Our School Vision
At Toowoomba West Special School our primary role is to develop independence within our students. We place great emphasis on social skills and communication development and endeavour to provide programs to enhance and develop these and other important life skills. Each student’s program is developed using the Australian Curriculum in collaboration with parents / carers. Underlying this is the need for activities to be meaningful and taught in context. The utilisation of technology enhances outcomes for our students and we continually aim to expand and enhance the provision and effective use of appropriate technology within our school.
We believe that the best way to deliver programs is within a team approach acknowledging, encouraging and utilising the strengths of each member of the team. Good communication within teams and across the whole school is an essential element of this. Qualities which will enable us to live together and support each other include tolerance, flexibility, openness, sharing, having a sense of humour, and the celebration of successes. In order to provide a healthy environment for everyone, we believe in the need to enforce health and safety procedures and the need to provide adequate resources to enable staff to carry out their jobs effectively.
We believe that the management of student behaviour relies upon a consistent approach and is a whole school responsibility. Students and staff should feel supported, respected and safe. The use of proactive strategies such as positive reinforcement and positive programming (teaching new skills) is central. We believe in making changes to the environment for our students to promote positive behaviours. Effective data collection is an essential part of monitoring and planning for behaviour management. A team approach to solving challenging behaviours is important.
As a staff we believe we must be willing to continually learn and be challenged. We believe that our vocation is valuable and approach it passionately. Despite this, we acknowledge that there are times when we need to ask for help from our colleagues and we should feel comfortable to do so.
Partnerships play an important part in meeting the needs of our students. We value parents’ / carers’ contributions and endeavour to consult, involve and keep them informed. Our transitioning partnerships are with Clifford Park Special School and with young children from Toowoomba West Early Childhood Development Program (as well as Toowoomba ECDP at Rangeville) who meet enrolment criteria for entry to our special school and require intensive programs that are best provided in a special school setting. In addition to these, we continually strive to enhance our relationship and profile with other schools in the community. Programs and activities within the community are regularly accessed when appropriate and we believe that they play an important role in allowing students to develop their skills in real life settings.