Central Auckland Specialist School opened on the 28th January 2018. We were formed from the merger of Carlson School for Cerebral Palsy and Sunnydene Special School. Both schools had a long history in central Auckland and offered targeted teaching and learning for students, some of whom have complex needs. These areas of specialist knowledge and practices have been carried through into our new school.
All of our students qualify for Ongoing Resourcing Scheme (ORS) funding under the Ministry of Education, which provides for therapy and support staff input plus an additional teaching allocation so that we can maintain small class sizes.
We work closely with families through our Mahi Tahi system, which is intended to create a 2-way dialogue sharing information between home and school. These Parent Partnership meetings occur twice a year and focus on:
- updating the Learner Portrait and Hauora Plan
- sharing information about learning and progress
- meeting the team.
Communication and co-operative work with families/whanau are fundamental to our success and occur formally and informally via daily notebooks, Seesaw, newsbooks, devices with recorded messages, phonecalls, email contact, appointments with health agencies and face-to-face meetings at home and at school.
We recognize that staff are our most valuable resource and support staff to engage in targeted professional development opportunities of every kind that are consistent with our strategic goals and support the learning of our students.
Along with a number of satellite classes in local schools in central Auckland, we also continue a successful Outreach service, supporting ORS funded students in their mainstream schools.
