Freya is in Year 2 at a new school on the outskirts of a major city. Her school has a large percentage of students who are newly arrived to the country and have English as an additional language. Freya moved to Australia midway through Year 1 and speaks a language other than English at home. At school, she is socially well adjusted and has a wide group of friends within her class group.
The school received no information about any support provided to Freya at her previous school. However, Freya experiences problems processing information and making connections. Literacy presents challenges for her, as she is unable to blend sounds and finds it difficult to retain sounds or words. The possible causes for her current presentation have not been confirmed. She has recently completed a cognitive and language assessment with the school psychologist but the results are not yet available.
The classroom teacher has developed a personalised learning plan in consultation with Freya and her parents. It includes visual prompts and check-ins both before initiating a task and before task completion. Freya participates in additional small-group sessions that are implemented in the classroom, targeting literacy development.
In addition, Freya has also participated three and four times a week in small-group English as an Additional Language sessions provided by the learning support teacher. Although she is making progress, her teacher has completed a series of literacy and numeracy assessments with Freya that indicate she is more than one year behind her peers.
Freya’s teacher meets with her parents once per term, updating them concerning Freya’s progress and recording meeting notes on her personalised learning plan.