The Teacher Role as Consultant Resource: Identifying and Overcoming the Challenges

By:

During the last decade New Zealand has embarked on process to improve its education system to be able to effectively include the full range of students with disabilities in regular classes/schools. As a part of this government poicy over 1000 Resource Teachers of Learning and Behaviour (RTLB) have been trained to support classroom teachers and school systems to cater more effectively to the needs of diverse students with challenging behaviour and/or learning issues. This paper discusses this development, outlining the national training programme for RTLB delivered by a consortium of universities, represented by the two presenters, and identifies the impediments to fulfilling the promise of this service and key solutions to these. Examples of effective practice are also included.

Stream: Teacher Training and Professional Development

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

Senior Lecturer in Education with ongoing experience as a community/educational psychologist. Specialist interest and experience in inclusive educational programmes and systems with most published research in this area

Senior Lecturer and National Programme director of the Resource Teacher Learning and Behaviour initiative. An experienced educational psychologist with research interests in inclusive education and specialist support services and publications in this area.