Two Special Schools and a House

Wednesday, March 5, 2014 – 9 p.m. Melbourne time

By Teressa Jackson

This week has been a whirlwind, so I’m a bit behind on our blogging. On Monday, we spent a team day with the Rotary Club of Noble Park. We began the day at Noble Park Primary School. The school is extremely diverse; over 80% of their student body speaks English as a second language. Their backgrounds include Bosnian, Burmese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Sudanese, Indian, and Sri Lankan, to name just a few. Many are refugees, and the school’s neighborhood is the second most culturally diverse in the country.

Noble Park partners with about 18 community groups to benefit its students, including Rotary. They see the school as more of a community organization, and incorporate adult learning courses and a women’s group to benefit their students and community.

After Noble Park, we visited Springvale Park Special Development School. Springvale Park is one of 40 special development schools out of 1,600 in the district. They serve children who have an IQs under 55, many of whom have other multiple disabilities such as autism and cerebral palsy. All have some verbal communication problem.

Noble Park has 155 students. Most children with disabilities attend mainstream schools in Australia, but some parents believe that the environment at Noble Park is best for their child’s development. We enjoyed seeing their facilities and meeting the kids they serve. They even had a large therapeutic tub, therapy room, and were working on implementing raised gardens.

We headed to Ronald McDonald House for a beautiful lunch and tour of their facilities. The charity works in much the same way as they do in their U.S. counterparts. They are located adjacent to the second largest children’s hospital in Australia, providing a place for support and lodging for families of children being treated there for life-threatening conditions.

Ronald McDonald House in Melbourne has implemented programs to help support children and families outside of their hospital stay, including a beach house that can serve as a retreat for families who have lost a child, tutoring to help children adjust back to school following treatments, counseling for families, and a warm and welcoming retreat in the hospital itself where families can take a break.

After seeing the work of these great organizations, we had a few extra moments. Our accompanying Rotarians kindly took us to the beach for about 20 minutes and we got our first taste of the Southern Ocean. It was nice to take a little break. 

View more photos from the day and stay up-to-date with all our latest at our Facebook page:www.facebook.com/gse2014.