AURORA SCHOOL

Aurora School has been formed from the amalgamation of Princess Elizabeth Junior School for Deaf Children, the Monnington Centre and Carronbank School for Deaf Blind Students. The school is located in new purpose built facilities in Holland Road, Blackburn South and offers a statewide service for deaf children and their families.

The school operates three main programs:
The Early Intervention Program
The Early Education Program
The Deafblind Education Program

The Early Intervention Program aims to provide parents with the support, knowledge and skills they need to promote their child's development, especially their communication and language development, during the early years. Services are tailored to the needs of each family. Families can have access to teachers of deaf, psychologists, social workers, speech and language therapists and Deaf educators according to their needs and circumstances at the time.

Regular high quality early intervention services are provided to families across metropolitan and regional Victoria. These services include regular home visits, Early Learning Groups – that are held on-site and around the state, Language Enrichment Groups, Parent Discussion Groups, Fathers Groups, Parent Seminars, Family Camp and Family Days, Parent-to-parent contact, an Early Communication program, Auslan support programs, access to Deaf role models and an extensive library of books, toys and videos for loan.

The Early Education Program specialises in education programs for young deaf children from three to approximately six years of age. There is a strong emphasis on the development of communication skills (listening, speaking, signing, reading and writing) and effective use of both expressive and receptive language. The program promotes the acquisition of authentic language through an integrated curriculum based on real life experiences within and outside the classroom. It involves the use of a broad range of strategies including play, conversation, direct experience, discovery learning and problem solving.

The program offers parents a choice of an oral-aural or bilingual program. Within the Bilingual program, English is provided through signing in English word order combined with speech and listening, and the Auslan component through adult signing deaf language assistants.

The Deafblind Education Program offers specialised education for students aged three to eighteen years, who have visual and hearing impairments and communication difficulties. The initial and ongoing focus of the program is the establishment of communication and language for immediate and future needs. Communication development uses whichever mode of communication is appropriate to the individual student. In addition to speech and listening, touch cues, objects of reference, picture systems, sign and Braille are used.

All teachers at Aurora are trained teachers of the deaf, with many having additional qualifications. The Aurora school based programs also provide services from a wide range of appropriate consultants who currently include physiotherapists, occupational therapist, speech pathologist, audiologist, educational psychologists, and an orientation and mobility instructor. The school has an audiological soundproof booth and there is regular service from Australian Hearing.