[On a multicoloured screen, the NCCD logo features a circle made of four stylised human bodies. Text:  "Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability." 
A white map of Australia contains the title 'Consistency of judgement'. A marker appears on the north-east coast of Queensland.
High on a large multi-storey building is the sign "Kirwan State High School". Tropical trees grow near low school buildings. A dark-haired woman is interviewed in an office. Text: "Dimity Barnes, Deputy School Leader, Special Education, Kirwan State High School, Townsville."]

DIMITY BARNES: The greatest challenge for us over the past few years in terms of NCCD, has been the consistency or ensuring consistency in staff understanding of the disability categories and the levels of adjustment. To address that challenge we've spent additional time this year providing professional development to staff, at staff briefings and in collaborative team meetings around defining those key terms. And have introduced the Disability Standards for Education as part of our induction process to ensure more consistency of understanding and more confidence in our teaching staff to be able to make these judgments.

[Students play in a large undercover area.]

DIMITY BARNES: Teachers are able to use collaborative team meetings to have discussions with their teaching colleagues, around differentiation for students in the classroom, and decision making for the NCCD in terms of levels of adjustment in particular. 

[A modern building decorated in grey, white and red features a sign reading 'Excelsior Centre'.]

DIMITY BARNES: I'm most proud of the improvements we've made over the past 12 months in the accuracy of our data and the evidence that is available to support the data that we input to NCCD each year.

[A student using a white cane walks with Dimity Barnes.]

DIMITY BARNES: It's very important to review a specific student's data and not just continue with the same data entry for the same student for multiple years while they're in high school. We have a student, for example, who in the junior secondary years required extensive support. And as they've moved through the years of senior schooling and become more mature and progressed academically, the level of support required has significantly reduced. So it wouldn't be right to have that students still sitting at an extensive level. So I think it's very important to have that conversation with teachers around what is the current practice in the classroom, what's currently happening in terms of adjustments for those students. And just because this is what it said last year doesn't mean it needs to be the same. Even a student who may have been counted in last year's data capture may not need to be counted in this year's data capture if their circumstances have changed and potentially it was a short term; a broken arm or something that was the reason for the adjustment and that may no longer be required.

[A teenage student works at a laptop.]

DIMITY BARNES: So in order to determine whether a student's adjustment level is still accurate, we'd have a conversation with teachers around what adjustments are actually happening in the classroom. And go back to those support documents around the levels of adjustment and identifying what is happening, the frequency of support that is required in the classroom, and the level of support on an ongoing basis for that particular student, to help make those judgments about what level they're currently sitting at.

[The NCCD logo appears onscreen. Text: "Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability." 
Text: "Supported by the Australian Government Department of Education and Training. 
© 2019 Education Services Australia Ltd, unless otherwise indicated. Creative Commons BY 4.0, unless otherwise indicated." 
The logos for Creative Commons BY 4.0, Education Services Australia and Australian Government Department of Education and Training.]