Attached Units
Attached Units.
There are many types of Attached Units that provide support to teachers and students to meet a range of educational needs. Birkdale Primary School is the host school for two such units. These are known to schools as RTLB and LST.
RTLB (Resource Teachers of Learning and Behaviour).
The five teachers of this unit provide support for teachers of students with either learning or behavioural needs in all the schools of the Birkdale, Beach Haven and Birkenhead area. There are 10 schools in the cluster, including Birkenhead College and Birkdale Intermediate, the cluster calls itself the 3Bs cluster.
Students needing RTLB support are referred to the unit by their schools and if their needs are seen to fit with the service criteria they are accepted to receive support. RTLB work in a variety of ways, they always carefully assess the needs of the student and then provide programmes and activities the class teacher can use.
RTLB can also refer more serious cases to the Ministry of Education’s Special Education Service.
In all instances where individual students are involved parents must consent to RTLB service being involved with their child.
Group programmes developed by RTLB are also available to teachers to support groups of students. Programmes may support spelling, reading and maths as well as some to help improve behaviour or social interactions between students.
LST (Learning Support Teachers).
The 4 teachers of this unit work with students who have severe learning needs and they provide long-term support for those students and their teachers. At any given time the Birkdale LSTs are supporting 31 students across all the schools on the North Shore of Auckland.
Students can be referred to the LST unit by all North Shore RTLB units or the Special Education Service of the Ministry of Education which too is based on the North Shore.