LITERACY FOR LIFE
About:
The Modified English program at the Aldridge Learning Enhancement Centre endeavours to equip our students with the literacy skills needed to participate in the full range of subjects at school, particularly in the senior years, and in the community. Students are engaged with explicit learning experiences focusing on reading, comprehension, spelling, vocabulary, punctuation and grammar, whilst also studying narratives through text, audiobooks and film. Unit themes and topics mirror those of the mainstream English curriculum, but with modifications to content and adjustments to assessment to ensure differentiation according to the varying abilities and disabilities of the students.
At the Aldridge Learning Enhancement Centre:
Modified English is offered to all students with disabilities from Year 7 to Year 9 in the Aldridge Learning Enhancement Centre. Students engaged in this curriculum will have Individual Curriculum Plans constructed to address their needs, which will influence and reflect the specific learning expectations and teaching strategies used to assist the students to enhance their literacy skills. The Reading Links program is an explicit teaching and learning tool implemented during Modified English lessons to improve reading outcomes, with students taught and tested regularly to monitor progress until they no longer need the program.
Why study Modified English?
The Modified English curriculum helps students to engage positively with literacy skills and literature. It focuses on identifying shortcomings from previous years of schooling, and then addressing needs through explicit teaching and practise of essential literacy elements. By mirroring topics and themes of the mainstream curriculum, the Modified English program allows students to essentially stay in step with their mainstream peers with regards content, therefore allowing transition into the mainstream English curriculum if/when ready, be it in Junior or Senior years of study. The smaller class sizes and presence of additional support staff enhances individualised attention and monitoring, as well as creating a less disruptive or distracting learning environment. Provision of heavily-scaffolded and modified formative and summative assessment tools also assists students to complete tasks successfully and with minimised anxiety.
Facilities and Equipment:
Students in Modified English utilise their own BYOx devices, and also have access to all the facilities and equipment of the Aldridge Learning Enhancement Centre, including the Sound Fields speaker system, Sensory room, Equine Assisted Learning program, Therapy Dogs, teacher aide support and visiting advisory consultants (eg Speech Language Therapist). Use of specific assistive technology and personnel is determined by the individual disabilities of the students.
Units of study:
| YEAR 7 | YEAR 8 | YEAR 9 |
| TERM 1 | IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE? Aliens (Pwrpt Journal)
| EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY (Movie Review/Comparison) | MONSTERS INC (Character Profile and Journal Entry) |
| TERM 2 | THEME PARKS (Brochure) | MYTHS AND LEGENDS (Superhero Profile and Story) | NED KELLY - THE ART OF PERSUASION (Persuasive Arguments) |
| TERM 3 | DIARY OF A WIMPY KID (Book/Movie Comparative Study) | FOR WANT OF A WORD Poetry Forms (Poetry Anthology) | THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH (Novel Study and Book Review) |
| TERM 4 | CHANGING AUSTRALIA Old Time Games (Informative Pwrpt) | APPRECIATING LITERATURE Matilda (Book/Movie Review) | THIS IS YOUR LIFE (Refugee Journal) CREATIVE WRITING (Writing Journal) |
PATHWAYS:
Modified English students gain the literacy skills and knowledge to assist with the completion of basic standards needed to transition to the mainstream curriculum, to enrol in Senior elective subjects to gain their QCE and/or to gain employment and supportive assistance upon leaving school. Students doing Modified HPE in Years 7-9 may continue with a similar program in Senior schooling, via the Functional English curriculum offered through the Aldridge Learning Enhancement Centre, if they have not progressed sufficiently to complete QCE standard English.
Teacher:
Mr Peter Miles, Ms Michelle Tayler and Mrs Kathryn Brandseth are currently the teachers coordinating the Modified English program within the Aldridge Learning Enhancement Centre. They are assisted in their roles by numerous teacher aides from the Learning Enhancement Centre, who support students in class and run the Reading Links program.