In this episode
Kate Reid is the Inclusion Coordinator at Bob Hawke College.
In this episode, Bob Hawk College’s Inclusion Coordinator Kate Reid discusses the journey of staff and students in the space of disability and inclusion which led them to winning the Excellence in Disability and Inclusion category at the 2025 WA Education Awards. She also explains the importance of having students with a disability learn alongside their peers rather than in a separate program, along with some of the strategies and principles that staff employ to guide their way. Learn also how the combined passion of the whole school community makes this award-winning approach possible.
About Kate Reid
Kate Reid has been the Inclusion Coordinator at Bob Hawke College since 2020.
She supports staff in shaping the way education works so it fits the student’s needs, ensuring they get the best support possible.
Kate works with teaches to develop strategies and design their content so that it is accessible for a range of learning profiles. She also helps teachers to better understand what's going on for kids what are the predictable barriers.
Transcript
Fiona Bartholomaeus
Welcome, you're listening to Ed Talks WA. My name is Fiona Bartholomeus and I'm your host for this episode.
This year's WA Education Awards shone a spotlight on the incredible schools and staff who go above and beyond to help every student learn, thrive and succeed.
One category that continues to inspire is the Excellence in Disability and Inclusion, which celebrates the champions who create welcoming, accessible and truly inclusive school communities where every student feels seen, supported and valued.
And this year, after 2 years as a finalist, Bob Hawke College took home the win.
At Bob Hawke College, inclusion isn't a program or an add-on. It's a deeply held belief that shapes everything they do. Flexible teaching approaches, skilled education assistants, dedicated inclusion facilities, and the steady guidance of their inclusion coordinator make sure every student can learn alongside their peers and be part of the life and heartbeat at the college.
Today, we're joined by Kate Reid, the college's inclusion coordinator, to take us inside their journey, what it took to get here, what inclusion really looks like day-to-day, and how the whole school community made this award-winning approach possible. Kate, thank you so much for joining us.
Kate Reid
Oh, that is absolutely my pleasure.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
It must have been such an exciting day for you and the team to hear them read our Bob Hawke College's name at the Education Awards. What was your reaction to winning?
Kate Reid
I am really very excited to show people what is possible, particularly in a secondary school and particularly in a bigger secondary school.
I think inclusion, you know, real inclusion when you've got all kids in all classes, it's something that people might tolerate in a primary school. But it's often the thing that people say, ‘yeah, but when they get to high school, they're going to need something specialised’. And so to be able to show what is possible at a general education high school that is local intake, we take the kids in our area, that's the most exciting bit.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
And the school was a finalist in the category in both 2023 and 2024. What has this meant to the staff students and school community to be recognised after placing the last couple of years?
Kate Reid
I sent a communication out to staff on the day and I wrote to them that this is a recognition from the system, of leading work for disability and inclusion and it is not like, it's written in the application, but it is very true that this is not a program it is not a department it is not an intervention it is the way we do school and it is seen in every classroom when a teacher will see a barrier and think about how they plan to remove it and when they hold someone's complexity no matter what the complexity is, where they hold that with care and collaborate and problem solve, like that is the work of inclusion.
So that award and recognition really belongs to every staff member.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
It's very much a core belief that's embedded into every single thing that you all do. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
Kate Reid
It's really interesting, right, because there's a bit of a story about Bob Hawke College being, you know, fancy or the possibility that it can happen at Bob Hawke College because we are a greenfield school and we've been able to build it from the start.
And that is true, right? Like that is true that we have been able to put that stake in the ground. That inclusion is one of the four values and people sign up for that. But everyone's, including mine, everyone's understanding of what that actually means on the ground has had to be shaped, has had to grow and strengthen.
So people, I don't think there'd be a single educator who would say ‘oh no we our school's not inclusive’ but when, but when the philosophy is everyone is in so we are going to ‘everyone is going to that sports carnival’ that you know we're not going to force kids into a sports carnival but we're going to make it possible right?
So when that is the philosophy then everything changes and I’ve been reading Brené Brown’s new book, so Brené Brown’s bit of a guru, and she's got a book called Strong Ground, I think. And she's stolen a quote from James March, who is a leadership guy.
And she talks about leadership being about poetry and plumbing. And it's really resonated with me this year because I'm like, well, when we first started, I came at the end of 2020. So the end of the first year, I got to see our current Year 12s end their Year 7 year as little 12-year-olds.
There was great poetry around what inclusion was and our commitment to that. And our belief that kids want to be successful and the belief that all kids belong and we're going to make a school that fits the student, the belief that barriers can be identified and can be either removed or responded to.
So that buy-in from everyone and the poetry has had to be repeated and strengthened and we are asking teachers to do hard things and so they really have to buy into the poetry of inclusive communities start at school. Like that's what we're building here and there are times where that is really tough but we are going to work this out together.
But the poetry becomes pretty limp and people become pretty jaded unless you are sustaining that with really good plumbing.
So what it is to run an inclusive school and the plumbing that is required is not special and it actually doesn't take a lot of extra, we don't get special funding for that. We get the funding that all other schools get but there is a commitment to using our teachers to think about curriculum differently. So processes around applying the Inclusive Australian Curriculum Framework where we are really understanding what that achievement standard is asking, not what we assume it's asking, and planning to remove some of those barriers that are irrelevant.
And providing then options for kids, for all kids.
There's plumbing around accessible pedagogy, so we've been doing some work with QUT, Queensland University of Technology, around accessible task sheets and how we can make them visually and procedurally and linguistically clearer. And when you've got processes within learning areas, because this is owned in learning areas, this is not owned by the program coordinator of inclusion, the thinking around teaching and curriculum adjustment is owned by the teacher in their learning area.
When you've got really good processes that really get teachers to think about accessibility, it's not that big a stretch for them when they are considering an access point for Year 10 chemistry for a kid that is operating at a foundational level because that's what the conversation is all about. What's actually the content and the skills that this curriculum is asking for?
Then we've got some processes that we've built over time to help teachers understand what the access for that particular unit could be with an extensive curriculum adjustment.
So it would be reckless of us to throw a student with a really complex learning profile into a classroom without knowing that that teacher has got enough knowledge and support and processes to make that work. Because that's potentially traumatic for a teacher and a student and the school.
There are processes around coaching. So there's some good plumbing that we've put in place to help teachers with their reach out for some help when there is a complex situation that they don't yet know.
That way, we're not just throwing, and my education assistant colleagues are some of the most important staff at the school, but they are not the support solution they are part of the solution with the collaboration with the teacher so that that student can be meaningfully included in the classroom with the same content.
So that's a long way around of saying that, but we've got poetry and poetry is really important to inspire people to do something different. But it's got to be followed up with repeatable, sustainable plumbing.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
It sounds like there's so many different strategies, principles and also support available for teachers to ensure the students are getting the best possible support they can.
Now, you're in the role of inclusion coordinator. Not a lot of schools have inclusion coordinators. Can you tell us what that is and what that entails?
Kate Reid
The role of an inclusion coordinator was a great sounding job that I didn't properly understand either when I first started.
I came from a background of learning disabilities in a general education school, running some literacy and numeracy support within classes. And I knew that kids in high school that couldn't read properly or add up properly needed some explicit instruction at their point of need. And then I was watching very good teachers really struggle to know how to properly include them in their Year 10 HASS class or their Year 9 geology class.
And then this job came up and it was about changing a school, the way education works so that it fits a kid, basically.
So started the role a bit green and have learned along the way with that kind of true north of everyone's in and there needs to be some really good planning around what that looks like for kids and my role is really to help teachers better understand what's going on for kids what are the predictable barriers. Like if we design with difference in mind, like what can we predict is going to trip kids up? Whether there is a diagnosis or not, there's about 20% of kids in every single classroom that have got some kind of language challenge, whether it's EALD or a specific learning disability or some attentional vulnerability, right? There are those kids in your class that in every single class sitting in the struggle is.
So helping teachers plan for that, there are times where I might be called in to help with planning for a school camp or I might be called in when there's some challenging behaviour because there's often some understanding about what's going on in the situation to get to a better result, not to absolve kids from natural outcomes if something bad has happened, but to make sure that you are factoring in, you know, what is being communicated in that behaviour.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
Sounds like there's a lot involved with this role in supporting the whole school with the inclusion journey.
Kate Reid
And then there's all that, like the plumbing bits with, you know, SCSA equitable adjustments. And there's, I've got some really great staff that work as inclusion facilitators. They're also teachers and that's been important as well.
So we've got inclusion facilitators that work with me to coach teachers, but all of them have also got a teaching load so that they are in the classroom at the chalk face and in departments and a bit of credibility.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
And is that what has helped with the school's inclusive journey since it started in 2020 to where it is today?
Kate Reid
Definitely. Yeah, definitely.
I think having the belief that not only is this very possible, not only does the research tell us that inclusive schools get better outcomes. You know, there's a very clear purpose from staff around making this work because this is where you build an inclusive community.
You know, you ask about what has gotten us from 2020 to 2025 and building our inclusive plumbing that has strengthened the poetry.
I think the consistent bit is it's important.
So it's unreasonable to think that our students will leave school at the end of Year 12 and walk into their community and be completely okay with different people in their community and in their workplaces if they have not grown up with them. And similarly, it's unreasonable to expect a kid with a disability who has grown up without connection to their community to walk into their community at 17 or 18 and be okay and be known and be safe. The way you keep kids safe and the way you build an inclusive community is to is to have them together and to have them learn about each other and to have them then stick up for each other. You know we've got kids who can call out injustice because they've seen something that is more just.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
You've spoken a bit about the school's journey from 2020 to where it is today. What sort of involvement has the community had in this journey?
Kate Reid
It's been in lockstep, actually. We've got a really involved school board that has really helped us shape a few of our very critical policies, like our positive behaviour approach.
It took us a long time to write it because we were committed to writing it collaboratively, and our community really challenged us to be our best selves.
We have a, you know, in the heart of Subiaco, connected to the world, we do have a very transparent and open school. We have lots of adults coming in, lots of therapists, lots of you know, we have EdConnect volunteers coming in. When there is a problem of practice, when a kid is really struggling, we will always stop and talk to the people that know that young person well, because we all want the same thing. And I've worked in schools where that is a real challenge because, you know, schools can get worried about judgment or they can get worried about being told to do something that is unreasonable or, you know, there is a managing of that.
But we have always found that if you are listening and if you are collaborating and if there is trust built between you, you always end up with a better outcome.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
It's very much everyone's responsibility, it feels like, and it's very much incorporated into planning at every level of the college. How do you get everyone on board to work together across all levels of leadership and teaching?
Kate Reid
The poetry is important. That's why this analogy has set profound effect on me this year, right? because really good poetry brings people in and helps them understand why something is important.
To have when you are asking teachers to collaborate with education assistants or therapists or program coordinators for inclusion or inclusion facilitators, you have to prioritise time.
So we can be clever about how we might use some hours before school or we can be clever about how we might use some relief when we've got it. We can be clever about how we're using our information technologies to collaborate and using SharePoint and Office 365 in all of that.
When you have built that trust and you've built that common purpose, then people are far more open to being vulnerable with their practice. So having a therapist come into your classroom and look at your practice and then be open to some collaboration around that, because there's this shared belief that everyone belongs and you're not, the therapist and the families know that you're not trying to manage this kid out of the class.
They know that that's the school's commitment. So when things are not quite working, and this is not a utopia it really isn't, you know there are moments of friction. So when things are not working, it's what are the complex pieces that we need to hold and understand and get better at that.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
So what have been some of the challenges then that you and the team have faced and how have you overcome them together?
Kate Reid
I reckon if you ask most teachers what would be really helpful to overcome challenges, they would say it was time.
So having enough time to do complex thinking and having enough time to properly collaborate, you know, rarely happens.
Rarely would we say, ‘oh, we've got plenty of time’. To overcome that barrier really takes some creative thinking about how you can get people all inputting. So we use technologies a lot to overcome the challenge of getting people in the same space.
I guess another barrier is often challenging learning profiles presents as challenging behaviour. And that is a real challenge. And the way we overcome that is real acknowledgement of the challenge and you make sure that everyone is safe first and then properly understanding and being open to hearing what families and therapists and people who know a young person well, being really open to understanding what is going on for them.
And that poetry, that core belief of kids do well when they can and behaviour is communication, that doesn't mean there's not natural outcomes but that belief will then drive this conversation around what do we need to do in the environment in the relationship in the in the pedagogy to meet that need that is being communicated now.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
At the awards 2 students Laura and Ruby touched on how the support provided by the school has benefited them both what sort of student outcomes have you seen from the school approach and what have you heard from the students themselves?
Kate Reid
When I have a look at what our data says, there's a few really good indicators that we're doing something right.
So our attendance is a really good indicator of someone's sense of connection and belonging to a school. And our attendance for kids with disability is higher than our kids without a disability.
We've got measures, the surveys around wellbeing and belonging are all increasing for all cohorts, right, for kids with and without a disability, that sense of belonging is measurable in our data.
I spoke to some kids earlier who have got intellectual disabilities and very complex profiles in Year 10 classes and they are talking, what they would say, is that they are talking meaningfully about really complex content that they are accessing and they are understanding and they are retaining and they are feeling part of the Year 10s are all studying Fahrenheit 451. And when we were planning this a little while ago, one of the English teachers was talking to me about, you know, ‘do we, it's a really complex novel, do we do a different novel? Like, do we look at the same themes but in a text that's more accessible?’
And I was like, well, if they're at a dinner party in 10 years' time and someone brings up dystopian fiction, because that's possible, and someone brings up the text that they studied at high school and it was Fahrenheit 451, we want these kids to be able to go, ‘oh, yeah’ and participate in that conversation. That's social capital.
You know, the books that I studied at high school, I couldn't tell you really quotations and literary devices that are used, but I can tell you why it was important and I can participate in a conversation about it.
So the data from what kids are saying about what they are understanding and what they are participating in, that is excellent evidence that what is happening in classrooms is meaningful and it's purposeful and they are participating alongside their peers.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
Now, we've talked a lot about Bob Hawke College's journey, but what advice do you have for staff at other schools who want to improve their inclusion journey and support their students?
Kate Reid
There are lots of messages to give, I suppose, but if you distil it down to where to start, you know, it's a common heard phrase that will, will in the skill to do something different.
The willingness is the compulsory bit so that willingness to include all kids and starting with all. So starting with everyone's in.
To be able to then know that it's a bit uncomfortable at times most definitely and there is nothing particularly comfortable about transformation so transformation requires us to kind of blow something up and then rebuild it so it messages to other schools it can be really uncomfortable at times to reach out to practices, to people, to other schools, to research organisations that are doing this work well and build the skill. Build those processes that are going to give teachers the confidence and the successes that is then going to get more success.
And to celebrate when it works. Because what can happen in big, busy schools and you know, it can happen here too. What can happen is that it gets little successes in classrooms get siloed and not sung out to the community because once people get to hear about Fahrenheit 451 in an easy read version and how successful that was, that's the stuff that builds more enthusiasm.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
So at the awards, the 2 students ended by saying, true inclusion is when local schools embrace every learner without exception and make genuine belonging for all the norm.
And I think that's the perfect place to end this conversation.
Kate, thank you so much for your time today and sharing Bob Hawke College's journey and some of the tips of what staff at other schools can do.
Kate Reid
Thank you.
Fiona Bartholomaeus
This podcast has been recorded on Whadjuk Noongar land. We pay respect to the traditional owners and to their elders, past, present and future.
Notes
Read about the 2025 WA Education Award winners on our website.