MELISE Sutton refuses to give up on students.
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She is the head of Margaret Jurd College at Shortland, which caters for students from years nine to 12 with mental health diagnoses that impact on their ability to function in a mainstream school setting.
Many have experienced trauma and several live in out of home care, or with grandparents. One quarter are on the autism spectrum. A quarter are indigenous.
“These are some of the most disadvantaged kids in our community,” she said.
“They have either been bullied, or were the bullies. They have been expelled, suspended, have a history of aggression, emotional dysregulation and school refusal. They’re not bad kids, but they appear that way in the mainstream because they get abrasive.
“They’re not coping with the environment, so they end up with emotional overload and they lash out.
“But here, we’ve had some great success stories. We’ve had students’ literacy levels improve five years in six months and seen them go on to university and buy houses.”
The school has reached its maximum of 67 students and is this year offering year 12 for the first time. It has a waiting list of 15 and fields enrolment inquiries every day. “The need is growing, particularly up through the valley,” she said. “If it was empty, we could fill the school tomorrow.”
Ms Sutton doesn’t have space to accommodate any more students on the Shortland block, but she is hopeful of opening a second campus: a middle school focusing on early intervention for years five to eight, on a 10 acre greenfield site on Cessnock Road Gillieston Heights.
The Uniting Church NSW purchased the block for about $2.5 million and gifted it to the school last December.
Ms Sutton has planned a meeting with an architecture firm to discuss a master plan and estimates it will cost about $10 million to complete the first stage.
She said while the school was “very grateful” for the government’s per-student funding, it desperately needed more in capital funding.
She has called on the state government to use Tuesday’s budget to lift its support for the non-government sector, which includes both Catholic and independent schools.
“Enrolment at state schools is at an all time high,” she said. “If we don’t meet our market share, the state system does not have the capacity to take these students.
“We supplement and support the state system. Even though they are opening more emotionally disturbed and behavioural disorders units, students can usually only stay there for six months. Plus they don’t have the same wellbeing programs as us underpinning what they do.”
The NSW government’s Building Grants Assistance Scheme allocated $33.3 million this year for the state’s 944 non-government schools. From this, $13.06 million was to be shared among the 349 non-Catholic independent schools, the equivalent of $37,421 each.
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The Commonwealth Government’s Capital Grants Program allocated $16.5 million this year for non-Catholic independent schools, the equivalent of $47,278 each.
But nothing is guaranteed. Funding is administered through the AISNSW Block Grant Authority, which assesses applications for funding against criteria including the school’s level of financial need, financial viability, whether the proposed facility is essential for teaching and learning, and whether it accords with the school’s master plan. Priority is directed towards schools with the greatest need and to projects that provide facilities for increased enrolments. But even $1 million, Ms Sutton said, wouldn’t cover kerb and guttering for a new school.
Association of Independent Schools of NSW chief executive Dr Geoff Newcombe AM said 35 per cent of the state’s students attend non-government schools and their parents were entitled to a slice of the $6 billion the government announced last week to deliver more than 170 new and upgraded state schools.
“Projections suggest as many as 70,000 additional students will be enrolling in NSW independent schools over the next 12-13 years and significant new educational infrastructure is urgently required to accommodate them,” Dr Newcombe said. “Most of this growth is expected to be in metropolitan areas and in lower socioeconomic communities, with lower fee independent schools in particular growing quickly.
“Currently, parents with children in independent schools contribute more than 90 per cent of the costs of new or upgraded facilities. With these high rates of enrolment growth, particularly in lower socioeconomic communities, this level of contribution is unsustainable.” Ms Sutton agreed. She said some parents cannot afford the $30 in school fees each week.
The school provides breakfast, fruit for morning and afternoon tea, sandwiches, uniforms and shoes - some without logos so they can be worn on weekends - as well as covering the cost of camps, excursions and VET courses, knowing that if it doesn’t, some students will go without. “If they’re not fed, warm and feel like they belong, they don’t learn,” she said. “People think independent schools are wealthy schools, but many are either low fee paying, low socio-economic status or special needs schools.
“There are not many special schools within the state system, which is why we need to exist. It would be lovely to be redundant, but I think we will need to exist for a long period of time.”
Ms Sutton said her school targets emotional overload before it becomes a problem. Each class of 15 has a teacher, teacher’s aide and access to a case worker inside the room, as well as another outside. Students have emotional toolboxes, filled with sensory items such as kinetic sand, colouring in books and scented candles, which they can use to “recentre themselves”.
Awards are given weekly for making positive choices around uniforms, behaviour and work. The school counsellor sees parents, too.
The college began as a tutorial service in a former pub in Carrington in the 1980s.
It moved to a Lambton house in 1992. The Uniting Church at Shortland donated its excess land and the school relocated to its current site in 2010.