Standard 1.6 focuses on how you cater for a learner with a disability. If you are a provisionally registered teacher moving to full registration, you’ll need to provide evidence that you’ve met all 37 descriptors of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.

Standard 1.6 refers to strategies to support the full participation of learners with a disability and address relevant policy and legislative requirements. This learner doesn’t need to be within your focus group, they can be within your larger cohort of learners, but you need to describe how you’ve supported their participation in the learning. The Victorian government says that approximately one in four learners receive reasonable adjustments at school due to a disability, so it’s likely you will have someone within your cohort to focus on.

A learner with a disability may be someone who has a formal diagnosis or receive funding to help them, they may have an individual learning plan with or without a diagnosis, receive funding to help them, or they may have an individual learning plan with or without a diagnosis or funding.

If you are of the opinion that you do not have a learner with a disability in your cohort, talk to your colleagues who have taught your learners before, as they may know more about your learners’ backgrounds. Remember it may not be immediately obvious if a learner has a disability, so consider what adjustments or modifications you need to make to your teaching to facilitate full participation for a learner.

Adjustments could include modifying the content of a lesson, how you teach the content, the resources you use or the physical environment where you are teaching. Examples could include giving a student printed work in a different colour or larger font size so they can read it.

Making the room accessible for a learner with mobility issues might be temporary if a learner has suffered an inquiry, or it might be a longer-term arrangement allowing a student to undertake an assessment in a different way.

A learner with a broken arm may not be able to do a written assessment piece, a learner with auditory processing issues may not be able to follow verbal instructions and other learners may require extra time to complete a task.