Western Autistic School

Welcome to the Virtual Tours of Western Autistic School classrooms and environs. Due to the coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic, Virtual Tours will replace the usual Open Days and Small Group Tours of the school to ensure public health and safety. Western Autistic School is a government-funded school that offers an early-years program for 400 children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Prep to Grade 3 (ages 4.5–9) and the Wattle Education Intervention Program for secondary age students. Western Autistic School’s mission is both to address the impairments specific to ASD and activate individual strengths to optimise educational opportunities for our students when they move into more mixed settings. We achieve this by providing intensive, personalised teaching at the start of each child’s schooling to then allow the students to use these strategies in an integrated setting. The early years school program focuses on foundation skills in social communication, emotional skills, language, learning and academic skills. At our school, teaching teams supported by expert therapists work with small groups of children. Utilising proven teaching practice, an individual learning plan is developed for each child in consultation with the child, parents and teaching team. The foundation of our teaching is the child’s own interests and motivations, believing as we do that children will learn new skills and build self-esteem through developing their strengths. We emphasise the welfare, inclusion and happiness of each child. As part of the school’s mission, WAS is actively involved in research and training. It has a dedicated research unit, the Practical Research Autism Centre (PRAC), and a registered training provider The Autism Teaching Institute (ATI), which provides post-graduate qualifications to professionals working with people with ASD. Further information about WAS and its branches is available at: www.westernautisticschool.vic.edu.au www.autismteachinginstitute.org.au