Literacy and Numeracy Program
The Literacy and Numeracy team provide Literacy and Numeracy services to students across the school. The purpose of the team is to enable students to reach their 'personal best' academically and improve their skills through small group or one to one contact with specialist staff. The Literacy and Numeracy team uses inclusive technology such as iPads and online resources to support staff and students.
Learning Support
As part of its overall ethos of inclusive and best practice education, Melrose High caters for students with a diverse range of Special Educational Needs (SEN). The level of support given is determined from each student's departmental Appraisal. All SEN students have an Individual Learning Plan (ILP) so that learning can be tailored to meet their needs. Programs include:
- The Inclusion Support Program (ISP) for fully integrated SEN students who have a Learning Support Assistant (LSA) in some of their mainstream classes.
- The Learning Support Centre (LSC) where a maximum of 16 students have English, Maths and SOSE lessons with a specially trained teacher and an LSA. LSC students do Science, PE and their electives in mainstream classes with some LSA support.
- The Learning Support Unit (LSU) where a maximum of 8 students have all 4 core subjects plus Personal Development/Social Skills with their specialist teacher and an LSA. A PE class caters specifically for their needs, although, if students wish, they can join a mainstream class. LSU students do only one elective. If appropriate, some year 10 students do a second. Part of the LSU program is a fortnightly Community Access excursion where students have opportunities to practise their social and independent living skills.
Indigenous Studies Centre (ISC)
The school provides full time support for Indigenous students who need help with class work, assignments and other activities. A fully trained teacher works with these students, particularly in the areas of literacy and numeracy. As a result the Indigenous students have a place with which they strongly identify. The multi-award winning Centre is open every lunchtime, excursions are organised on a regular basis to events of special significance to these students, lunches for parents are held once a term and national events such as NAIDOC Week are celebrated in the Centre. The students are trained to deliver workshops to their peers about indigenous culture with SOSE and Music classes accessing this resource as well a local primary school students.
International Fee-Paying Students (IPS)
Melrose High School welcomes and is very supportive of our International Fee-Paying Students (IPS). On arrival, each student is buddied with a fellow student, and receives an orientation to the school. The student's level of English is assessed and accordingly may be placed in some EALD (English as an Additional Language or Dialect) classes, to improve their fluency. We liaise closely with homestay families and with the Department's International Education Unit (IEU) to ensure that the student is fulfilling their visa requirements and is feeling supported. IPS students may choose to study a foreign language but native speakers are not admitted to their own language. Languages offered are Indonesian, Japanese, Mandarin, and German in Year 9 and 10. There are a wide range of electives that IPS students can choose to study and we offer ACE extension classes in some core areas for talented students.
IPS students are placed in the IPS roll group and also have access to the IPS room at lunch times. The IPS coordinator works closely with the students and provides a high level of pastoral care.