Content Marketing Agency, Written & Recorded, was commissioned by Education Services Australia to launch Season 2 of the NCCD Portal series– a podcast about supporting students with disability.
Funded by the Australian Government Department of Education, this 5-part series focuses on ways schools support students with either a diagnosed disability or an imputed disability (an undiagnosed disability), so they can be successful learners across different education settings.
Featuring teachers, principals, inclusion and diverse learning specialists, education assistants, academic researchers, clinical psychologists, disability advocates, parents and students, this podcast offers fresh insights and practical strategies that can be actioned across schools.
Across the five episodes, the series details the lived challenges of diverse students and what it’s like to navigate school life with additional learning needs. The interviewees break down academic barriers, social and emotional triggers, and other obstacles – and then offer suggestions around a range of issues, including effective communication, cultural context, and ways to gather evidence to ensure students are given the right level of support.
Among the interviewees is Chris Varney, a proudly autistic man, founder and chief enabling officer of the I CAN Network. In episode three, Varney casts his mind back to when he was a student.
He said: “I was a student who loved history because I felt like I could write alternative endings in parts of history. And I loved that. But then I had other issues, like, doing up my shoelaces took me a long time. I still do double knots in a pretty odd way.”
But with the right support, Varney could play to his strengths. “Some students with social-emotional disabilities can have a very different perception of things. So, it’s ensuring that you explain school rules or the instructions in diverse ways.”
These days, Varney works with kids who remind him of what he was like – and that is his biggest energiser. Varney says, his role connects him to his sense of purpose. He’s also quick to remind us that it’s important to focus on a student’s unique strengths.
“Some of our most incredible innovators, inventors, problem-solvers in industry credit their achievement due to their processing differences.”
The series is hosted by Written & Recorded, co-Founder and seasoned broadcaster Serpil Şenelmiş, who also hosted Season 1, Classroom Adjustments which reached over 211,000 downloads.
Şenelmiş said: “We created this series while managing various restrictions and regulations around COVID-19 across different states and territories, and while many teachers continued to succumb to the virus. This production experience gave us a front row seat to the incredible resilience and dedication of Australian educators.”
Since 2018, the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD), has been used to calculate additional funding for all Australian schools by the Australian Government. Each year schools complete a census of the number of students with disability in schools and the level of learning adjustments provided to support their education. This information is based on evidence and the professional judgement of teachers, principals, and school staff.
Disability Conversations is available on the NCCD website, Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get your podcasts.
