Mr BAYLEY – Thank you. Just as a follow‑up, we talked about duty of care earlier and I know you took quite a few questions in the committee yesterday around violence in schools but I’m interested in support for tier 4 intervention in schools.
Violence in Tasmanian schools has been increasing and causing great deals of stress and fear for students and teachers alike. This is a serious issue. The Australian Education Union notes that tier 4 support programs – a vital tool for students with complex needs to re‑engage with learning – do not currently extend to year 11 and 12.
Teachers in particular have noted and felt the real impact of this as student violence does not simply stop at year 10 obviously. These students still require support and this has been noted and advocated for.
How can year 11 and 12 teachers and students feel safe with no further support for tier 4 intervention in their respective year groups? And will you make a commitment to looking at this and extending tier 4 intervention across into the college system, into year 11 and 12, not just the colleges, obviously.
Ms PALMER – I’ll make some opening comments and then I’ll pass to the acting secretary. This is something that has been raised with me, where I need to be careful when you ask of me as a minister across the table – will I commit to something? – is seeing Tier 4 for years 11 and 12? What I need to do is make sure that the way Tier 4 is set up is fit for purpose for years 11 and 12 because, for example, if you look at the structure of years 11 and 12 in colleges, students can come and go. There are days when they’re not on class hours. It’s a very different structure than what we see in year 7 to 10. I have heard the concerns around this but I couldn’t make a commitment to pick up what Tier 4 is right now and say, ‘Yes, let’s put that into years 11 and 12’.
There is a body of work to be done in this space. It is not necessarily taking a program that was designed.
Mr BAYLEY – I appreciate that. I’m hearing you recognise there’s a problem and an aspiration to do something about it and implement something more than there currently is across year 11 and 12.
Ms PALMER – At every stage we are wanting to do whatever we can to engage young people, through trying to lift our vet courses, getting the right teachers in the right place, having teachers with experience as a teacher, but also perhaps from an industrial area or whatever it may be. Whatever levers we can pull to keep students engaged, we want to do that. We’re trying to find pathways to do that.
Mr BAYLEY – Surely, this is an issue in terms of those year 12 retention rates and more.
