'We're seeing huge gains in learning': New program fills gaps in education

King's College principal Allister Rouse highlighted the program in the wake of concerns raised recently about the lack of programs in south-west schools catering for students with different needs.

Mr Rouse said there were a lot more students needing extra help.

"We were finding there were more and more kids with a diagnosis in the classroom," he said.

"That's not just here at King's, I think that's across the state.

"It was really, for a teacher, stretching the ability in terms of where you pitch the lesson.

"You've got high achievers and you've also got students that are a fair way behind their learning with gaps particularly coming out of COVID as well.

"That was becoming more and more of a challenge for us and our staff."

Mr Rouse said he started to look around Australia at what other schools were doing, and visited schools in New South Wales and Victoria.

"Some of those programs were actually taking the kids out completely into a separate stand-alone program," he said.

But for Kings, he said, students needed something intensive to help them catch up their literacy and numeracy but without totally removing them from the mainstream classroom.

The school's Gideon program is now in its second year.

"They're coming out five mornings a week for intensive literacy and numeracy-specific programs that help fill those gaps," Mr Rouse said.

"We're seeing huge gains in learning. So much so that some of these kids are back in the mainstream full time."

There are 12 students in each of its two programs which are split across the lower and upper levels of primary school.

Each has one teacher and two learning support staff to support students' learning. "It's intensive in terms of staffing," he said.

Mr Rouse said it used a phonics-type program that was developed by speech pathologists and occupational therapists.

That program, he said, was also being used across the whole of junior school.

Mr Rouse said it had built special-purposed spaces within the school with breakout spaces for where aids could work with students.

"My longer term vision would be to have a stand-alone facility where you could also have your allied health staff working in there as well - speech pathologists and OTs," he said.