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My experiences during my professional practice and community engagement unit have provided me
with an extremely important and useful insight into the experiences and struggles faced by Refugee
students learning to adjust to Australian society and the Australian education system.
I have seen how the trauma experienced by these students influences how they perform and how
they feel and integrate as part of the school’s community. This is because the community
engagement program I have been involved with is the Refugee action support program at Bossley
Park High school. This program is set up as a once a week program run every Thursday afternoon for
ten consecutive weeks. The system at Bossley Park Highschool has pre-service teachers act as tutors
to refugee students from both years 7 and 8 assisting them with homework and assignments. During
these sessions students are provided with advice and scaffolds to guide their learning and help them
understand and meet the standards and demands of the Australian education system. While still
learning the English language, dealing with the outfall from a disrupted education and the trauma
During this time, I was working with up to 3 students a session from both year 7 and year 8. Helping
them with a myriad of subjects including Math, English, history and science and at times just helping
them develop specific literacy skills including reading and writing (Frey et.al., 2016). This program
also included 1 period a week where each tutor would enter into a class with refugee students to aid
in helping students engage with and complete classroom tasks. During these periods I worked with
the same students every week, it was very rewarding to see them excel in tasks that they at first
struggled to complete. Being involved with this program for the past few months has be extremely
rewarding because I have had the opportunity to build a rapport with my students and develop an
understanding of the school community and how these students fit into it. It was also rewarding to
be a part of this program at the time because some of these students were gearing up to undertake
It troubled me seeing the fear and apprehension of these students in undertaking a test they did not
feel prepared or confident to take. It is evident that the NAPLAN test is geared towards students
who have a contextual and cultural understanding of Australia and this in and of itself creates an
extremely unfair situation for these students. Even though the NAPLAN examination is only used as a
diagnostic tool to identify student needs and to focus school initiatives and programs, I fear that this
could have a major impact by asserting a power dynamic that positions these students in a lower
The RAS program is extremely helpful to combat this and provide students with a fair and even
playing field. The benefits of this program to my own teaching practice have been beyond
astronomical. This is because I have been able to work with a group of students in a context and
situation that allowed me to develop not only a rapport, but also where I can develop a greater
insight into their learning needs and challenges and see how schools differentiate to accommodate
these students. This experience has provided me with a set of experiences that will impact on how I
as a classroom teacher will set out my activities to engage and benefit the learning of these
students.
References
Block, K., Cross, S., Riggs, E., & Gibbs, L. (2014). Supporting schools to create an inclusive
environment for refugee students. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 18(12), 1337-
1355. doi:10.1080/13603116.2014.899636
Creagh, S. (2013). A critical analysis of problems with the LBOTE category on the NAPLaN test. The
Australian Association for Research in Education, 41(1), 1-23. doi:10.1007/s13384-013-0095-
y
Frey, N., Fisher, D., & Hattie, J.,. (2016). Surface, Deep, and Transfer? Considering the Role of
Content Literacy Instructional Strategies. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 60(5), 567-
575. doi:10.1002/jaal.576
Wu, M. &. (2012, October). Inappropriate uses of NAPLAN results. Practically Primary, 17, 16-17.
Retrieved March 2017