Some Grande Prairie Catholic School teachers will be getting a little extra training this year. Superintendent of Schools Karl Germann says they are trying out a new pilot project that involves giving teachers and support staff special training in order to work with children who may need a little extra help.
“We might have students who have behaviour challenges and we want to make sure that we can provide them with supports throughout the whole year and make sure those kids are highly supported with trained individuals.”
The training would include development days for select teachers, education assistants and staff as well as creating a detailed response plan for any needed intervention.
Germann says the idea for the project was something that came out of an inclusive education review done last year. He adds that its not something that has really been tried in the province before.
“Generally what you do is you allocate out the support and sometimes the support is there half the time or all the time but there’s a growing group of kids who need an additional set of help from the staff. The more skills that we can give our staff the better off the kids and staff will be in the classrooms.”
Eleven students have been identified for the pilot project this school year. Germann says they will check on the project every so often and reevaluate at the end of the year.