 2023, this increased to around one in four students (or approximately 206,000 total). Exhibit 2 summarises the definition of disability given in the federal Disability Discrimination Act and related Disability Standards.

Source: Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) and NSW Education Standards Authority.

The Department uses the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data (NCCD) to identify and collect information about students with disability at a system level. The NCCD is an annual census undertaken in all schools across Australia to record adjustments made by schools to support students with disability so they can access and participate in education on the same basis as their peers without disability. These adjustments reflect the assessed individual needs of the student. They can be made at the whole-school level, in the classroom and at an individual student level. Throughout this report, we use the term ‘students with disability’ to refer to students with disability in NSW public schools receiving educational adjustments as recorded by the NCCD data collection.

Schools must have evidence that adjustments have been provided for a minimum of ten weeks within the 12 months before the NCCD census day to record the student in the NCCD collection. The NCCD does not capture data on students with a disability who do not need adjustments at school. Exhibit 3 illustrates when students with disability are captured in the NCCD collection.

In 2023, there were 2,215 public schools in NSW, with over 99,000 full-time equivalent teachers and school staff dedicated to students. The Department offers a range of settings to provide access to education for all students, outlined in its 2023 publication ‘NSW Education specialist settings’. These include: opportunity classes, selective high schools, distance education, creative and performing arts high schools, sports high schools, technology high schools, intensive English centres, support classes and Schools for Specific Purposes.

Three of these settings are most commonly referred to in respect of students with disability: a class in a mainstream school, a support class in a mainstream school, and a support class in a School for Specific Purposes.

• Mainstream classes – students with disability enrolled in mainstream (comprehensive) classes learning alongside their peers without disability may receive additional and specialised educational support depending on their individual needs. This may include through physical adjustments to the classroom, differentiated teaching by the classroom teacher, assistance from school learning support officers, advice from a dedicated learning and support teacher, supports from the school counsellor/psychologist and/or an allied health professional etc.
• Support classes in mainstream schools – located in some mainstream primary, high and central schools, support classes cater for students with moderate to high learning and support needs. These classes have fewer students than mainstream classes (typically ten students or less), based on a factor of educational support need. Every support class has a teacher and school learning support officer allocated. Teachers are responsible for planning personalised learning and support for each student. Students in support classes also have the opportunity to participate in mainstream school and community activities.
• Schools for Specific Purposes – these include specialist schools that cater specifically to students with moderate to high support needs through support classes, specialised programs, resources and support services. Schools for Specific Purposes support students with intellectual disability, mental health issues, autism, physical disability or sensory impairment, learning difficulties or behaviour disorders. They cater for students from kindergarten to Year 12.

In 2023, Department analysis showed that approximately 86% of students identified as having a disability in NSW public schools were learning in mainstream classes, 11% in support classes in mainstream schools and three per cent in Schools for Specific Purposes. Whether students with disability attend mainstream classes or support classes is informed by whether students meet the Department’s disability criteria, the choices and preferences of their parents/ guardians, and class availability.

The NSW Government’s July 2024 response to the Disability Royal Commission stated that it is ‘committed to supporting educational environments that cater effectively to all students, fostering inclusive practices while recognising the importance of choice and diversity in educational provision.’ It considers ‘that specialist settings play a crucial role in meeting the diverse needs of students and offer choice to families in selecting the most suitable educational environment.’

The objective of this audit was to assess whether the Department of Education is effectively supporting students with disability in NSW public schools.

In making this assessment, the audit examined whether the Department:

• designed and delivered approaches that effectively support students with disability
• has been addressing the needs of students with disability.

The scope of the audit did not include:

• assessment of practices at individual NSW public schools
• the effectiveness of different education settings, such as mainstream schools, support classes and Schools for Specific Purposes
• system schools, such as catholic system schools and independent non-government schools, early childhood education and outside school hours care services or vocational education and training services
• assessment of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) including the provision of supports during school hours
• in-depth examination of student behaviour management policies and practices – these are expected to be the focus of a future audit topic (see Appendix five)
• the merits of government policy objectives (see subsection 27B(6) of the Government Sector Audit Act 1983).

The audit review period was calendar years 2018 to 2023. The audit takes account of prior and subsequent events but does not assess the effectiveness of actions or efforts that were implemented outside this timeframe.

In this report, the term Aboriginal people is used to describe Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Critical issues with the Department’s provision of inclusive education have been identified repeatedly in previous public reviews

A number of key reviews conducted over the last two decades have considered the experiences of students with disability and the effectiveness of school and departmental practices in meeting their needs, highlighting a number of recurring performance issues.

• Our 2006 audit report Educating Primary School Students with Disabilities observed that the Department has had a policy of ‘inclusion’ since 1980, giving students with disability the right to attend their local school, supported by ‘special education’ programs and classes where needed. This audit focused on special education services and made a number of recommendations to the Department on better tracking the quality, uptake and user experiences of these services.
• A 2010 NSW Parliamentary inquiry, The provision of education to students with a disability or special needs, found the overwhelming view among inquiry participants was that there were significant inadequacies in the NSW education system for students with disability, and that immediate action to address these was needed if the NSW Government was to meet its legal obligations to ensure equal access to the education system for all children.
• Our 2016 audit report Supporting students with disability in NSW public schools examined how well the Department was managing the transition to school for students with disability (including starting kindergarten or high school, or changing schools) and supporting teachers to improve these students’ educational outcomes. This concluded that while some public schools had supported students with disability to transition well, others had more to do before adequately meeting students’ needs. Cultural resistance in schools and the lack of expertise of some teachers regarding disability were found to be the main barriers.
• A 2017 NSW Ombudsman report Inquiry into behaviour management in schools saw merit in mandatory training for school principals on the Disability Standards; and observed that school staff require specialised skills to provide individualised and targeted support to students with challenging behaviours, noting the complex connection between student behaviour, disability, trauma or other factors.
• A 2017 NSW Parliamentary inquiry, Education of students with a disability or special needs in New South Wales found that while there were many instances of excellence, the inclusive approach to education provision promoted in legislation and policy was not the reality experienced by many students with disability in NSW schools. It made a range of recommendations covering funding, monitoring and reporting, access to targeted supports, professional learning and practice resources for teaching staff, access to allied health providers, guidance for parents/guardians and schools on reasonable adjustments, supports in different educational settings, and complaint handling.
• The Australian Government’s five-yearly reviews of the national Disability Standards for Education aim to test if these are effective in supporting students with disability to access and participate in education on the same basis as students without disability, and whether any improvements should be made. The last review was in 2020, which heard from participants that accountability for the implementation of the Disability Standards was lacking and was not driving needed changes to education systems overall. This review made recommendations to the Australian Government to amend the Disability Standards to include principles on consultation, issues resolution and complaints handling processes, and to promote awareness and training on the standards.
• The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability (‘the Disability Royal Commission’) was established in 2019, with the final report released in September 2023. The inquiry had a national focus and examined the relevant experiences of people with disability in – but not limited to – educational settings. While not assessing the NSW public education system specifically, it made a number of recommendations to all states and territories, including to improve policies and procedures on the provision of reasonable adjustments, data collection and reporting, complaint management, and funding.
• The NSW Parliament also recently conducted an inquiry Children and young people with disability in New South Wales education settings which reported in August 2024 (outside the audit review period).

The Department has not verified that previous review recommendations have been implemented in line with the outcomes sought

We reviewed evidence on how the Department monitors the implementation of accepted recommendations from public reviews and inquiries such as those outlined above. This revealed gaps in ensuring that relevant activity meets the intent of the recommendation and resolves the issue/s that the recommendation meant to tackle.

Although the Department advised that it has implemented each of the 2016 audit recommendations, some remain relevant today, including to:

• continue to streamline processes to request a support class placement and integration funding to meet the educational needs of students with disability requiring targeted supports
• examine and implement further strategies to help teachers meet the learning needs of students with autism and mental health conditions
• improve how the Department monitors the learning outcomes for students with disability.

Similarly, the Department supported (36 recommendations) or supported in principle (three recommendations) all of the 2017 Parliamentary inquiry recommendations and advised that it has implemented each of them.

Some of the recommendations have not been fully delivered but there is evidence that the Department is progressing relevant work – for example, that the Department increase support classes in mainstream schools to adequately meet student need. While the Department has increased the number of new support classes in mainstream schools each year of the audit review period, it still does not have a clear picture of demand and supply to understand whether this is adequate to meet student need (see section 3.5 below). Similarly, recommendations about funding reform have been partially met but work is continuing in this area (see section 3.4 below).

While there has been progress across all the areas that were the focus of the 2016 audit and 2017 Parliamentary inquiry recommendations which prompted the Department’s 2019 Disability Strategy, many students, families and schools continue to feel the impact of the issues that these recommendations aimed to improve. For example:

• schools we spoke with during this audit said that the Department’s disability criteria still does not reflect contemporary understandings of disability or students’ functional needs, and restricts access to targeted supports
• stakeholders consider that existing funding models provide inadequate resourcing to meet the needs of students with moderate to high support needs in all educational settings
• schools and families do not have transparent information on the number of students seeking placements in support classes, and on waiting times for enrolment in these classes in particular areas
• the Department does not have visibility over schools using individual education plans (see section 3.6 below).

This raises questions about the accountability for, and effectiveness of, the Department’s responses to accepted recommendations.

In our 2021 audit looking at how effectively emergency response agencies address public inquiry recommendations, we recommended that the audited agencies:

• establish an approach to tracking the implementation of accepted recommendations from public inquiries (such as performance audits and Parliamentary inquiries) with minimum requirements including:
  • a senior executive is accountable for the approach
  • a senior executive action officer is accountable for implementation of accepted recommendations
  • there is regular reporting to an appropriate senior executive management group that highlights at-risk items
• accepted recommendations from public inquiries are formally acquitted based on evidence, including an assessment of whether the action taken has met the intent of the commitment to the accepted recommendation, and whether ongoing monitoring is required to embed changes made, and
• consolidated, summary information is published at least every 12 months on progress made to implement accepted recommendations from public inquiries.

The Department’s approach to tracking the implementation of accepted recommendations from public inquiries does not involve assessing whether the action taken has met the intent of the recommendation, nor public reporting. Business areas provide regular updates to the Department’s chief risk office, relevant executives and the independent audit and risk committee on the progress in implementing accepted recommendations, and they hold supporting evidence of this. From 2023, the Department’s internal audit team began to verify this evidence for new accepted recommendations or those underway at that time (but not for previous recommendations that had been closed).

Without a process to assess whether action taken to implement an accepted recommendation is effective in meeting the intent of the recommendation, there is a risk that gaps and performance issues previously identified are not addressed and persist or recur in the future.

The Department has committed to inclusive education and broadened efforts beyond those of earlier policies

The Disability Strategy stated that the Department was ‘committed to building a more inclusive education system, one where all students feel welcomed and are learning to their fullest capability’. Inclusive education was defined as meaning that:

‘…all students, regardless of disability, ethnicity, socio-economic status, nationality, language, gender, sexual orientation or faith, can access and fully participate in learning, alongside their similar aged peers, supported by reasonable adjustments and teaching strategies tailored to meet their individual needs. Inclusion is embedded in all aspects of school life, and is supported by culture, policies and everyday practices.’

The success of the Disability Strategy was to be judged by the experiences of teachers, families and students, as outlined in Exhibit 4.

The Department has processes in place to identify - at a systems level - students with disability who need learning adjustments

The Department uses the annual Nationally Consistent Collection of Data (NCCD) to identify, at a systems level, students with disability who need educational adjustments. There are four broad categories of disability used in the NCCD data collection: physical, cognitive, sensory and social/emotional. These align with the definitions in the federal Disability Discrimination Act (Cth), as detailed in Appendix three. Schools must nominate a single primary disability for each student they report in the NCCD census. If a student has multiple disabilities, teachers and school teams determine which disability category has the greatest impact on the student’s education and is the main driver of adjustments to support the student’s access and participation. This decision is based on professional judgement.

Exhibit 5 provides an overview of the prevalence of different categories of the primary disability for students in NSW public schools over the audit review period. Between 2018 and 2023, there was a 56% increase in the number of students with social/emotional disabilities, and a 24% increase in students with cognitive disabilities.

The Department sets expectations for schools to provide inclusive education, but these may not be consistently realised ‘on the ground’

The Department outlines obligations for NSW public schools in supporting students with disability in several key documents.

The Inclusive Education Statement, issued under the Disability Strategy, provides direction and guidance on supporting the inclusion of students with disability in NSW public schools. This explains how the concept of inclusive education in the strategy can be given effect, including through:

• education environments that adapt the design and physical structures, teaching methods, curriculum, culture, policy and practice so that they are accessible to all students without discrimination
• high expectations of all students and personalised support for students where needed so they are engaged and learning to their fullest capability, while acknowledging the importance of parental choice in the type of education and educational settings for their child
• ongoing reflection, evaluation and reform at all levels across the Department and schools.

The statement contains six principles to guide the implementation of inclusive education, detailed in Appendix four. These include student agency and self-determination, parent/guardian inclusion, social and cultural inclusion, as well as curriculum inclusion.

In 2022, the Department launched the Inclusive, Engaging and Respectful Schools package, which brought together new policies and system-wide supports on inclusive education for students with disability, student behaviour management and restrictive practices (Appendix five). This package was discontinued as part of a government directive in 2023 and new guidance to schools is in the process of being issued.

The Department has produced practice resources including teaching tools, professional learning, and the Achieving School Excellence in Wellbeing and Inclusion tool which aligns key frameworks to the Disability Standards to help schools understand their obligations. For example, the Department developed the Inclusive Assessment Program to measure literacy and numeracy for students with complex learning needs. It provides educators with two integrated online assessment tools to assess, support and scaffold learning for students with moderate to severe intellectual disability, or mild intellectual disabilities who require extensive support for emotional regulation, or physical disabilities who need support developing their early language and learning skills, particularly those who may be non-verbal and/or pre-intentional in their communication.

The Department uses a range of processes to ensure schools monitor and implement the required curriculum and policies in every school. Some of these processes are built into the School Planning and Reporting Online software platform, whilst others are monitored by other business units and teams in the Department. However, as discussed in section 3.6 below, these have not had a specific focus on inclusive education until recently.

Some stakeholders to the audit reported experiences of inconsistent or absent inclusive education practice and/or poor student behaviour management at schools. These were also the focus of many of the disability complaints received by the Department in the audit review period. This suggests that the objectives of the inclusive education policy framework may not be consistently realised ‘on the ground’.

The Department provides guidance and support on reasonable adjustments to support students with disability access education, however this could be strengthened

Schools are legally obliged to provide individualised supports to students with disability based on their needs in relation to accessing education. The Department does not have visibility where reasonable adjustments provided are not meeting students’ needs (for example, where targeted supports are not available) unless a complaint is made or escalated to the Department. The Department advised that, from 2024, there is an annual compliance process that requires principals to confirm that at their school there are processes in place to ensure reasonable adjustments for all students who need this and that there is evidence available at the school to support this.

Australian legislation requires education providers to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ which are measures and actions that assist students with disability to participate in education on the same basis as students without disability. The particular adjustments required will depend on what’s reasonable considering:

• the individual needs of the student and the nature of their disability
• the effect of the adjustment on their ability to achieve learning outcomes, participate in education and be independent, and
• the effect of the adjustment on anyone else affected, including the costs and benefits of making the adjustment.

Types of adjustments may include curriculum, instructional, specialist support, environmental or assessment and reporting adjustments.

Under the NCCD model, schools must collect and maintain evidence of personalised learning and support for students with disability, including evidence of:

• consulting and collaborating with the student and/or their parents/guardians or carers
• identifying and assessing the needs of the student
• providing adjustments to address the identified needs of the student
• monitoring and reviewing the impact of adjustments.

The Disability Standards provide that an adjustment is reasonable in relation to a student with a disability if it balances the interests of all parties affected. Judgements about what is reasonable for a particular student, or a group of students, with a particular disability may change over time. The Disability Standards generally require providers to make reasonable adjustments where necessary. There is no requirement for schools to make unreasonable adjustments.

The Department provides guidance and specialist staff in its ‘Team Around a School’ model to support schools in making reasonable adjustments. Exhibit 7 outlines the Department’s guidelines to schools about deciding whether an adjustment is suitable or reasonable.

Source: Department of Education 2021.

Schools we spoke with gave examples of a range of adjustments they make for students with disability including: curriculum differentiation, breaking tasks into smaller components, student seating plans (e.g. seating students who are blind or have low vision at the front of the classroom), shared enrolment between different schools, items to help students regulate such as sensory toys, visual timetables, and technology to assist with learning, including augmentative and alternative communication technology, text-to-speech tools and noise cancelling headphones, and school learning support officers accompanying students in the playground.

There can be conflicting views between parents/guardians of students with disability, and individual schools and the Department, about what reasonable adjustments are required in particular situations. Where there is a dispute, this may lead to allegations that the legislative requirements of the Disability Standards have been breached. There is no dedicated process for resolving these disputes outside of the Department’s existing complaints mechanisms and legal avenues under the relevant legislation.

The 2017 Parliamentary inquiry recommended that the Department provide clear guidance to parents/guardians and schools about what are considered reasonable adjustments for students with disability, and to set timeframes for the implementation of adjustments in schools so that accommodations were put in place to support individual students when needs were identified. The Department supported this recommendation, noting that it would review its existing web-based resource for parents/guardians about the Disability Standards and reasonable adjustments.

The Australian Government’s 2020 review into the Disability Standards reported that students with disability and their parents/guardians often felt they had to advocate for reasonable adjustments rather than this being proactively offered by education providers. It found that many educators were unaware of their obligations under the standards, or lacked the resources to implement them, and those who were aware struggled to find guidance and clarification to implement them.

Stakeholders we heard from through this audit said that reasonable adjustments usually turned on the views and capabilities of individual teachers as well as the individual needs of the student; and that information provided to families and disability advocates about the adjustments made for students by schools is typically vague. Feedback from parents/guardians described experiencing difficulties in negotiating adjustments for their child with schools, and/or considered that the adjustments provided by the school were inadequate.

The national NCCD process requires schools to have documented evidence of adjustments provided to students with disability before the student can be included in the data collection. The Department did not independently verify this evidence or have a mechanism to check that adjustments made by schools are reasonable and effective. It will respond to complaints about the provision of reasonable adjustments if complaints are made directly, or escalated, to the Department (see section 3.6 below).

The Disability Royal Commission considered that there was varying awareness and understanding between educators, school principals and families of students with disability, and that the concept of reasonable adjustments was either poorly understood or inconsistently applied. It found that – in NSW and other Australian jurisdictions – ultimately the provision of reasonable adjustments is largely left to the judgement and discretion of educators, with little departmental oversight. The Commission recommended that states and territories improve policies, procedures, tools and resources for schools on the provision of reasonable adjustments. The NSW Government has supported this recommendation.

The Department has specialist staff in teams available to advise schools, but access and quality is variable

The Department provides teams of specialist staff, resources and sometimes funding support to assist schools. The Department introduced the Team Around a School model in 2021 to provide more timely and effective communication with, improve the coordination of support to, share knowledge and skills within and across, and enhance the consistency of departmental advice provided to, schools.

The ‘teams within schools’ aspect of the model provides direct support to students through roles such as assistant principals learning and support; senior psychologists education (who supervise school-based counsellors/psychologists); assistant principals hearing and vision; home school liaison officers; out-of-home care teachers; and transition teachers.

The ‘teams around schools’ aspect of the model aims to provide an additional layer of support and specialist expertise to school leaders and staff. These consist of non-school based regional positions including learning and wellbeing coordinators, advisors and officers; networked specialist facilitators who coordinate external services; NDIS transition coordinators; behaviour specialist advisors and officers; Aboriginal community liaison officers; and Aboriginal student liaison officers. There are 28 such groups across NSW, each servicing a geographic region of approximately 60 to 100 schools. Each group offers the same eight key services:

• developing external agency partnerships with schools
• offering policy advice
• developing specific teams within a school
• behaviour support for students exhibiting behaviours of concern
• support for students with complex support requirements
• support for diverse learners
• support with individual student plans, and
• professional learning for teaching staff.

The teams around schools also provide assistance to the departmental access request panels and support class planning (see following subsection). They can approve one-off additional funding requests for schools to support students, including applications for funds to provision an additional temporary classroom teacher.

Schools we spoke with told us that the quality of support from the team around a school is variable and depends on the skillset of staff in the role. Schools said that their access to these supports can be limited as the teams have to serve large numbers of schools. This can mean waiting some time for in-person observations and on the ground support from the non-school based positions, and delays to receiving advice on critical issues. Schools also reported that sometimes the advice received from teams around a school did not take account of approaches the schools had already tried and/or was not suitable for the individual student or school context.

Schools generally had positive feedback about the teams within schools, particularly in relation to the assistant principal learning and support role.

The Department provided funding to mainstream schools with more than seven support classes to have an executive staff member who supports inclusive education practices

In 2022 the Department provided additional executive staffing allocations to mainstream schools with seven or more support classes, under the ‘Executive Entitlement’ initiative. The allocation was for two dedicated leadership roles:

• an assistant principal (primary schools) or head teacher (secondary schools) with a 0.8 full time equivalent teaching load, and
• a non-teaching deputy principal.

The functions of these school-based executive roles included to:

• provide strategic instructional leadership, build staff capability through coaching, mentoring and feedback
• drive learning and wellbeing growth for students with disability through evidence-informed practice
• use data to improve outcomes for students with disability and inform the school’s Strategic Improvement Plan to develop, monitor and evaluate measures for students with disability.

During the initial implementation of the initiative, 65 non-teaching deputy principals were placed in 65 high schools, and 21 assistant principals were placed in as many primary schools.

Initiative funding also covered six new temporary non-school based teaching service roles in the Department to work with the new school leadership roles, including by establishing a knowledge sharing group on inclusive education practice.

An evaluation of the initiative conducted by the Department found that the executive roles in schools were making progress towards authentic inclusion across the whole school community. This included by fostering stronger linkages and transitions between the staff and students in support and mainstream classes.

The evaluation also found these executive roles in schools were improving staff capacity and capability in inclusive practices, but broader staff shortages across the public education system – particularly for specialist learning support staff – remained a challenge. It is not yet clear the extent to which the responsibilities of these roles may be impacted by a separate departmental review into the teaching loads of executive staff, undertaken in 2023–24 as part of efforts to address teacher shortages in NSW. The evaluation recommended enhancing clarity and communication about the different roles funded under the initiative, and the related supports for staff.

Processes are in place to provide eligible students with targeted supports

If a student with disability has moderate to high needs and requires specialist support that cannot be met within existing school resources, their school may apply to the Department for targeted supports through the ‘access request’ process.

Where an access request is required, the student’s base school manages the application process. The school works to understand the needs and preferred types of support for the child or young person, and then submits the application to be assessed by a panel in the school’s local area. Panel members include a primary, secondary and Schools for Specific Purposes school principal representatives for the area, a learning and wellbeing team member and a senior psychologist education (both from the relevant Team Around a School).

Panels meet twice a term (except in term one, where it meets once) to make decisions on school applications about the provision of targeted supports including:

• placements in support classes in mainstream schools
• placements in support classes in Schools for Specific Purposes
• enrolment in distance education
• support from an itinerant support teacher (hearing or vision) when another support is also requested.

Applications for support from an itinerant support teacher (hearing or vision) for more than eight hours of hearing support or 12 hours of vision support per week are managed by a state-wide Sensory Panel. The Sensory Panel meets as required to assess applications. Access to itinerant sensory support that is less than eight hours per week for hearing or less than 12 hours per week for vision is made via an appraisal form. Assistant principals vision and hearing are responsible for administering the appraisal process and making recommendations about allocation to itinerant teacher caseload.

Applications for integration funding support funding for students with disability who have moderate to high needs to learn in mainstream classes are assessed by the Department’s centralised integrated funding support team on an ongoing basis.

Other supports available to students with disability in schools do not require an access request to be submitted for them. These include supports resourced through school base funding or by the ‘low level adjustment for disability’ equity loading (see section 3.4 below).

In addition, every school receives an allocation of school counselling service staff. The methodology for this allocation takes into account a factor of need for students with disability, and the number of support classes in a school.

See section 3.4 for further information about the funding and provision of targeted supports.

The Department provides relevant professional development and teaching resources but could do more to check their effectiveness

The Department provides a range of professional development courses on supporting students with disability to school staff, and teaching and learning resources, to schools. However, it does not know how what was learned has been applied in practice after the training.

The Department collects data on the tertiary qualifications of teachers in the public school system. In June 2018, Department analysis showed that only about 7% (or around 6,000) of NSW public school teachers were approved to teach inclusive/special education classes, and the number of new graduates each year was going down. In May 2023, this reduced to around 6% (or about 5,275). In the Disability Strategy the Department publicly recognised that there was a need to invest in developing a strong pipeline of teachers with relevant skills, noting that 61% of supporting teachers were over the age of 50 as at May 2018, compared to 43% of all teachers.

To improve the supply of teachers with expertise in supporting students with disability, in 2019 the Department launched a scholarship for existing teachers to undertake a masters degree qualification in inclusive or special education. As of 2022, a total of 356 scholarships had been awarded. The Department has plans to expand the offers to 200 teachers each year. However, the Department is not tracking whether scholarship recipients are moving into inclusive education roles once their study is complete (this is not a condition of the scholarship).

The Department monitors teachers’ self-reported skills and confidence in teaching students with disability through the annual Tell Them From Me teacher survey. Between 2019 (when the question was first included in the survey) and 2023, results showed that most (fluctuating between 70 to 72%) of the teachers who responded to the relevant survey questions agreed that they have the skills and confidence to meet the needs of students with disability or special needs. The proportion of teacher respondents working in Schools for Specific Purposes who agreed with this statement varied between 84% and 90% over this period. In mainstream schools with or without a support class, the proportion of teachers agreeing with this statement varied between 69 and 73% year on year.

The Department has tested and validated this survey data to use as part of the disability outcomes framework. Schools are able to see their own aggregated data, and are encouraged to use the data to identify staff professional learning needs and as part of their ongoing community and stakeholder engagement.

The Department also committed in the Disability Strategy to ‘build on a suite of core, advanced and specialist professional learning’ and, since its launch in 2019, has focused on adding to and updating the courses available. Courses are offered to school teaching and non-teaching staff on various topics, including disability awareness, Disability Standards, inclusive practice and assistive technology. These courses are mostly offered online, but some are available face-to-face.

In response to recommendations of the 2017 NSW Parliamentary inquiry, the Department updated training on the Disability Standards with the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) in 2019 and from 2020 made it compulsory for all school leaders to complete. The Department advises that between the update and 2023, the course has been completed over 40,000 times.

To teach in a NSW school, teachers must hold active accreditation with NESA and complete 100 hours of professional development every five years to maintain this accreditation. Until recently, half of these hours were required to be courses in mandated areas including curriculum delivery and assessment, mental health and disability. From August 2024, teachers were given more flexibility to choose professional development that meets their needs and contexts from employer mandated training aligned to the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. These standards describe what teachers should know and be able to do at each stage of their career to deliver high quality effective teaching that improves student learning outcomes. They do not specifically address inclusive education or support for students with disability. Under these changes, teachers may continue to choose disability related courses, but these are no longer mandated.

The Department tracks the number of professional learning courses completed by staff and presents the information in a data dashboard for senior executive staff. This provides visibility of what courses in disability professional learning have been completed, when, where and by what role type. The Department is able to use this information to understand whether mandatory courses are being completed, and which elective courses are taken up by staff.

Exhibit 8 shows the number of course completions for disability professional learning courses between 2019 (earliest data available) and 2023.

Schools may develop plans to meet the specific needs of a student with disability, but the Department does not have visibility of whether these are completed, implemented or useful

There are different planning documents that may be used by schools to guide and record the individualised support provided to students with disability. As for reasonable adjustments, the Department does not have system-level visibility over, and does not play a quality assurance role in, school personalised planning practices.

Individual education plans set out a student’s learning goals and adjustments made, and departmental guidance expects these to be developed collaboratively between educators, parents/guardians, professionals and other support personnel. Wherever possible, this planning process also includes the student.

Personalised learning and support plans cover key short-term goals relating to social, academic and life skills development. These are also expected to be co-constructed between students, parents/guardians, teachers and other stakeholders. Behaviour management plans and health management plans may also be developed for individual students by schools.

The 2017 Parliamentary inquiry noted there was widespread support for a collaborative approach to developing individual plans, but that this did not always happen and there could be variable input to, and quality of, such plans. The inquiry made two relevant recommendations for the Department, to:

• ensure individual education plans are developed and implemented for students with disability, and
• include data on the proportion of students with disability who have individual education plans each year in a data dashboard.

The Department supported both recommendations but progress to implement them has not met the intent of the recommendations. The Department noted that schools document personalised learning and support provided to students with disability, and hold documented evidence of this, as required by the mandatory annual NCCD data collection.

However, as schools hold this evidence, and individual educations plans are not a mandatory source of evidence, the Department has no visibility over whether individual education plans are developed and implemented or useful, nor the proportion of students with disability with such plans.

Schools are using learning and support teachers and school learning and support officers to help classroom teachers support students with disability

The Department provides each mainstream school with an allocation of learning and support teacher time, and school learning and support officer time, to support students with disability and schools value these roles highly. The Department has not assessed whether the allocation of both roles is sufficient for schools to meet the needs of students with disability.

Through the disability equity loading (see section 3.4 below), the Department provides each mainstream school with an allocation of between 0.1 and 0.4 full time equivalent hours of a learning and support teacher role. Schools may top up this time through their own budgets (comprising base allocations, equity loadings and other sources) to have more time allocated to the learning and support teacher role.

Learning and support teachers are expected to work directly within a school to provide additional support for teachers and students. While considered a specialist teacher provision, specific qualifications or experience in inclusive education are desirable but not a prerequisite to holding this role.

Learning and support teachers are not expected to teach a class, but are expected to plan, implement, model, monitor and evaluate teaching programs and personalised adjustments for students with additional learning and support needs, across the school. This role also provides specialist advice, and assists with professional learning for classroom teachers, and school learning and support officers. It can also include identifying and assessing students who need adjustments, teaching small groups of students, and delivering learning interventions to individual students one-on-one.

Most schools we spoke with found the learning and support teacher role helpful in identifying and supporting students with disability. However, some said that they experienced persistent challenges in recruiting to these roles.

Students in mainstream classes or support classes may receive assistance from a school learning and support officer (sometimes called ‘teachers’ aides’). These are non-teaching roles that are supervised by classroom teachers, and can assist students with disability with school routines, classroom activities, social activities in the playground and personal care including feeding and toileting. Some school learning support officers may also be qualified to administer medication and have other student health support duties.

A central allocation is made by the Department for one full time equivalent school learning support officer per support class (whether the support class is in a mainstream school or School for Specific Purposes). Roles outside of this allocation must be resourced by schools either through securing integration funding support from the Department for funding for a student with disability who has moderate to high support needs to learn in a mainstream classroom; or from their school budget including base funding and equity loadings.

The leadership and teaching staff at schools we spoke with highly valued the school learning support officer role in assisting them to provide adjustments and personalised support for students with disability. Most schools we spoke with also said that they did not have sufficient hours of school learning support officers to support the students with disability needing this personalised assistance.

The Department is undertaking funding reforms to better align school funding allocations to student needs by using NCCD data on adjustments required. This included providing additional learning and support teacher allocations to schools in 2023. While the Department has focused on how to extend the reach of existing funding to support students with disability who have learning needs but not diagnoses, it has not determined whether the existing funding calculated is sufficient for schools to adequately meet students’ needs. Section 3.4 below discusses this further.

Support classes in mainstream schools and Schools for Specific Purposes provide additional support for eligible students

Support classes provide specialist and intensive support for eligible students with a recognised diagnosed intellectual or physical disability, autism, mental illness, sensory processing disorder or behaviour disorder. These classes generally have an allocation of ten students each but a ‘factor of need’ is used to calculate the class size depending on the support needs of different disability types, which can result in fewer students per class.

Every support class has an allocation of a class teacher and a school learning support officer. Schools aim to recruit teachers with qualifications or experience in inclusive education to these roles, although broader teacher shortages can make this difficult. Class teachers are responsible for planning personalised learning and support for each student.

Support classes are located in some mainstream primary, high and central schools, or in specialist Schools for Specific Purposes. A student cannot be enrolled directly into a support class by the host school, but instead must apply for a placement through the access request process, with applications submitted by schools and determined by a departmental panel (see Exhibit 13).

Support classes in mainstream schools cater for students with moderate to high learning and support needs. If a child is enrolled in a support class in a mainstream school, there is flexibility for them to undertake some of their learning in other mainstream classes in the same school. This is largely dependent upon the resources available and their individual learning and support needs.

Schools for Specific Purposes include specialist schools that cater specifically to students with very high needs and additional support requirements through specialised programs, resources, and tailored support services. Schools for Specific Purposes are not available in all regions of the state.

Schools are expected to conduct an annual review for students in support classes which considers their attendance, personalised learning and support, and whether they are able to begin transition into mainstream classes.

The Department reports that in 2023 around 14% of students with disability in NSW public schools attended either a support class within a mainstream school or in a School for Specific Purposes. From the start of 2024 an additional 238 new support classes were established (227 in mainstream schools and 11 in Schools for Specific Purposes). The total number of support classes expected to be operating from the start of 2024 was more than 4,520. Of these 3,445 were in mainstream schools and 1,075 in Schools for Specific Purposes.

Many stakeholders told us that there were not enough support classes available, particularly in secondary schools. Some talked about the value of support classes for students with disability for whom the specialist teacher, dedicated school learning support officer, small class size and personalised learning in support classes would be optimal. Some reported difficulties for schools in supporting students in mainstream classes for whom support classes would be most suitable but placements are not available, or families do not want their child to learn in support classes. Others said that support classes should be abolished altogether and better supports provided in mainstream classes, as they considered that support classes segregate students based on disability which they argued was inconsistent with a truly inclusive education system.

This split in perspectives on the appropriateness and value of support classes was also reflected in the final report of the Disability Royal Commission. While all Commissioners agreed that mainstream schools need major reforms to overcome the barriers to safe, equal and inclusive education, they had different views on whether inclusive education is consistent with maintaining some education settings separate from mainstream schools.

The Department’s 2019 Disability Strategy centred the concept of inclusive education in the policy framework. This was defined as ensuring access to supports needed by students with disability to participate in learning with their peers. It did not challenge the existence of different educational settings (mainstream, support classes and Schools for Specific Purposes). The Department has not taken a decision on the future number and distribution of support classes, and does not have a clear picture of supply and demand for them. This is discussed in section 3.5 below.

Itinerant teachers support students with specific hearing or vision needs

Itinerant support teachers (hearing or vision) work with students who have a confirmed hearing and/or vision disability prior to and once attending NSW public schools from diagnosis to Year 12. These specialist teachers are not classroom teachers but visit schools to help students, their teachers and the school with appropriate adjustments.

Between 2018 and 2023, the Department increased the funding for these roles from 267.7 to 300.6 full time equivalent hours for itinerant support teacher (hearing) roles and from 118.3 to 123.3 full time equivalent hours for itinerant support teacher (vision) roles. However, our analysis of the Department’s data suggests that schools were not able to fill all the positions funded.

Itinerant support teachers also provide support and advice to schools for Aboriginal students who have a conductive hearing loss (otitis media). Otitis media is a major source of ear disease in Aboriginal children. If a child has hearing loss, their speech may be delayed which will, in turn, affect important developmental milestones and learning at school.

Schools we spoke with during the audit had good experiences with itinerant support teachers, and reported that they have a positive impact on both students with disability and teaching staff.

There are a variety of processes in place to support students through key transition points

Schools provide support to students with disability at key transition points: starting school, moving from primary to high school, and leaving school. Schools may also provide support to students transitioning into or out of a support class in any academic year.

Many schools have transition programs arranged with local preschools, which can involve preschool students visiting kindergarten classrooms or primary school teachers visiting the preschools.

When students are moving from primary school to high school, and have been in a support class in primary school, schools will start the transition planning in Year 5 if applying for a support class placement in Year 7. Under the Disability Strategy, the Department also changed the process for integration funding support so that funding for students in Year 6 is automatically rolled over to Year 7 without needing a new school application.

Schools support students with disability when finishing school through identifying external services available, facilitating work experience or apprenticeships, or encouraging students to undertake further study.

Schools we spoke with talked about a variety of ways they work with families, students and external services to plan for these different transitions. They also reported facing challenges, particularly with respect to limited supports available for transitions to post-school options. Schools also raised concerns about students transitioning to new learning stages that are behind their peers for that stage, and those in a support class in primary school who are unable to secure a placement in a high school support class due to limited supply.

Some stakeholders told us about their challenges experienced in accessing transition supports including:

• not being informed about school transition opportunities early enough
• needing more information about transitions for families
• the time involved in panel and departmental decisions on applications for targeted supports making transition planning difficult for families.

The Department provides specific funding to schools to support students with disability 

The Department allocates specific funding to all NSW public schools for supporting students with disability (see Appendix six). Relevant resourcing comprises three types of support:

• universal through base school allocations
• a disability equity loading provided to all mainstream schools to support students with disability regardless of diagnosis, and
• targeted supports for students with disability who have a confirmed diagnosis recognised by the Department’s disability criteria and in response to successful applications.

Exhibit 9 gives an overview of the school infrastructure, funding and staffing supports that the Department provides to schools to support students with disability, by educational setting.

Targeted supports are provided to schools to assist eligible individual students when available 

The Department allocates targeted support, when available, to schools for supporting eligible students with disability who cannot be adequately supported from within the school’s resources. Targeted supports include integration funding support for students with diagnosed disability in mainstream classes who have moderate or high support needs, student placement in support classes in mainstream schools or in Schools for Specific Purposes, distance education and support from itinerant (visiting) teachers for vision or hearing impairment. 

Targeted support is provided to schools on the basis of applications about individual students made to the Department, where the following conditions are met: 

• parents/guardians agree to seeking targeted support for their child 
• the student is eligible, i.e. enrolled full-time at a public school and: 
  • there is evidence that the student has a diagnosed disability that falls into one of the eight recognised categories outlined in the Department’s 2003 disability criteria (confirmed by the school counsellor/psychologist and their supervising senior psychologist education) 
  • the student has moderate or high support needs that cannot be met from the full range of school and local resources 
• schools prepare appropriate applications 
• for integration funding support for a student to learn in a mainstream classroom, the appropriate level of funding support determined from a desktop functional needs assessment of the student exceeds a threshold amount which equates to approximately one hour per day of school learning support officer time. Below this threshold, students are expected to be supported from within school resources including with the disability equity funding. A threshold is not applied for students with moderate to high support needs who have essential requirements in the areas of personal care or mobility. 
• a departmental access request panel or centralised team (for integration funding support) agrees with the targeted support sought, and 
• there is availability of relevant supports sought e.g. a placement available in a suitable School for Specific Purpose or mainstream school support class or in a distance education institution, itinerant teacher support time, early intervention. 

Analysis undertaken by the Department in 2018 found that the average annual growth rate in enrolment in Schools for Specific Purposes was almost double (1.9%) that of the general enrolment rate for public schools (1.0%), while enrolment growth in support classes in mainstream schools was almost four times (3.8%) general enrolment over the five years 2013-2017. Our analysis of the Department’s data also shows that there was a 78% increase in the number of applications for integrated funding support between 2018 and 2023. 

The Department considers that targeted supports respond to students’ moderate to high needs, that integration funding support is ‘uncapped’ and ‘demand-driven’ and it does not maintain a waiting list for support class placements. However, these supports are not purely demand-driven as the conditions outlined above work to ration the eligible applications for, and provision of, targeted supports in practice.

The Department has not updated the criteria for recognising disability diagnoses, which underpin targeted funding supports, in over 20 years 

The Department’s provision of targeted supports is limited to eligible students with disability who have a confirmed medical diagnosis that falls within the Department’s 2003 disability criteria (Appendix seven). Students with undiagnosed disability and those with certain diagnoses that fall outside the Department’s disability criteria, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and dyslexia, generally cannot access targeted supports regardless of their functional learning needs. Where there is evidence that a student has a significant disorder or malfunction not covered by the Department’s disability criteria, and the condition is impacting greatly on educational outcomes, special determinations may be made on a case-by-case basis. 

In 2020 the Department initiated a review of its disability criteria in response to a recommendation of the 2017 Parliamentary inquiry that the Department revisit the criteria to ensure they are in keeping with contemporary understandings of disability. The Australian Federation of Disability Organisations explains that a contemporary understanding includes the social model of disability, developed by people with disability. The social model says that people are disabled by barriers in society – such as buildings not having a ramp or accessible toilets – or by people’s attitudes, like assuming people with disability cannot do certain things. This is in contrast to the older medical model of disability which says that people are disabled by their impairments or differences; and concentrates on what is ‘wrong’ with the person, not what the person needs to participate in society. 

The Department advised that its disability criteria are currently being updated to consider the functional needs of students and remove the need for parents/guardians to seek repeated external assessments from specialists. It is anticipated that the updated criteria will be available in term four, 2024. 

Schools we spoke with said that obtaining diagnoses can be challenging for many students’ families, due to lengthy waiting lists for both public and private specialists, difficulty with physically accessing providers if they are located some distance away, and unaffordability. Some also said that many students with diagnoses that are not included in the Department’s disability criteria, such as ADHD, needed targeted supports to access learning. This was also raised in the 2010 Parliamentary inquiry. The Department’s revision of the disability criteria is not timely. 

The Department’s process for providing targeted supports for students is convoluted and administratively burdensome for schools 

The Department is working on improving the processes for providing targeted supports for students with disability, but changes made to date have not yet been used to monitor the time taken for such supports to reach students, nor addressed the administrative burden for schools involved. 

If a student with disability has moderate to high needs and requires targeted support, and a formal diagnosis that meets the Department’s disability criteria, their school may apply to the Department through an ‘access request’. These applications are developed by a school’s learning and support team in consultation with school staff, specialist support teachers, school psychology and counselling services as well as parents/guardians. 

Exhibit 13: The Department’s access request process for targeted supports 

Access request applications are decided by local departmental panels across the state. Panels comprise primary, secondary and School for Specific Purposes principal representatives for the area, with a learning and wellbeing team member and a senior psychologist education (both from the relevant regional Team Around a School). Panels meet seven times per year – twice a term in weeks three and seven (except in term one where they meet once). If an application is not supported by a panel, it may be resubmitted to the panel up to two more times before schools need to complete a new application for the student. 

The Department tracks whether access request applications have been supported by the panel, deferred for a future panel meeting, declined by the panel or withdrawn by the school. Applications may include three priorities for the supports sought for a student, and it is possible to have more than one priority supported by the panel.

The Department uses data relating to students with disability to inform policy and practice 

The Department has statewide visibility over a number of datasets relating to students, including enrolment, attendance, suspensions, expulsions and nationwide assessments, such as NAPLAN and the HSC. Students with disability can be identified in these datasets after linking them with data collected through the annual NCCD census which records students with disability receiving educational adjustments (see section 1.2 above). 

Insights from statewide data on students with disability was used by the Department’s governance groups to inform relevant decision making and the development of the Disability Strategy and related initiatives. The Department typically used this data at a point in time, rather than for ongoing tracking of progress or outcomes. 

Some datasets have been presented in dashboards for some executive staff, with the aim of improving visibility of relevant initiatives and identifying focus areas for improvement. For example: 

• the access request dashboard is a KPI report that measures the number of access requests for immediate or next term support that have been resolved, and a decision communicated to parents or guardians within 28 days 
• the disability professional learning dashboard was developed to provide timely data on relevant staff training course completions 
• the Department is developing an executive dashboard to report on a subset of measures of the disability outcomes framework (see next subsection).

The Department also uses data to inform some planning decisions such as: 

• access request data being used to inform integration building works conducted in schools and the establishment of support classes (see sections 3.2 and 3.5 above) 
• developing the ‘Small Group Tuition’ intervention strategy on the basis of three years of COVID learnings, research, evaluations and stakeholder feedback. The Department is using NAPLAN results data to distribute Small Group Tuition to NSW public schools to support students with learning challenges, including students with disability. 

The Department has also planned and/or conducted evaluations (incorporating qualitative and quantitative data) on a range of key initiatives, including the access request process reforms, the Schools for Specific Purposes supplementary funding, and the specialist allied health and behaviour support provider scheme. 

The Department made progress to establish a comprehensive framework to measure the outcomes of students with disability 

Measuring outcomes is necessary to determine whether a strategy or programs are fulfilling their intended purpose and to understand the lived experience of students, families and school staff. The importance of understanding outcomes for students with disability was underscored by our 2006 audit report, which concluded that it was difficult to judge if learning outcomes for students were improving as existing performance measures did not provide sufficient information to monitor, manage and review relevant programs. 

In 2019 the Department started to develop a framework to measure the outcomes of students with disability. These include wellbeing, independence and learning growth outcomes for students, informed by measures including students’ perceptions, supports provided, educators’ understanding and skills, and satisfaction of parents/guardians. In developing the framework, the Department consulted with over 600 parents/guardians, educators, people with disability, students with disability, Aboriginal community members, culturally and linguistically diverse community members, and stakeholders from regional, rural and remote locations. 

The framework is comprehensive and evidence-based and deliberately minimised the administrative burden of data collection on schools by using existing datasets that schools already collect. Exhibit 18 provides more information about the framework.

Source: Department of Education 2024.

The Department nominated timeframes for implementation of the disability outcomes framework but did not meet any of the proposed timelines between 2019 and 2023. The Department advised that the finalisation of the framework was delayed in part due to the impact of COVID limiting consultation with schools, students and school communities. 

The Department’s progress on the framework since 2019 included: 

• consulting students with disability and their families, educators, academics and sector representatives 
• conducting an audit of all the data the Department currently collects that could provide meaningful information about outcomes for students with disability 
• improving the accessibility of the annual Tell Them From Me surveys of students, parents/guardians and teachers, including adding two questions relevant to the experiences of students with disability, and translating the parent/guardian survey into 22 community languages 
• obtaining legal advice confirming the lawful use of data from NCCD collections to include in the framework and report against publicly.

The Department also examined a subset of outcomes for students with disability. It engaged a consultant to analyse whether there were different outcomes for students with disability based on the type of targeted support received. This analysis showed that there were significant differences in some outcomes for students with disability that receive targeted support versus those who do not. 

While there are many complexities in comparing progress or experiences across all students with disability due to the diversity in this cohort and data limitations, the implementation of the disability outcomes framework was still not timely. The Department executive endorsed the domains, outcomes and metrics for the disability outcomes framework in 2022, but it was not yet operational and had not been used to inform policy or practice, at the time of writing. 

Since endorsement of the framework, the Department has updated the disability outcomes framework to reflect the final recommendations of the Disability Royal Commission and to ensure alignment with the NSW Government’s 2023 Plan for Public Education. In 2024, the Department finalised an implementation and data plan to support the operationalisation of the framework. This included testing the first set of measures for learning, wellbeing, and independence outcomes using validated data from 2021 and 2022. Key insights from this exercise showed that, between these years, there were: 

• an increase in students with disability reporting being verbally bullied in secondary school and primary school 
• a decrease in the proportion of students with disability planning to complete Year 12 or go to university. Responses showed an increase in plans to do an apprenticeship or VET/TAFE course 
• stable results in teachers’ survey responses about whether they feel they have the skills and confidence to: 
  • meet the needs of students with disability 
  • strive to understand the learning needs of students with special needs 
  • create opportunities for success for students who are learning at a slower pace 
• lower NAPLAN scores for students with disability compared to other students. 

The Department recently advised that it is implementing the framework in stages by linking NCCD data to identify students with disability in other outcomes data such as survey responses and academic results. It is continuing to test and validate measures to be able to implement the framework to support the Plan for NSW Public Education, which includes disability cohort measures. It is unclear if the Department still intends to publicly report on the disability outcomes framework, and if so, what the timelines for this would be. 

The Department has no centralised visibility of school performance in supporting students with disability and complying with the Disability Standards for Education 

Although the Department has outlined clear expectations for inclusive education practice in schools under the Disability Strategy and the Inclusive Education Statement (Appendix four), it only began monitoring whether these expectations are being met across the state in 2024 (outside the audit review period). 

In 2015, the Department introduced the School Excellence Framework to help schools monitor and report on their overall performance in learning, teaching and leading. Schools annually self-assess their practices against the School Excellence Framework to inform their individual Strategic Improvement Plans and public annual reports. 

The Strategic Improvement Plan is a document that outlines the steps schools intend to take every four years to improve learning outcomes and the achievement and growth of all students. They reflect the areas for improvement identified through the School Excellence Framework, and the Department required that every school embed needs-based funding into their 2021-2024 Strategic Improvement Plans. Needs-based funding includes disability equity funding (see section 3.4 above).

The latest update of the School Excellence Framework in November 2023 included an increased focus on student wellbeing and inclusion, however the Department will not know how many schools are assessing themselves against these measures until the next assessment cycle in 2024. The Department indicated in the Disability Strategy that it intended to use the School Excellence Framework to improve school effectiveness in supporting students with disability in the future. The School Excellence Framework has also been proposed as a dataset for potential inclusion in the disability outcomes framework. 

Another process by which the Department assesses school-level practice is through an annual policy monitoring process. This looks at school compliance with specific policies each year and provides an opportunity for school improvement and sharing amongst schools. The policy areas monitored vary each year and are selected by the Department on the basis of risk. For example, in 2024 the policies monitored related to training, child protection and school attendance. 

The Disability Standards have been included in the policies being monitored annually from 2024. This will involve school principals attesting to their school’s compliance with the Disability Standards, i.e. that there are processes in place to ensure reasonable adjustments for all students who need them, that the principal has discussed the policy requirements with relevant staff, that monitoring processes are in place, and that there is evidence available at the school to support this. Each director educational leadership will then endorse the principal’s confirmation after a conversation with the principal (including sighting the relevant evidence). 

The Department also conducts audits of schools. These focus on areas for risk and performance improvement identified through the School Excellence Framework, policy monitoring processes and other means. However, the Department has not conducted an audit of schools’ inclusive education practices to date. 

With these gaps in the existing school monitoring processes, and the disability outcomes framework still not implemented, the Department does not know at a central level the extent to which schools were meeting policy expectations and giving effect to inclusive education in practice, over the period 2018-2023. 

Schools provide some information in their annual reports on their disability funding expenditure, but this is not outcomes-focused 

The Department requires schools to provide information on disability funding expenditure in their public annual reports, but this does not link to targets for supports or outcomes for students with disability, nor detail the impact of such funding. 

Schools are required to report publicly on activities that were funded through their equity loadings and targeted integration funding allocation, including the impact, in their annual reports. Full copies of school financial statements are also tabled at annual general meetings of the school’s parents and citizens association. The Department’s view, with which we agree, is that it is not appropriate for schools to publicly report on targeted support for individual students. 

Our 2020 audit report Local Schools, Local Decisions: needs-based equity funding found that the Department had not clearly communicated the purpose and expected outcomes of equity funding to schools, including whether or not schools should use these funds to support their broader strategic directions or to address the needs of specific equity groups, such as students with disability. 

That audit concluded that the Department had not had adequate oversight of how schools were using needs-based equity funding to improve student outcomes. While the Department had provided guidance and resources, it had not set measures or targets to describe the outcomes expected of this funding or made explicit requirements for schools to report how these funds were used. 

The audit also found that while schools were required to report on how they spent equity funding in school annual reports, such information did not always fully reconcile what was received and what was spent, leaving gaps in the public record on how equity funding was used in practice. Few schools described a measurable impact on student outcomes.

To improve accountability for equity funding to schools, the audit recommended that the Department determine suitable targets for all equity groups – including students with disability – at a school and a state level, and report performance against these targets. 

Following the audit, ‘department targets’ and ‘individual school targets’ were introduced. However, none of these are specific to students with disability or inclusive education practice. The Department targets relate to academic performance in NAPLAN and HSC exams, student attendance, Aboriginal education, student growth and post-school pathways. 

The Department advised that from 2021 all schools are expected to report internally on the impact of equity funding, not just the activities undertaken, and this is to be regularly monitored by the relevant director educational leadership. However, the Department does not have central visibility on the impact of disability equity funding, beyond the knowledge of individual directors. It expects the disability outcomes framework should help to provide this, once it is operational. 

In each of the schools we spoke with, the school leadership talked about how they use the disability equity funding to support students with disability in their school. This included through, for example, hiring additional school learning support officers, engaging support from allied health professionals, and purchasing external school programs and activities. 

In our analysis of a random sample of annual reports for 20 mainstream schools with and without support classes, schools reported using the relevant funding as follows:

• using disability equity loading in flexible ways including for school-wide programs, engaging specialist staff to collaborate with teachers, supporting teachers to differentiate the curriculum, and engaging allied health providers such as speech pathologists. The most commonly reported use of this funding by both schools with and without support classes was for additional school learning support officer time or learning and support teacher / interventionist teacher time. 
• using targeted integration funding support to engage additional staff for students with high-level learning needs, intensive learning and behaviour support, professional learning and purchasing resources. The most commonly reported use of this funding was for additional staff, and to release staff to attend case conferences and to develop personalised learning and support plans for individual students.

The Department seeks input from students, parents/guardians and teachers but does not regularly use this to understand the experiences of students with disability 

The Department runs annual voluntary surveys of students, parents/guardians and teachers called Tell Them From Me. These surveys give respondents a direct voice to schools and the Department, but they have limitations as for all survey instruments, including self-reported data being subject to personal bias, affected by the particular experiences and identities of people completing it. 

These surveys are also inaccessible for some students with disability with complex learning and communication needs. The Department is leading a project to provide schools with a suite of accessible tools to measure and understand the wellbeing and educational experience of these students, called ‘My Say, My Way’. They include alternative means of eliciting feedback including by enabling students to draw images and map their emotions on simple diagrams of their bodies (body mapping). These tools are being developed with innovative technology solution providers and through co-design with students, teachers and parents/guardians in NSW public schools. The Department plans to engage around 100 schools to co-design this alternative survey method in 2024, and make it operational from 2026. 

Schools are encouraged by the Department to use data from the Tell Them From Me surveys to understand the needs of students in their unique contexts and to supplement insights with other feedback from the school community. Schools we spoke with had mixed experiences with the survey, with some schools using survey insights to drive practice and some reporting low value.

The Department used the Tell Them From Me survey data during the development of the Disability Strategy, and has tested and validated some of the proposed measures to include this survey data in the disability outcomes framework. However, this framework is not yet fully operational and has not been used to inform policy or practice. The Department does not otherwise regularly analyse Tell Them From Me survey data to understand the experiences of students with disability. 

The Department’s complaints management process is mostly effective, but gaps could be addressed 

The Department can obtain insight into school practice and student outcomes by analysing the complaints it receives. However, the Department does not have oversight of the number, type or trends in complaints arising at the school level, including about supports for students with disability. This lack of oversight may prevent the Department from identifying systemic trends and supporting schools to make improvements including in inclusive education practice. The Department advised that the benefits of centrally recording all concerns is outweighed by the expense and administrative burden associated with implementing a consolidated complaint system across all schools. 

The Department’s complaints management processes align with the whole-of-government expectations for good practice outlined by the NSW Ombudsman, but could be enhanced by: 

• providing parents/guardians with independent advice and disability expertise prior to escalating their complaint to an external, independent party (e.g. the NSW Ombudsman) 
• supporting schools to analyse complaints data 
• ensuring school complaint handling and other policies are student-centric, accessible, efficient, safe, trauma-informed, and culturally appropriate. 

The Department receives complaints made to it directly by phone, email, letter, or through its online complaint form. Concerns may also be raised in person. The Department aims for complaints to be resolved at the school level where possible. Complaints made to the Department will usually be referred to the relevant school for principals and managers to decide on what action to take, considering the nature and seriousness of the concerns, except for complaints about school principals. Complaints about school principals are referred to the Department’s relevant director educational leadership responsible for overseeing the school. Complainants can request an internal review of the handling of the complaint if they can explain why the outcome of a complaint was incorrect, and/or how the complaint handling process was unfair and how this contributed to an incorrect complaint outcome. 

Complaints that are escalated from schools to a director or submitted directly to the Department via the online form on its website, are captured in the Department’s complaints management system. 

The Department advised us that the purpose of the existing complaints handling policy is to quickly and effectively address any concerns raised by parents/guardians to support their children’s education and is not designed as a way to measure outcomes. It considers that any redesign to create a centralised way for the Department to capture school-level complaints would be a major shift in existing procedures and would negatively impact on the administration workload of schools.

The 2017 Parliamentary inquiry made four recommendations about the Department’s complaints handling processes. These recommendations have been completed or progressed. In 2023, the Disability Royal Commission recommended that state and territory governments expand their complaints management offices that ‘operate within educational authorities at arm’s length from schools’ to help resolve complaints about schools, specifically complaints concerning the treatment of students with disability. The Commission recommended that these offices should be empowered to: 

• provide students and parents/guardians with information about their rights and options when managing complaints 
• request information and conduct conciliations, connecting families with advocacy support and specialist disability expertise where needed 
• initiate a formal investigation if a complaint is serious or otherwise indicates systemic issues 
• support and assist the complainant in referring matters to the appropriate regulator or independent oversight body if a complaint cannot be effectively resolved 
• work with schools to analyse complaints and regularly report on how education systems might improve to reduce future complaints 
• work with school principals to ensure school policies are student-centric, accessible, efficient, safe, trauma-informed and culturally appropriate. 

This recommendation was jointly accepted in principle by the Australian Government and state and territory governments in July 2024. 

The Department is not using relevant complaints data to understand whether the needs of students with disabilities are being met 

Our analysis of the Department’s data identified that approximately two per cent (337) of the 18,102 total complaints received by the Department between 2018 and 2023 were disability-related complaints. This does not include concerns raised and resolved at the school level or by education support services. The Department is aware from previous Parliamentary inquiries and the Disability Royal Commission that students with disability and their families may be reluctant to make complaints about their school, to their principal, perceiving a conflict of interest and risk of negative consequences. However, the Department was not seeking feedback from complainants about the resolution of their complaint when these were made at the school level, or from students with disability and their families more broadly (in the absence of complaints). 

During the audit review period the Department trialled an independent alternative dispute resolution process for complaints, and partnered with the Department of Communities and Justice to support advocacy for families of students with a disability (the Department’s contribution of funding to the latter ceased in June 2024). 

The Department advised that in May 2024, its procedures for handling community complaints were reviewed and revised. The revised procedures provide clear guidance that principals must act promptly on any reports of unfair treatment or detrimental action linked to a complaint and refer them to the Department for assessment. The revised procedure is expected to be supported by material for parents/guardians, students and other learners in relation to the complaint process with guidance on: 

• making a complaint 
• how the Department ensures a complaint is managed fairly 
• the processes in place to protect parents/guardians, students and other learners in making a complaint. 

The Department has also added new questions to the 2024 Tell Them From Me survey to obtain information about the experience of parents/guardians in raising and addressing concerns at the school level.

Ninety per cent of the 337 disability-related complaints made to the Department between 2018 and 2023 were about school performance. None of these complaints related to Aboriginal students or culturally and linguistically diverse students. This may indicate that there are particular barriers preventing these groups from making a complaint. The Department recognises that it could improve the accessibility of its complaints processes for Aboriginal people and culturally and linguistically diverse people. 

The Department’s internal analysis found that, in November 2023, disability-related matters were one of the top five issues raised by complainants in all complaints made or escalated to the Department. The Department did not identify potential systemic issues in this analysis. It is unclear how the Department uses complaints data to inform and drive system-wide improvements to schools in relation to meeting the needs of students with disabilities. 

The Department advises that it uses complaints data to inform responses to inquiries, the development and review of policy and procedures, and the development of professional learning and resources for school staff on engaging with the community. It did not provide any examples of using disability-specific complaints data in this way. The Department expects that planned changes to the way that the issues of concern and outcomes of complaints are captured and reported in its complaint handling system will assist its understanding of issues that impact on parents/guardians, students and other learners. The Department intends to explore options to better use complaints data, and its inclusion in the disability outcomes framework, in the future. 

Complaints can also be submitted to the NSW Ombudsman, or the Australian Human Rights Commission. During the audit period, the contact information for these external organisations was provided on the Department’s website but no information about the role of these organisations was included. In 2024, the Department’s revised community complaints procedures included more detailed guidance on the roles of these organisations, which has also been added to the Department’s website. 

The NSW Ombudsman advised us that it received 1,409 complaints about the NSW Department of Education, including schools, between 2018 and 2023. Four per cent of these complaints (60) were about the Department’s alleged failure to accommodate disability. Common themes raised by these complaints were a lack of access to special schools, insufficient specialist supports to receive education in mainstream schools, and limitations placed on hours of student attendance at schools. 

The Australian Human Rights Commission advised us that it received 189 complaints related to alleged breaches of the Disability Standards by all NSW schools (government and non-government) between 2018 and 2023. These complaints referenced over 400 disabilities, with many students identifying as having multiple disabilities. Most (63%) of the 189 complaints received by the Commission alleged that schools had failed to provide reasonable adjustments, such as not providing learning support, modified curriculum, or individual learning plans.

Many of these concerns were also raised with us by stakeholders (Exhibit 19).

Source: Audit Office analysis of contributions to the audit public mailbox.

The Department’s policies and approaches do not recognise the particular needs and barriers experienced by diverse groups of students with disability 

The Department has a legislative and policy obligation to understand and address the particular needs and potential barriers to accessing supports that may be experienced by students with disability who also have other identities or characteristics such as being Aboriginal, living in rural or remote areas, socioeconomic disadvantage or speaking English as an additional language or dialect (also known as intersectionality). 

The NSW Public Service Commission’s 2022 Belonging and Inclusion Strategy defines intersectionality as ‘the interconnected nature of social categorisations such as race, disability, class, sexuality and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage’.

The Disability Inclusion Act 2014 expresses key commitments of the NSW Government to give effect to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability (ratified by Australia in 2008) in NSW. This includes that supports and services for diverse groups of people with disability should: 

• recognise their particular needs and potential barriers to accessing supports and services, and 
• be informed by consultation or partnership with their communities. 

Diverse groups identified in the legislation include women with disability, Aboriginal people with disability, people with disability from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, and people with disability who identify as LGBTQIA+. 

The Department stated in its Disability Strategy that it was ‘committed to building a more inclusive education system’, defined as meaning that: 

‘…all students, regardless of disability, ethnicity, socio-economic status, nationality, language, gender, sexual orientation or faith, can access and fully participate in learning, alongside their similar aged peers, supported by reasonable adjustments and teaching strategies tailored to meet their individual needs. Inclusion is embedded in all aspects of school life, and is supported by culture, policies and everyday practices.’ 

The Department’s strategy, the Inclusive Education Statement issued under it and its other relevant policies each focus on different cohorts of students, such as the: 

• Aboriginal Education Policy 
• Multicultural Education Policy 
• Rural and Remote Education Strategy. 

While these reflect relevant domains of diversity, they do not recognise intersectionality, i.e. that there may be particular needs and barriers in accessing supports for students with disability who are also members of other equity cohorts. 

The Department notes that some policies, including its multicultural education policy and student behaviour policy (Appendix five), require that consideration be given to the needs and circumstances of all students. However, this is not the same as considering the particular needs and barriers in accessing supports for students with disability who also experience discrimination or disadvantage due to other factors as outlined in the legislation. 

A risk remains that the Department’s policies, funding streams and supports consider domains of diversity separately, rather than as overlapping, or as potentially compounding factors of disadvantage. Yet our analysis of the Department’s data shows there is a need to focus on intersectionality. 

Aboriginal students with disability are worse off than their non-Aboriginal peers with disability in relation to suspension, expulsion, individual student growth and reported experiences of bullying 

In 2023, although Aboriginal students made up nine per cent of the general student population in NSW public schools, they comprised 17% of students with disability. 

While students with disability overall are overrepresented in suspension rates, Aboriginal students with disability are disproportionately suspended when compared to other students with disability. Between 2018 and 2023, 34% of all instances of suspensions of students with disability related to Aboriginal students.