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| CENTRE EDUCATION PROGRAMME: Classes |
As part of their entry into the
programme young people sit a series of standardised tests that help
determine their learning strengths and weaknesses. An aggregation of
their performance in these tests, their age and maturity levels, their
backgrounds and personal goals then determine within which class the
young person is placed.
"It doesn’t make sense to put a street-wise 15 year old into a Grade 8 class."
- Dale Murray |
There’s a real want for young people at Centre Ed to feel like they’re
at school. Classes are therefore structured as per mainstream systems,
but the lessons are streamed to cater for individual learning needs.
The Grade 8 classroom led by Linda Houston is adorned with picture
cards highlighting vowels. Many of the 12 and 13 year olds in this
class have severe learning difficulties exacerbated by the mainstream
system. For this group, starting in Centre Ed is much the same as
starting from scratch.
"We
find that for a lot of the young people with learning difficulties they
start to feel the pressure in about Grade 4. This frustration is often
reflected in their behaviour."
- Dale Murray |
The 19 staff members (teaching and non-teaching) are spread evenly
across the Centre and the student-teacher ratio in classes varies
somewhat between 6:1 and 10:1 depending on the year level. This
distribution works well at maintaining a ‘regular’ classroom feel
whilst still ensuring appropriate individual attention for all students.
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