#67 - Why Schools Must Ask Students What Helps, with Dr Haley Tancredi

Most parents advocating for their School Can't young person have sat through a meeting about adjustments and accommodations and wondered whether any of it would actually make a difference. Dr Haley Tancredi's research asks a simpler question: why don't we just ask the student?

Haley is a speech pathologist and senior lecturer at QUT's Centre for Inclusive Education, where her research focuses on student consultation, the practice of directly involving young people in decisions about the adjustments and supports they receive at school. She joins Leisa to talk about why this matters, how to do it well, and what gets in the way.

One thing that surprises most people: consulting students about their adjustments isn't just good practice, it's a legal requirement under the Disability Standards for Education. Haley explains what that obligation actually looks like, why it's so rarely met in a meaningful way, and how genuine consultation is very different from ticking a box at an IEP meeting.

Haley shares examples from her research of what changes when students are properly consulted, including a grade eight student whose behaviour profile shifted dramatically once her teachers understood what she actually needed, and a student who said simply "I wish my teacher wouldn't talk so fast" and what happened when that teacher heard it.

The conversation covers practical approaches for consultation that don't rely on a student being able to articulate their needs in a formal conversation: mind maps, visual tools, menus of options, photo diaries, whole-class feedback mechanisms, and the accessibility and pedagogy scale Haley developed for students to give sliding-scale feedback on how accessible a lesson was. There's also a strong thread on Universal Design for Learning, the myth of teaching to the middle, and how feedback tools that work for individual students can, and should, be offered to the whole class.

For parents whose young people are struggling to get to school at all, Haley has some thoughts on how consultation can still happen, and why hearing from disengaged students about what makes an excellent teacher is one of the most useful things a school can do.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Student Consultation Practice Guide — research.qut.edu.au/c4ie/practice_guides_student_consultation
• Academic paper: Meeting obligations to consult students with disability — https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13384-019-00341-3
• Accessibility of Pedagogy Scale — qsurvey.qut.edu.au
• Academic paper: Investigating the impact of Accessible Pedagogies —https://eprints.qut.edu.au/251891/
• Video: It's My Learning and I Have a Say — cru.org.au
• Dr Haley Tancredi on LinkedIn — linkedin.com/in/haley-tancredi-a239b7165

Transcript

Leisa Reichelt 0:05

Hello and welcome to The School Can't Experience Podcast. I'm Leisa Reichelt, and this podcast is brought to you by the School Can't Australia community. Caring for a young person who's struggling to attend school can be a lonely and isolating experience, but you are not alone. Thousands of parents across Australia and many more around the world share similar experiences and feelings every day. Today, we're going to talk about how we can put students, our young people, in the center of the conversation, giving feedback on whether teaching and accommodations are actually helping to make it easier to be at school and to learn. Not just a checkbox meeting that may or may not happen alongside an IEP, but an ongoing, interactive, and student-centered engagement. And even some universal education design methods that teachers can use to proactively solicit feedback from their entire class. We are joined today by Dr. Haley Tancredi, who is a speech pathologist by trade, but now she's a senior lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology, or QUT's Center for Inclusive Education. Understanding what makes learning accessible and how to make student consultation really work effectively has been central to Haley's research. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Dr Haley Tancredi, thank you so much for joining us. It's a delight to have you with us today

Haley Tancredi 1:23

Thanks so much for having me, Leisa. It's great to be here

Leisa Reichelt 1:25

We are going to talk about student consultation, talking to students about their experience and how we can support them better. But before we get stuck into that, I would love to hear a little bit about you, Haley. Tell me a little bit about your background and how you come to be doing what you're doing today.

Haley Tancredi 1:44

Sure. So, I grew up in regional Northern New South Wales and had a fairly cruisy life living in the Northern Rivers as a child. Couldn't wait to leave. I knew that I wanted to go to uni and do something in the kind of healthcare professions from a pretty young age. I kind of stumbled on speech pathology and from the second I started my undergraduate degree, knew I loved it, and worked really happily back in New South Wales for a little while and then came back to Queensland. One of my kind of mid-career roles was I worked at Positive Partnerships, a national training organisation around supporting children with autism, and loved that and did a lot of work supporting parents in that role. And then I moved into working in Brisbane Catholic Education, and I was there for a pretty good stint and, in that time I think, like developed my thinking around understanding what school teams, including me as a speech pathologist, what our kind of legal obligations were, and started to see that not always were those, like parts of that legislation, of course, was upheld every day. But the idea of talking to students about the adjustments that helped was quite foreign to people and as I started doing some reading about what was happening overseas and things, I had more questions than answers. I was like, "Why aren't we doing this?" So I just started by doing a master's research project as a way of kind of tipping my toe in the water. I never thought I would go back to uni at all. That wasn't something I really had ever thought about, but loved doing that little project. And I think I loved it because it showed me what's possible when you kind of make time and space to talk to young people and the impacts for those kids were quite immediate. The impacts for their teachers were also very immediate. But I really saw in that project that that was a way to shape kids' thinking about themselves as, you know, agents of their own life. and it, it really stuck with me and I thought, "Well, you know, there's huge scope for this to become something that's part of standard education practice." So yeah, and that, as I said, that little project, it was just two students and six of their teachers, but it really I think was, something that was quite new in the education research world and had lots of interest. And so yeah, I've really continued that line in my research ever since.

Leisa Reichelt 4:01

You were talking as though it's very common for schools to have speech pathologists on staff. it's not something I've come across. is it common?

Haley Tancredi 4:10

th-this is our challenge, being an education system in Australia where states and territories do have vast differences. And then within the states and territories, there are, of course, differences across different sectors. So here in Queensland, state schools all have an allocation of speech pathology, and schools can choose to top that up and have full-time speech pathologists, multiple full-time speech pathologists if they want to. Um, and like I said, every school in Queensland state school has some allocation. Catholic schools, again, differs by diocese. But when I worked in Catholic education in Brisbane, all of our schools had some access to somebody. There were, of course, ebbs and flows to that. But I know in New South Wales that's very different. I know in Victoria it's different again. In Tassie it's different again. So yeah, it does vary. And in some states and territories it's that there's private providers that are coming in and working in the schools. But here in Queensland, it is much more standard practice for departments or, diocese to employ directly, which, you know, there are some benefits to that because then people become part of the architecture of the school and they, work under the same policy frameworks. They become much more embedded in the culture of the school and can align their work with the kind of vision that the school has for inclusion.

Leisa Reichelt 5:23

Yeah. I can see how that would be really beneficial. We talk to a lot of allied health folk, speechies and OTs who are trying to work with schools and are very much kind of treated as an outsider. You don't understand education, so, you know, we'll take your recommendations with a big pinch of salt. I

Haley Tancredi 5:38

Yes

Leisa Reichelt 5:39

had that discipline working with the educators on a day-to-day basis, it would be maybe quite a different experience

Haley Tancredi 5:46

Yeah. No, I would say so as well. Yep

Leisa Reichelt 5:49

Student consultation, again, talking about that, you're like, "Why aren't we doing it? We should be doing it." Why should we be doing it? Why was it a thing that you were interested in particularly?

Haley Tancredi 5:59

I think that it came about because as part of my typical kind of speech pathology assessment process, I was doing interviews with students to find out from them what works for you, what doesn't work for you. And then at some point, I think I just thought, this must be part of the law." Like, we have other human rights and anti-discrimination laws that talk about voice and the right to voice. And so when I scoured the Disability Standards for Education, there it is. Like, consult the student or their associate is one of the mandated obligations of anyone working in an education system with kids with disabilities. I remember this moment of looking at it and highlighting it, going, "It's actually in the legislation," and I don't think people realise that. So that was back in about 2013 or 2014. So at that point, the standards were over ten years old. But for me, it was a real light bulb moment. So I guess we can think about this Disability Standards for Education having three main obligations. So everyone knows that we have to make adjustments. it's pretty well known that we need to eliminate victimization and harassment on the basis of disability. That feels like a no-brainer whether or not it always happens, but that's in the law. But yes, we have to consult students on the adjustments that they receive. and that definitely was not standard practice back in, you know, 2012, 2013, 2014 when I was doing that early work. I would say now that the NCCD has helped consultation become a bit more standard practice, but I do sometimes wonder whether consultation, the immediate reaction is to consult with families, which of course is important, but the legislation is such that students are the primary, per- person to be consulted, and that the parents and carers can be part of that. But the student, wherever possible, should be consulted in the first instance

Leisa Reichelt 7:43

Yeah. I, I don't have the details to hand right at this moment, but I know that School Can't Australia did some research recently around consultation to do with, individualised learning plans or that, that kind of thing. the levels of consultation with family, let alone student, were actually shockingly low. It extraordinary how, how often that didn't happen

Haley Tancredi 8:09

Yeah. No, it really does. I think it's something that, you know, it's for a few reasons. There's good existing literature that talks about, the kind of protectionist agendas that adults sometimes have, not wanting to involve children and young people in conversations that we perceive might be difficult for them. again, that's a real assumption because kids are living the everyday lives in a classroom and receiving or not receiving certain adjustments. So they are best placed to tell us about the impact of the adjustments, whether or not those adjustments actually respond to their unique learning requirements. I've had students talk to me about the fact that the adjustments that they receive are really unhelpful. And so maybe there's a resourcing that's happening that is unnecessary or could be redirected and provided in a different way. So it makes practical sense to talk to kids. but the other side of that too is that I really see kids having a chance to have a voice is a way of helping them be democratic citizens. Like knowing that they can actually talk about things that are going to impact their lives positively or negatively, that's the way that we kind of become, yeah, we become citizens of the world. We engage in decision-making. We can stand back and look across our life and think, "What are the things that are going to make my life better?" and contribute, and be, as I say, they can be agents and have agency freedom in their lives

Leisa Reichelt 9:29

Haley, you've worked with lots of students over the years and involved them in consultation around, accommodations and helping their school experience be better. Can you give us a couple of examples perhaps of kids that you've worked with, where you've done consultations and you've been able to sort of like unearth issues that had been there all along that nobody had previously noticed?

Haley Tancredi 9:51

Yeah. So that early project that I spoke about, one of the students in that, project really always stands out to me. So she was a young woman, she was in grade eight, about 14 years old. and she described herself as being someone who had a thing that was a bit like dyslexia, but she was actually a really good reader. So she was very good at decoding words on a page in a book, but her comprehension was very poor. and so we did some work together, and I think it was probably more likely that she had developmental language disorder. So she had good decoding strategies, she was very street smart, but her comprehension of language and her ability to express her thoughts and emotions and her learning were really reduced and that young woman also had quite a substantial kind of behaviour profile at the school. She became very frustrated. You know, no surprises there. she would often leave the classroom or she'd be put in-- the behaviour room at lunchtime or whatever. So working with her, and talking to her about the things that she was good at, the things she loved, and then the things that she found hard at school and what she thought would really help, was an opportunity to listen to her and she thought that was really transformative. She would, regularly kind of seek me out when she knew I was going to be at the school to add to the things that she'd sp-spoken about last time. I was meeting with her teachers during that process and giving them feedback on the kinds of things that she thought would be helpful and kind of negotiating with them how that might look in the classroom because, of course, she's one of twenty-five or twenty-eight kids. but the things that she was asking for weren't beyond the realm of possibility and they weren't going to be majorly taxing or expensive for anybody. So what she really wanted was to have, a chance for her teacher to give the whole class instruction and then come and check that what she'd understood was actually what was explained. she loved when teachers would give her a Post-it note with one or two steps written on it so she-- if she got distracted, she knew what to come back to. If she had a question, she never wanted to put her hand up, but she would happily wait after class and ask a question if the teacher could be available for that. So again, these weren't adjustments that were taxing or expensive, but they did require kind of change to habitual behaviour. So glossing over her and just wrapping her up in the whole class and moving on wasn't going to work for her. She became really confused and frustrated. But if she had that check-in, that was enough for her. And her seeing that those practices came into play, so when the Post-it note book appeared on her desk, when the teacher stayed after class and said, "If anyone needs us check-in after class, I'll be here for five minutes." For her seeing that those things were heard meant that she was in class much more regularly. She wasn't getting as many behaviour referrals. she was happier. She was engaging in her learning more, more fully. So again, little things that make a big difference

Leisa Reichelt 12:49

Yeah. I can imagine that perception is a huge part of this as well, right? How the teachers were perceiving her and why she was behaving a particular way, how she felt perceived by the teachers

Haley Tancredi 13:03

Yes

Leisa Reichelt 13:05

before the consultation, led to this spiraling down effect. Whereas shifting that allowed them all to spiral up and improve

Haley Tancredi 13:15

and she was, in classrooms where like she was well-liked by the other kids. She was the kid that would stand up for anybody if there was something happened. She like had this really strong sense of justice, but she also did have quite a short fuse. So I think the teachers knowing that giving her options would help her to regulate, that she could happily hold out, until there was a chance for the teacher to check in, but knowing that was coming, I think that was what was really critical rather than the abyss of a 50-minute lesson not knowing what's going on and not having a chance to check in with the teacher. So yeah, little things make a big difference.

Leisa Reichelt 13:50

That's fantastic. Let's talk about, the actual mechanics of doing a consultation because a lot of people who are listening, no doubt, have tried to sit down with their kids at various points and go, "What's the problem? How can we fix it? What's going on?" And, in a lot of cases, not get very much back our kids often really struggle to articulate

Haley Tancredi 14:15

YESS

Leisa Reichelt 14:16

happening. Can you talk a little bit about, why just sitting down and having the conversation often doesn't work?

Haley Tancredi 14:23

Yeah. So I think that, consultation really is a process. Like, it should never be thought of as a single kind of point-in-time conversation. and I think for one of the reasons being that often when kids are asked to talk about what helps at school, what are the things that make learning easy for you, what are the things that make learn- make learning hard, for many kids, they haven't ever had that kind of conversation before. thinking back and, reflecting on what's happened in the past, what's been great, that in itself is quite a cognitively taxing activity. So we do have to think, what's going to be the best way to set up that scenario? I think that sometimes just introducing the idea of being interested in what helps at school can be really transformative. We know from other research that people have done, getting kids to reflect on particular experiences, thinking about the best teacher you've ever had, what did they do, which class do you feel like you have the most fun in and you do the most work, and trying to think, what are the enablers? And then, you know, then we can flip it and think, well, when learning gets really hard, like, what do you think is going on there? And again, I think it's not just having those kinds of conversations verbally, looking at ways to have, some visual supports which can be created in the moment, like cartooning it, creating a mind map. there's a lovely study that was done a while back giving preschoolers disposable cameras and getting them to take photos of their best and worst bits at school. so we can look at arts-based approaches and, with the advent of technology, every kid's got a phone in their pocket. So can we look at whether that's a permissible use of their device to kind of get them to do a bit of a visual diary of the things that they loved at school today or the things they found really rough. and that can be then just a good jumping-off point. It becomes kind of neutral. it's like an artifact of something that the student can kind of speak to, and will that give us insights, into what's working and what's not working? think the other thing is that, it's thinking too sometimes about who the person is who engages in those conversations. So I do think one of the powers of that early project of mine was that I was an insider coming in, but I spent time developing rapport with the school team and with the students. So by the time we had those kinds of conversations, I was known to the kids and I was known to the teachers, but I wasn't the person teaching the students. I became this kind of broker of the information. and I think that was quite powerful because it reduced some of the power imbalance between students speaking directly with their teachers about practices that they didn't love or things that they thought the teacher should have been doing, 'cause that's a threatening conversation to have. but I could hear what the students were saying and then re-articulate it to the teachers, with the kids' permission, of course. But then the conversation actually became about, this is the ideas that the student has, but how do we make that feasible? Because, you stopping every five minutes to give a check-in isn't obviously going to work. you providing, perfect written notes every lesson in this particular fashion also is probably not going to be sustainable. But how can we take some seeds of truth from what the student would really like and make that something that is actually predictable and frequently implemented rather than setting the bar too high and we just can't maintain it?

Leisa Reichelt 17:34

How does this fit, Haley, with, you know, I think a system that people would be reasonably familiar with is the individualised learning plans and the process of developing those, and that there is usually a consultation meeting, which is, as you

Haley Tancredi 17:49

Yes

Leisa Reichelt 17:49

with the parent, sometimes with the kid. And that, I'm going to say, does a lot of the time feel like a checkbox

Haley Tancredi 17:58

Yeah

Leisa Reichelt 17:58

We've done that. Now we've got the plan. Now we've signed the plan. It may or may not come into use in the classrooms, who knows? how can we get away from that sort of checkbox consultation mentality into this more ongoing kind of approach that you're talking about?

Haley Tancredi 18:16

Yeah. So, I think that the consultation, it does need to be over time, but where there's maybe more a substantial kind of conversation, that should happen before the plan's even written. So if we know that that plan needs to be produced by the end of term one, then maybe around week three or four is when we kind of really have some kind of focused conversations or opportunities to find out from the student about what's been working well and what hasn't. and part of having that consultation as a process is about drilling down into what are the really important things. So one of the things I've done with students in the past is we have mind-mapped ideas that they have, and then I hand the pen over to them and say, "Circle or give a tick, you know, to the most important things. If only one thing on this page could happen, what would that be?" and so that way, I guess you've kind of proactively identified strategies which then can make it into the plan. So in my master's unit, I'm about to start a new iteration of that, master's unit in learning difficulties, and the assessment is about creating a personalised plan, but the front end of that needs to be based on consultation with at least two stakeholders, and one has to be the student. So what I wanna see is that they're considering the student's strengths and preferences, but also their areas of learning difficulty and how we're going to progress them in learning. But doing that in a way that is going to align with what the student expects is going to be helpful and supportive. I think it's-- we can still have the learning plan, but that shouldn't... this consultation shouldn't be the final point. It should actually be right early in the process, so that it actually informs what the plan looks like

Leisa Reichelt 19:51

Absolutely. And if you're working with a school where they're not feeling the student consultation vibes so much, is this something that, like, a parent could be attempting to do or they could be working with a, you know, allied health team member? Or like, it doesn't have to be done by the school necessarily?

Haley Tancredi 20:14

No, absolutely. It doesn't have to be done by the school. I mean, ideally that information, if it's being undertaken by somebody that is kind of in that brokerage role, is thinking about how it can be embedded within the school processes. but no, I mean, it's not always... I mean, and again, depending on the relationships between the student and the family and the school, it might be that actually that kind of conversation, you know, isn't, it's not the right time for that to happen. I do think there is, huge value in even, like, a little kind of couple of paragraphs. So often I've, talked to families, you know, maybe we're going back to school for the new school year, and maybe it's literally the amount of text that would fit in a brief email or a text message that, you know, when we reflect back on 2025, these were the things that Josh said went really well. these were a couple of things that he found really tricky, and this is what he's looking forward to in 2026. Like, really kind of summating it to that level. And then when we think towards the learning plan, like maybe we're trying to think about strategies that actually line up with some of those things that were tricky last year. I guess it's really having the vision of what it is, that the student wants to get out of, their learning, but then trying to think of some very tangible things that could help achieve that vision is where consultation can be really helpful too.

Leisa Reichelt 21:32

And then those tangible things are things that you might have identified, but the students also kind of confirmed they think will be

Haley Tancredi 21:40

Yeah. Yeah, so one of the, things that I do suggest to people is sometimes having a bit of a menu of ideas. It can be tricky for kids sometimes to come up with what's possible. and so one of the resources that was my kind of COVID project actually was this student consultation practice guide, and in that it includes versions of things that I've used, in my research project. And yeah, I guess it is that idea of a menu. These are some of the options. They're kind of, pulled together in domains that might help kids kind of focus their attention on, you know, just as I said, things that are going to help me understand information in the classroom or things that are going to help, you know, the physical environment kind of meet my needs. what's really important though is that that should never be an exhaustive list, so wherever possible it should be that there's space for extra things to be added or that the conversation, is about what have we missed? Are there other things that you think would help? and that's really important because again, sometimes the adjustments that students identify just are not on the radar of adults. So we have to really remember to step back and give them a chance to suggest new options as well.

Leisa Reichelt 22:47

Absolutely. But I think that advice around having that menu of options is huge. And, many parents I think, I certainly resonate with that because at times when I was supposed to be trying to advocate for my son, you don't know what the options are.

Haley Tancredi 23:02

Ja

Leisa Reichelt 23:03

not worked in a school. I just kind of found that as I was supporting my kid, I discovered the options that were available kind of like in the moment of greatest distress, where it's like, "Oh, well,

Haley Tancredi 23:13

Yeah

Leisa Reichelt 23:14

have to do that assessment." I'm like, "What?" You know, all these things that you're like, "I didn't even know I could ask for that.

Haley Tancredi 23:20

Yeah

Leisa Reichelt 23:21

and I know that maybe that says something about me,

Haley Tancredi 23:23

And I guess this is the challenge. So the provision of reasonable adjustments is that it has to be reasonable. Like, people have to kind of agree that there's, you know, a level of kind of probability that that is something that could actually happen. and by the same token, like, if a student is facing a barrier that is a barrier that's beyond something that they've put in place, it's a decision that's in place, it's a process, it's a type of assessment. It's really thinking, "Well," like, "is that something that is immovable or actually is there a way that we can build in flexibility?" So the Australian Curriculum is designed in such a way that it is inherently quite flexible. One of the challenges is that in the enactment of the curriculum, often there's kind of assumptions about the way we need to do things, the kinds of structures that must exist. It does get a little bit, like, betw- in senior secondary, year 11 and 12 is a little bit more tricky. But certainly from, prep or kindergarten to year 10, there is a lot more flexibility, and I'm really interested in, the experiences of students who have difficulty with language and reading and writing. very rarely in the curriculum does it actually say kids have to write. So often they're creating texts, which creation of a text can be an interpretive dance, it can be an annotated diagram, it can be a short recorded oral text. So I think, wherever possible, like, parents and caregivers feeling comfortable to just say, "Does it have to be that type of assessment? Does it have to be undertaken in front of a group? does it have to be that the instructions are always written?" So just, asking questions can be a good way to, navigate that terrain.

Leisa Reichelt 25:02

Haley, when you're sitting down to have a conversation with a kid to do some consulting, student consulting, and you're not getting much back from that experience, how can you tell the difference between, a child who's just, not interested in participating versus one who's just really struggling the many and very different struggles that can come about with that sort of a situation?

Haley Tancredi 25:30

Yeah. No, it's a really good thing. And I guess part of, having agency is having the opportunity to just decline being involved, 'cause some kids won't really be that into it. I remember one young man, again, he was in year eight or nine, and he definitely didn't look that interested in the process. Like, It seemed as though he thought this was a little bit naff. But he certainly thought it was, like, an uncool thing to be doing. he was a student where having the tangible resources, it was very helpful. and also about it not being a high-pressure situation. I think it being a very collaborative experience. So while I was the one talking with him, I was having, conversations with his mum, and she was checking in at home. And her feedback was that, like, despite him not looking interested and the sh- conversations being very short, like three to five minutes sometimes, but actually when he would go home and she'd say, "did you do that today?" Like, "What did you say?" And he was like, "No, it was good." And she said she could tell that he actually did appreciate it, it's just that all of those signals in the moment was get it over and done with as quickly as possible. So that's where having those resources where he could actually just tick and flick, "These were the things that I found helpful. This is the stuff that doesn't work for me at school. I really wish my teacher wouldn't talk so fast," like he said that. And you know what? For him, that was him having a voice. It didn't need to be extensive, but having that piece of information about, "I wish my teacher wouldn't talk so fast," in my work with that teacher, we talked about the fact that, pace is a really big thing in terms of impacting kids' comprehension. And if they're not comprehending and keeping up, then that might result in them being disengaged or their behaviour, you know, shifting. and very quickly that teacher was like, "Oh, no, I know I talk too quickly." And so that was then a really good opportunity to say, "Well, you know, now that you've heard what this means for this student, like, how do you think you might change that habit? maybe there are times in your lessons that are really critical where you might need to think about how you can slow down and how you can actually segment the information in a way that's more manageable." and that teacher really took that on board. And I do think that it was that student saying that one simple statement, despite many opportunities for him to say things where he didn't say a whole lot, "I just want her to slow down." Okay. You can, you can use that.

Leisa Reichelt 27:56

Yeah. The other thing I was thinking as well as you were speaking is, I imagine a lot of kids who have been in situations like this previously have also had like, like a contingency built in, Whereas, "Well, we'll do this for you, but if we do that, we expect you to do this. We'll make this accommodation, but if we do, then we expect you to show up to school more often." And so it's almost like engaging in the process comes with then a pressure

Haley Tancredi 28:26

Well, I mean, and this is sticky because, like, adjustments, are the law, and there's no, you know, th-they're not enabled on the basis of any preceding behaviour. They just exist because they need to happen. So, yeah, tricky. So I guess in terms of, like, the situation for kids, I can see that that might be the case, that actually, you know, there's a hesitancy to engage because will this be a bit like those other times? I think that probably speaks to, a broader cultural challenge that maybe needs to be thought about If schools are setting things up in that way, consultation might be more challenging for them because kids will have, an assumption about what this means. So if the school are genuinely committed to consulting students about adjustments and upholding their obligations under the disability standards, that they probably need to reframe that. If there's been other experiences where information has been contingent on some other kind of outcome, that really doesn't uphold the intent of consultation, which is about, sharing something with somebody with the hope that they're going to make school even better for you because you won't face the same barriers that you faced in the past

Leisa Reichelt 29:34

and I think also just that, that idea that it's not a once and done, that this is the

Haley Tancredi 29:38

Yeah

Leisa Reichelt 29:38

this is the beginning of a process rather than a one-off conversation

Haley Tancredi 29:43

It definitely shouldn't be retrofitted, it shouldn't be just ticking the student support plan or the personalised learning plan. That's not consultation. That's really just process. Consultation's a much more authentic opportunity to share, perspectives, have input into the planning that will support the student, and to review whether or not that's been effective as well

Leisa Reichelt 30:06

Have you got any tips for teachers who are doing this with their own students and trying to make the kids feel comfortable giving that of constructive feedback maybe to the teacher?

Haley Tancredi 30:18

Yeah

Leisa Reichelt 30:19

can teachers make that feel like a safe thing for kids to do?

Haley Tancredi 30:24

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and it does take a bit of bravery. Like, for anyone who's seeking feedback on their practice, you do have to be a bit brave. I think there's a few different things that teachers can think about. One is that, like, they obviously want specific feedback from that particular student who's receiving adjustments. But if feedback isn't part of someone's standard kind of classroom practice, they might start introducing whole class opportunities for feedback. So whether that's like an exit ticket kind of process or, through my doctoral research, we put together, the accessibility and pedagogy scale, which is a way for students to actually give, like, feedback on a kinda sliding scale to their teacher about, you know, how easy that lesson was to understand, and whether or not teachers, like, explained the words really well or not. whether they had enough chances to, for the teacher to check that they'd understood, things like that. So it might be that they introduce whole class kinda mechanisms, as part of that. And then the individual conversations, it's definitely thinking about how they're going to actually do that in real time. So things like if they're going to do it as a conversation, what are they actually going to say? Like, what questions are they going to ask? Because if you don't go in prepared, sometimes it just does kinda fall over. which was part of my impetus for that practice guide, was actually to give some examples of the kinds of questions that you could ask, and people can use those as stems. So as I said, getting kids to think about great experiences is a good starting point. it might even be for that teacher saying like, "When you think of me as your teacher, what was the best lesson that we ever shared? Like, what was the most fun that we ever had in class?" and again, it gives good insights into then when the barriers were probably very low and that the student's engagement was very high. So what can we take from that and apply it to areas of learning that maybe aren't going as successfully?

Leisa Reichelt 32:15

Yeah, yeah. When you talk about applying this process, like universally to the entire class, it reminds me of some of the conversations that I've had with other folk about like that universal design for education

Haley Tancredi 32:29

Yeah

Leisa Reichelt 32:29

that you do to support one kid very often support, you know, m- more or all of the entire class as well. And this feels like another one of those sort of situations

Haley Tancredi 32:40

Yeah, it really is. And to be honest, that first project that I did, none of the adjustments that those two kids spoke about were particularly individualised for them. They could have been applied to the whole class, or at least if not given to the whole class, offered to the class, and then the teacher could... not everyone's going to say, "Yes, I need a dot point on a Post-it note." very few kids will probably say yes to that, but the offer is the universal design, making it available. In my doctoral research, the reason I pivoted to thinking about accessibility and kids' perceptions of accessibility for the whole class is because we know one risk is that if we only consult kids who have identified disabilities, there are many other kids in that class facing the same barriers, whether or not they have a disability or not. but if the barrier is around pace of instruction or not having enough times to check comprehension or too much pressure on working memory, there's just so much content covered in a lesson that kids just can't comprehend it all. those kinds of barriers will impact every kid. It's just that some kids are going to have the resources to kind of push through, where others are going to find that difficult. and not all of those kids might be known to the teacher. So if we're thinking about whole class feedback on accessibility, that's really going to be a way to, ensure that we catch every student and we consult students whether we know that they're finding learning difficult or not.

Leisa Reichelt 34:07

Haley, in some of the writing that you've done, you talk about this concept of teaching to the middle, which

Haley Tancredi 34:13

Yeah

Leisa Reichelt 34:14

as though it might be like almost the opposite of what we've just been talking about. Can you talk what, what is it about? What, you know, what are teachers doing when they're teaching to the middle? Why do they do it? why does it matter?

Haley Tancredi 34:25

Yeah. So I think there is like, you know, an assumption that there is kind of a group that if we teach in a particular way, if we teach to like a C standard, that we're going to kind of access the most students. There are lots of people other than me that have written around the fact that actually we need to play into the edges, that we need to think about kids who are going to find learning more difficult and about kids who are going to find learning easier and will need extension. And if we think about planning to the edges, we actually do catch the group. So Shelley Moore says that best. And this idea of the middle really is kind of a false assumption because kids don't, in their learning, sit on this kind of magical bell curve, that, you know, just doesn't apply because kids are going to interpret information differently, lesson to lesson, subject to subject. So we really have to think about accessibility for all, and then ways that we can provide choice and extension for kids that wanna take it on. So it is a bit of a false assumption to think we can teach to the middle and catch everyone

Leisa Reichelt 35:33

It's kind of like that idea, isn't it, that if you design for the average then that will suit everybody, but actually nobody is average.

Haley Tancredi 35:40

Yeah, exactly. That is exactly right

Leisa Reichelt 35:43

Haley, if we have some educators listening to this episode and

Haley Tancredi 35:51

Yeah

Leisa Reichelt 35:51

about how they can apply better student consultation in their professional work,

Haley Tancredi 35:59

Yes

Leisa Reichelt 36:00

your top tips for them to get started on that?

Haley Tancredi 36:03

Yeah. So I think the first thing is just to get started. I think it's thinking about it as a two-pronged approach. I do encourage people to actually seek feedback, particularly on not their teaching practice as a whole. It's not about how fun that lesson was. It's really about, you know, when kids feel like they're being successful in their learning and that they are really understanding what's going on and that they're sharing kind of the conceptual knowledge that the teacher is hoping to impart in their lessons. That getting feedback from the whole class on that kind of accessibility practice is a great way to start. And then thinking particularly about students who are receiving adjustments, that's, I guess, where we're really kind of turning up the volume on particular practices and so are those adjustments working? If it's a student who we know has dyslexia, they're going to find reading and writing more difficult. Are there enough supports in place, to make sure that reading and writing are the easiest they can be? When we are providing extra resourcing, whether it's a teacher aide or, maybe the student is getting, modified worksheets, does the student actually agree that those things are helpful? 'Cause sometimes that's not the kind of support they want, so we have to find out. So I think it's really just standing back and looking across, the general kind of universal instruction that's taking place and then those higher levels of adjustment and, yeah, being brave to seek feedback on whether or not those things are working for most and working particularly for those students who we know are going to find learning harder

Leisa Reichelt 37:38

I haven't given you any preparation time on this question, so if you don't have an answer for this one, that's fine. But I do want to ask because when we hear from teachers about School Can't kids,

Haley Tancredi 37:49

Yeah

Leisa Reichelt 37:50

what we hear is, "Well, if they don't come to school, I can't do anything. I can't help them if they're not here

Haley Tancredi 37:56

Right

Leisa Reichelt 37:58

Do you have any thoughts on student consultation between schools and students when those students are really struggling to get to school?

Haley Tancredi 38:08

Yeah. So, I mean, one of the powers of consultation is that it, it does open up conversations between students and adults. And, and the, the conversations are about maximizing learning. So one of the projects that Professor Linda Graham, I was working as her research assistant at the time. We did a project in a very, disadvantaged school, you know, in Southeast Queensland. We were actually in a number of schools, but I primarily was supporting one of the schools. And we were really interested in that school. it was a school that had like a flexi center, so there were kids that were really on the crux of disengaging from school. And we went in really to find out from those kids, like, what makes an excellent teacher? What do those teachers do, and how does it help kids to learn? And I think there's sometimes like a bit of a discourse that students that are on the fringe of disengaging or who have disengaged, you know, that they just aren't interested in learning. Well, that project really turned that on its head in terms of the things that students shared with us. Kids, when they talked about excellent teachers, spoke about instructional supports as being the thing that they wanted. So they wanted teachers who could explain things well, teachers who used really helpful visuals, whether it's a diagram or, you know, high-quality images, et cetera. I remember watching a teacher at that school who all the kids said was one of those excellent teachers. He was a PE and maths teacher. So I first watched him teach PE, They were doing rugby league, and he was teaching the kids how to throw a football. Now, one of the students in his class had a profound visual impairment, so he had put tape on the ball so she could feel it. But it actually was helping all the kids 'cause they knew where to put their hands to throw the ball really effectively. And I always remember thinking, "Wow, like everyone needs a teacher like that guy." Then I went to his maths lesson, and he applied the same excellent adjustments that were provided universally there. So he had a beautiful, simple list on the board of exactly what was going to happen in that class, and that list matched exactly what actually happened. So the class was super predictable. There was enough kind of rigor and like structure that kids knew where they were going, but equally, there were things that he was flexible about. So he wasn't forcing anyone to do anything. He was inviting them in, and this is what we're going to achieve, and kids wanted to be in that classroom. So I think that what, when students are feeling disengaged from school, it's not always that, you know, there needs to be some kind of lure back to school. The lure can be having a sense that they're going to be successful when they get there. And so that project really showed me that consulting with kids who are finding school incredibly difficult, if we can set up those conversations to find out about what's excellent and perpetuate that excellence, and kids, feeling supported and successful with enough rigor but enough flexibility, that was definitely something I thought was, yeah, stellar. And yeah, kids who are finding it tricky to get to school can still be part of those conversations. Like what for you makes an excellent teacher, and how can we set up classrooms so that you feel like you're being successful?

Leisa Reichelt 41:28

Yeah. And I guess is that then trying to find ways to communicate with those kids outside of the school setting if they're not able to get there?

Haley Tancredi 41:37

Yeah. No, absolutely. And, and, you know, we are a technological world so, you know, brief Teams check-ins, you know, just so the kids continue to feel connected to their teacher or a trusted adult, at the school. It might not be their teacher. It might be, as I said, a teacher aide or somebody else on staff, you know, their case manager, their, you know, learning support teacher, who knows? but having that trusted person continuing to be available, have a quick check-in. What's something that's gone great this week? You know, could we do something like that in class one day? I think all of those things can contribute to setting up, successful experiences in the classroom and reducing the barriers that are making school hard

Leisa Reichelt 42:18

And what are your tips for parents who are trying to, like, steal some of these techniques to be able to use at home to help support advocacy for their kid, either directly or indirectly? what would be the, top tips for parents, do you think?

Haley Tancredi 42:30

I mean, parents know their kids best, so they will know if, having like tangible resources is going to be super helpful and what they might look like. Parents might also be really good at planting some seeds about the conversations, you know, the direction of conversations. Parents will likely know the teacher, that was the person that was the most successful teacher for their child. And so they might be the person that plants that idea. if the parent's not doing the consultation, it's somebody else, they might say, you know, "You could ask John about, you know, when he was in year five and he had Mr. Peterson, what was it that he loved about Mr. Peterson's class?" That would be a really good way to start a conversation. So I think parents can feed information in that way. Equally, you know, if kids are opening up to their parents about what's happening for them at school and what they want to see happen, parents can be using the resources like that menu of adjustments, asking questions about or developing kind of mind maps about all the things that make school much easier and fun and more engaging and learning be successful, as opposed to a mind map of things that really make learning much more difficult. So I think this is work that parents can definitely engage in. it's then just having that way of, transferring that information into the hands of people at school that can put those things in place.

Leisa Reichelt 43:49

And I guess picking up on your other tips around it in multiple small sessions rather than one big sit down. Check to make sure that you've

Haley Tancredi 43:57

Absolutely

Leisa Reichelt 43:58

what it is that they're trying to communicate

Haley Tancredi 44:01

Yeah, absolutely. And don't assume that what they say is always what they mean. I mean, we've all been in that situation, right? Where sometimes our interpretation of something students have said isn't quite spot on. So that's part of the multiple conversations is that once you've had a brief chat or you've kind of mind mapped something, have a break from it, and then maybe you bring it out again Is that what you meant? and kind of checking that your comprehension of what's been expressed is accurate. And then thinking, well, okay, so these are the kinds of strategies we're talking about. are we on the right track here? and as I said, because it's wherever possible, it's actually putting those things in place and reviewing them in a subsequent kind of check-in, is all part of the process

Leisa Reichelt 44:40

Because some of us definitely, I have experience in my family where you can plant a seed, have a conversation, and think that you're done. But actually, in people's brains, that thinking continues and continues and continues. You can come back

Haley Tancredi 44:54

Yeah

Leisa Reichelt 44:56

and the thinking is so much more developed because you've just had that week of processing time.

Haley Tancredi 45:01

And I think being really clear with kids that I really wanna find out from you about what helps at school, but let's just not talk about it once. Like, let's talk about it a couple of times to make sure that you've got time to think about it because it's a pretty big deal. Like, you know, when you're at school for those years, you're there a fair chunk of your day each day for 12 years, 13 years. So, you know, you won't think of everything in one sit down. It's gotta be kind of an iterative process

Leisa Reichelt 45:26

and also I think for a lot of, a lot of kids, for people who are listening, they're going to be in a, dysregulated, anxious state about school a lot of the time too.

Haley Tancredi 45:37

Yeah.

Leisa Reichelt 45:38

past

Haley Tancredi 45:38

Yeah

Leisa Reichelt 45:39

is also a huge deal.

Haley Tancredi 45:41

Yeah, absolutely. Which I think too is where like a little social script could be really helpful about what this is about, what the information's going to be used for, like what our hope is that your ideas are going to contribute to. Like, so this is what we wanna do with it, and is that okay with you? Like, do you think it's a good idea?

Leisa Reichelt 45:58

Amazing. Haley, if folks wanna learn more about how to do great student consultation, what are some good resources that you would direct them to?

Haley Tancredi 46:08

Yeah. So, as I mentioned before, the student consultation practice guide, that is an open access resource. So that's something that I developed out of my research projects and is based on one of my published articles. There's also some really nice, There's a really nice video from the community resource unit here in Brisbane that I can send you the, a video to, which is some students talking about their experience of consultation and, there's a parent that kind of shares her insights as well. So I'm happy to share, the link to that video with you. and I think it's really just people kind of having a go, standing back and thinking, "Well, what's our goal? And where do we think are the spots where, getting the voice of this child or young person involved is going to help us to progress towards the vision that we have?" And keeping a record of those things because I guess that's part of the challenge is that a conversation just disappears. So that's where, doing it as a mind map, jotting down some notes afterwards, thinking yourself about what you'd ask next time because sometimes it is a brief interaction and so you have to be always thinking, "Well, was there a seed there that we can pick up on and keep going with?"

Leisa Reichelt 47:15

and I guess maybe just to close out, just a reminder that this is not an optional nice to have activity. This is actually a requirement. This needs to be done

Haley Tancredi 47:25

That's right. So where adjustments are provided at school, students need to be consulted on those adjustments. So yeah, if the adjustments aren't working for students, we should have worked that out because we'd ask them in the first instance and found out. Or as I said, they might not communicate it with their words. They might communicate it through their behaviour, but that's also an insight into whether or not adjustments are fit for purpose

Leisa Reichelt 47:46

Amazing. Well, I will share in our episode notes the, resources that you've suggested, Haley, as well as maybe some links so people can follow along with your work, as it

Haley Tancredi 47:57

Sounds great

Leisa Reichelt 47:57

Thank you so much for spending time with us today. Really appreciate it

Haley Tancredi 48:01

Great. Thanks, Leisa

Leisa Reichelt 48:02

You know, In one of my other lives I've worked in human-centered design, and so much of what Haley is describing and advocating for here makes so much sense to me, and this universal design for education just keeps popping up as a theme more and more often, doesn't it? I hope you're finding it interesting, inspiring, and maybe even optimistic to hear some of these green shoots in our education system. If you know someone else who needs to hear this, maybe someone at a school that you're involved with, please take a moment and share this episode with them. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss an episode or leave us a rating or a review. That really does help us get this podcast in front of more families who have not yet found our supportive community. If you have some feedback, a guest suggestion, or maybe you would like to share your own School Can't lived experience with us, you can email us at schoolcantpodcast@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you. If you are a parent or carer in Australia and you are feeling distressed, please remember you can always call the Parent Helpline in your state or Lifeline on 13 11 14. Please do not hesitate to reach out for extra support. Thank you for listening. We'll talk again soon. Take care.