Autism and inclusion with the ‘I CAN’ network

Transcript

Introduction:

You’re listening to the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership podcast where we showcase conversations with some of the world’s biggest thought leaders in education. We also bring you the thoughts and reflections of teachers and school leaders from across Victoria.

Justine Mackey:

Hello everyone. My name is Justine Mackey, and I'm here with my colleague Samantha Jeacle from the Teaching Excellence Program here at the academy. Hello, Sam.

Samantha Jeacle:

Hi, Justine. How are you?

Justine Mackey:

I'm great, and we are so lucky to be speaking with representatives from the iCAN Network. Chris Varney and Rachael Hamilton, welcome.

Rachael Hamilton:

Hi.

Chris Varney:

Thanks for having us here, Justine.

Justine Mackey:

You've been invited by the academy to discuss how we can improve the outcomes for all students with a particular focus on neurodiverse students. First, Rachael, you are 20. Can you tell us about your story at school?

Rachael Hamilton:

Yeah, so I've gone to three schools. My primary school experience was quite challenging, and then especially the transition from primary school to high school. I didn't go to the same ... They were two different schools, so it wasn't a prep to 12, and I didn't know a lot of people that were going from my primary school to my high school. So making connections and finding connections and then keeping those connections at high school was really quite challenging. So year seven was about trying to find my footing in a new world, I guess. And then towards the end of year seven, I started to struggle with doing work and meeting the academic standard, I guess, for what the school was aiming for as well as having all these social and emotional challenges going on as well.

Then year eight was quite hard for me. I think that was especially quite a standout year. That's when I started realizing it was more fun to stay at home and not go to school than being at school and stress in that situation. And then I ended up in year nine, I left school altogether. I completely unenrolled, and then my mother actually found a new school called NETschool in Bendigo, which is connected to Bendigo Senior Secondary College, which is quite a large, it's the hub of all the feeder schools in Bendigo, I guess. And I enrolled in that NETschool, and that was all about picking up students who had fallen out of education or who were at risk of disengaging and getting us back on our feet. I started there and I ended up doing three years to complete my VCE. And then at the end of last year I got my Victorian Certificate of Education and got a really amazing ATAR as well, and actually ended up getting into a uni course. So that's a little bit about me and my schooling experience.

Justine Mackey:

So Rachael, I'm really interested in what was it that made a difference when you went to the new school in year nine?

Rachael Hamilton:

Going to a school that is specifically designed for students who were disengaging or at risk of leaving school altogether and not returning to an education. So many more considerations are taking into account. So for example, I spent my first year there not going to class, not doing a lot of work or official work I guess you could call it. It was more so about me getting to school and staying at school and bridging that, having a positive experience in the school area. Also making connections within the school. So starting to realize that I can meet people, I can have friends at school. And then in the second year of being at NETschool, I started to head more towards doing work, thinking about what I might want to do with my future. And then the third year was getting to classes, doing the work, studying quite hard.

Justine Mackey:

So you've touched a little bit on the idea of work avoidance. We know that it's something that a lot of young people and their families can struggle with. In your experience, what was some of the challenges and consequences of work avoidance for you?

Rachael Hamilton:

Yeah. So I think a major challenge of having work avoidance, especially so early on. So in primary school, I've now recognized that in primary school I was avoiding work. There were times in grade one where I would be calling home to say, "Oh no, I'm sick." And yes, that's very common for all students to do. That's totally normal, but excessively on a daily basis, faking injuries to get out of class at such a young age, not as normal. So now I can realize that's where that started. And then of course you get left behind, you're not doing that work. Some teachers don't realize that you've actually not picked up anything, and then you end up in the later years, then you go to high school, you get into year 10, 11, 12, and you don't have those basic skills that you could have got in early primary school because that's where the work avoidance started and that's followed you.

It's followed you all throughout your schooling experience, and you've missed out on foundational skills that you don't have and you need them when you get to ... Well, I needed them when I got to the end of high school and realized I actually wanted to get an ATAR. I wanted to go to uni and study and do all those kinds of things.

Justine Mackey:

So what supports were in place for you at NET to minimize that work avoidance that you'd experienced previously?

Rachael Hamilton:

So there were a lot of supports at this new school. One-on-one, teachers helping me to complete work, but not having a major focus on getting the work done. Yes, so I could set a goal and say, I want to get this sheet done of work or maths or something like that. I want to get that done this week. But if I'm not regulating really well or I'm not coping super well in the classroom, the suggestion might be, go play the drum kit outside for a while because we've got a music room, go do this. Why don't you go for a walk? Why don't you go outside, go to the park down the road and run around, go distract yourself, go to the shops, get something to eat, something like that.

So really breaking it back down and thinking there's no point forcing you to do work, especially when you come from a background and you've got quite a large history of avoiding work, pushing so hard to do work at that stage for me was not going to work. So yeah, breaking it down and saying, right, do something fun, take your mind off everything and come back when you're ready. You work out when you want to work.

Justine Mackey:

So what other supports have helped you to be able to finish school and achieve that ATAR that you described?

Rachael Hamilton:

So I've had a music career, I guess that's followed me all throughout school. I started playing in a brass band when I was quite young, maybe grade three. And I've kept playing music and I've kept playing an instrument and stayed in that band all throughout my journey. So what's that? 10 years or so now. Looking back now, I realize that through all the challenges and all the struggles that I had throughout school and everything that was going on in my life at that time, being in a band, playing an instrument, music was the only thing that was consistent for me. And being autistic, I really like consistency, I like things to stay the same. So that was definitely a major support that I didn't realize at the time.

Samantha Jeacle:

Thanks so much for sharing all of those interesting elements of your story, Rachael. And what I can see is a strong theme of connection, as you've mentioned throughout all of it. And you are here today because of a connection that you made to Chris a little bit earlier on in your life.

Rachael Hamilton:

Yes.

Samantha Jeacle:

So I'm going to ask Chris to share a little bit of information about himself and to help us understand why he founded the iCAN Network as well.

Chris Varney:

Well, my story is I was like Rachael, autistic, and my challenge at school was hyper anxiety. A very, very anxious learner, and things were falling off the rails for me at the end of primary school. I'd had a relatively good primary schooling experience. What really worked about it was I had a school team there that really leveraged my natural motivations. They'd really work all my sort of quirky topics and interests into the curriculum. I was pretty out there. But then really socially things just started to change grade five and six, and that really affected my confidence.

But basically my story, I had this amazing year seven transition. I just had a high school team in my principal, Terry Bennett and year seven coordinator, Christine Horvath at one Turner College, who were extraordinary. They were a great team. They really got to understand families, parent carer experiences, and they really learned who we were and they networked us really well as a year level. So that worked really well for me, and I just kept following the path that that created really. I did experience work avoidance, which we can talk about, and that has a whole burnout context around it. But on the whole, high school went well and I created a company, iCAN Network out of that experience. So I'm still enjoying the benefits of that transition.

Samantha Jeacle:

So for the uninitiated then, who is iCAN and what do they do?

Chris Varney:

iCAN, we run group mentoring programs in primary and secondary schools. And now probably our point of difference is we're an autistic led organizations. So in 2013, I was sick and tired of hearing about autistic students as this difficult group. And so I went about creating an organization that would train, hire, develop, and grow autistic young adults and autistic professionals into fantastic, outstanding mentors who could go into primary and secondary schools and really grow the confidence and belonging and connection of autistic and neurodivergent young people. And today we have 82 autistic young adults working at iCAN, which includes the wonderful Rachael who runs her own programs now in Bendigo and Northern Victoria. And we work with over 2,000 students and 100 government schools and non-government schools as well. So we're very lucky.

Samantha Jeacle:

So what does the work tell you, Chris? You've got a huge variety and diversity of young people working across many, many Victorian schools. If you could talk to teachers and parents, what would you tell them about how to support neurodiverse students in their learning?

Chris Varney:

The overwhelming thing is creating that strong connection to school and a belonging with a peer community at school or safe adults at school. That sense of belonging, that sense of connection to learning and your school environment is overwhelmingly the goal. I know we have a tendency to prioritize academics, but that is the byproduct of a strong relationship with your school, a sense of safety with your peers and the facilitators of your learning that academics will follow. If the social emotional supports are there, you're going to get great outcomes for that young person, whatever that looks like for them.

Samantha Jeacle:

And I think you touched on this before, but is that reflected in your experience? You said I definitely had a period of work avoidance as well, and I think you mentioned burnout there. Can you tell us what that meant for you as a young person?

Chris Varney:

Yeah. So year seven and eight, I was, as I said, a really hyper anxious learner and I did have a good transition to year seven.

Samantha Jeacle:

But what does that mean? Sorry to interrupt. What do you mean a hyper anxious learner?

Chris Varney:

I would turn a mole hill into a mountain. I would over-engineer things. I would catastrophize. I was an extreme thinker. So any sorts of demands placed on me at school, I would turn into a real mountain of anxiety. In some ways, my anxiety was also my greatest strength because it would push me to do things that I didn't want to do, but at the same time, it could be pretty crippling. And I got to the end of year eight, I was pretty exhausted from the transition because I was so worried about it. Anyway, year nine, I'd benefited from a good transition, but I was so exhausted from the panic about it that I was just in a good social group. The social group was healthy and safe, but I started getting really involved in extracurricular activities at school. I started doing inter-school sports, which was unheard of for me. I was in student council, went on all the excursions you could, and I was just really happy.

So I avoided class to no end, pretty much. It would not be an exaggeration to say from year nine to 11, I did the absolute bare minimum or no work at all. I loved school, I loved the peer group I had, I could sit in class, but I just didn't want to do homework. And it got to the point where my mom and dad were getting pretty upset because they were both nurses and nurses love maths, and I couldn't stand maths. I really let down the spectrum in that area, and I just got to the point in year 10, I just worked out, you don't need maths for year 11 and 12. This isn't very helpful for maths teachers out there that want to solve work avoidance.

But I got to the point where I was just disengaging completely. But my year 10 maths teacher, if I could meet him today, I would say thank you because I think he worked out that if he'd really pushed with some of the things he could have done, which would've looked like modified work, probably more consequences because I was just completely not present in class. I think if he'd pushed there, if I'd felt like I was being revealed to the rest of my peer group, that would have set in motion some things and maybe caused more disengagement, but he didn't. He had a real light touch and he kept that relationship with school really strong because he kind of really pulled back a lot and I would say thank you to him now.

Samantha Jeacle:

I love hearing that, and I think as teachers ourselves, it's the best when students come back to you later and say thank you. Can I ask, did you know what was going on for you at high school?

Chris Varney:

Not at all. I look back now and the story is clearly end of year eight, I was exhausted. I couldn't do more work. I just overworked year seven and eight and the panic of trying to make that as successful as possible. But at the time you're growing up, you don't know. Now we do a lot more. I'm talking about the early 2000s when I was at high school. Now there's so much more understanding of social emotional regulation. At that time, there wasn't, it wasn't much of a conversation. I was terrified of telling people I was autistic. Now it's becoming more normal, which is good.

Samantha Jeacle:

I think that's a good question as well. I think in our parent community, there's some fear about getting a diagnosis and what that means, what a label might mean to a young person. So can you speak to that a little?

Chris Varney:

Yeah. The context we're working in is there is still an overwhelming level of shame about having a label, and we do a lot for families and parents, carers out there if we normalize this more and we kind of celebrate the strengths of being autistic or having ADHD or being dyslexic, whatever your neuro difference or disability, it's so important that we do talk about the positives that a diagnosis and the strengths of having these different neuro conditions bring. And I can say that because I employ 82 autistic adults. I know that they're an extraordinary asset to any workplace and classroom that our sharing positive stories is really the main game. If we do that, then we break down that fear.

Justine Mackey:

So Rachael listening to Chris speak, I can't help but wonder, it takes me into the classroom, I am looking at Chris as a young person in the classroom. He's talked about the experience of anxiety and making that connection between anxiety and work avoidance. Can you tell me about your experience of anxiety in the classroom?

Rachael Hamilton:

Yeah, absolutely. I think anxiety is an underlying issue for every student who is struggling with school avoidance and work avoidance, neurodivergent or not. And they may not know that they're anxious, but you've got so many things going on and you are in such a big environment, I guess. Yeah, anxiety isn't the first thing that pops into your head. You're just working on surviving, I think. So for me, same as Chris, hyper anxious student in school. That might look like I would not be able to go into the classroom. I'd walk to the classroom, stand at the door, look in, see the students, and then turn around and walk out. Couldn't actually get through that door. Well, another example is that if I was late, say I was a minute late and that bell had rung and there were already students sitting in seats inside the classroom, well then I still couldn't go into the classroom because that was a major barrier because then they would see me walk into the classroom.

I guess to maybe a teacher or the other students that would've looked like, "Oh, she doesn't want to come into class. She's lazy, or she doesn't want to do the work. She's just gone." But no, yeah, I can't walk into the classroom. I literally cannot cross that doorway. And then some days it was the anxiety problem and some days it was as bad as I can't walk from the car to the school gate. I can't cross that road. I'm too scared. There are so many students getting out of cars, walking to school, doing all sorts of things. They're all going to look at me. I'm the main character here, I guess. Everybody's going to stare at me, of course, which they're not. But to me, that's what it was. And I think, yes, that looks like school avoidance. Technically it is because I'd go to school and then realize, oh no, I actually don't want to be here because I'm too anxious to be here and then go back home. So yes, that's school avoidance, but the underlying problem is anxiety. So you actually need to work with the anxiety to bridge that.

Justine Mackey:

I would imagine that for anybody who is listening to this, if they have been in a school, if they are a teacher, that the images that you have described would be very familiar to them. What would you say to a teacher who has a student in their class or that they're working with who is showing anxiety in that way?

Rachael Hamilton:

Be really gentle. Yeah, that's the main opportunity, I guess, for you to make a connection with that anxious student. Look, sometimes it's not always going to work. Everybody's different. Of course, not one strategy fits everybody. But for myself and for a lot of other people that I know who have anxiety or have had anxiety in school, and that was their barrier for them as well, having a teacher that comes up to you one-on-one and says, "Are you okay if I ask you this question? Or Are you okay if we do group work? Or do you want me to ask those students over there if you can join their group? Or do you want me to ask this student if you can sit with them?" Those kind of things, you've got to break it right down. Anxiety is just absolutely paralyzing, and it can be the most minor things that you are struggling with.

Yeah. So even for me, it was coming through the classroom door, seeing a seat next to a student, that's a no-go. Can't do it. That's terrifying. But if the teacher was to come up to me, say one-on-one, instead of shouting it out in front of the class, " Rachael, would you like to sit next to this student? Or would you like me to ask them? Or can I get you a seat up the back? How's that?" That kind of thing, so really breaking it back down to that.

Justine Mackey:

And Chris, you were talking earlier about connection and belonging and listening to Rachael speak, it's also about those relationships. Can you tell us about some of your experience and your thinking about the importance of relationships?

Chris Varney:

Absolutely, Justine. I think relationships in a school form through lots of different ways, but if you're out there and you are banging your head against a brick wall because you're not sure how to connect with a particular learner, if they're really, really anxious, let's just workshop some strategies.

Number one, always having a positive first reaction to that young person is so important. Reframe some of the goals with that family and that student. Attendance might look different for a short while or a long while. You might need to have not just a modified timetable, but a different agreement in place to achieve re-engagement with school. You really want to make sure that you don't judge that learner on neuro-normative standards, and you want to make sure that you and your colleagues are safe people for that learner to share some of the irrational anxieties they might have around school. Because neurodivergent learners tend to mask a lot in a school context, it's always a bit of a process to get the information you need to make schools safer. So how do you get that information? Again, that positive first reaction, but you could also ask parents, carers, in parent-teacher interviews, what does the school day look like at home?

As teachers, we follow a lot of the tools that we're given. Sometimes our tools and individual education plans, don't ask that prompt, what does the school day look like at home? But asking that question, also asking what does breaking point look like? Because we do need to push students and really grow their resilience and prepare them for a world out there. I'm not saying that you fundamentally change the school rules, but it is important for you to ask what does breaking point look like?

Samantha Jeacle:

Chris, I'm interested in picking up on how we do this with very little people. So I am a high school teacher. Justine's a primary school teacher. I can talk to kids in year 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 pretty easily. They know themselves, sometimes they don't want to talk and you have to work with them to get to that point, as Rachael said. But what about a 6-year-old?

Chris Varney:

The 6-year-old? Look, you need consistent boundaries, but to get to consistent boundaries, you need to get to their level. It's really getting down to their level, leveraging their interests and learning where their language is at and then repeating that language back to them. That's an art form to get at the level of a 6-year-old, meet them where they're at and talk through the way that school runs and making sure they have both a fun time, but they're also learning how to play with others because that's obviously a big thing when you're six, learning how to play and be with others for six hours a day is no small feat.

Justine Mackey:

So then thinking about from the teacher's perspective, what do you think the teachers understand how to address work avoidance issues in students from primary school all the way through secondary school?

Chris Varney:

It's really important to have a team approach and to work with your colleagues to be kind of detectives and break down the day. Where's the work avoidance coming from? Is it the way we give instructions to this learner? Is it particular groups that they might be in? Is it a particular time of the day? Is it particular people? Like I remember at school, sometimes I would irrationally just shut off to particular teachers, which would've been so hard for the teacher because there was nothing innately they did wrong. But I was just a really sensitive soul. If I could turn around today and tell them I'm sorry, that was just where I was at with my emotional development, I would. But it is a real process.

Firstly, being a detective, working with your colleagues, can we understand this a bit more? But again, you've got to have your eyes on the long-term game here. Sometimes there might be a term, a semester, or even a year where work avoidance is a real thing, but you don't want to lose that relationship with the rest of the school because we are talking about a group of learners who can go on an amazing learning trajectory when they have the motivation. Look at Rachael 's story. When she had the motivation, there's a great outcome there. ATAR, everything.

Rachael Hamilton:

Can I just add to that Chris saying that work avoidance can be very present for a term, a semester or even a year or several years. Work avoidance is talking, that's in referral to schoolwork, on paper, answering questions, writing essays, et cetera. You are always learning though. So work avoidance is that's how the school is making work. That's how the education system works. But you are always learning. You don't have a year off learning. You don't stop learning throughout that period. You're always doing something so there are other ways to learn.

Justine Mackey:

So what conversations do we need to be having with schools about understanding that we are always learning?

Rachael Hamilton:

Well, I personally think it's a three-way street definitely between the student, the school and the home, the parents and the carers. I think you need to negotiate as a team and actually work out as a team because that's what you are. You are a team. You are all on this student's side. You are all trying to raise this student up to be the best that they can possibly be. And I think a lot of the time that student, where they are at the moment, they don't know that. I think sometimes that's not made obvious and it's not clear that you actually have people on your side. And I know that was the case for me.

Samantha Jeacle:

Thanks for bringing up that idea of the three-way street, Rachael. It leads me to ask a question about having really good communication between home and school, not just about what's going on for the young person, but also I think putting them at the center of that. I think the hard thing for the adults in the room sometimes is to adjust their own expectations and their own timelines. But what I'm hearing from you and Chris is really that idea of the student will get there if we support them as much as possible to step into it when they're ready. So what would you say about the communication that needs to happen and the spirit in which it should happen, I suppose?

Rachael Hamilton:

I think sometimes, well actually a lot of the time, home environments and parents and carers, well, they'll say, and this is a very common argument, I've heard it from my own parents. "Well, they didn't do that for me when I was at school, so why should we do it now? Why is everything changing now? Why should we have all these accommodations now when I grew up in a really strict environment and I'm completely fine?" And look, I'm not a professor of medicine or anything. I can't answer why we have diagnoses. I guess there's just more, we're recognizing more and more of that in students. But just in general, I think communication between students and the school, and especially between the school and the home, I guess is school, you need to work out what are your tools. I guess as Chris said, what are you actually taught to teach? What is your job here? And home, what can you bring to the table?

You know about the student, about their personal life, you know them so well, but sometimes it's a case of the school knows the student better than home does and their parents and carers do. And sometimes that's really evident in where students are struggling. I've heard this quite recently actually. Some students go to school to learn and some students go to school to feel at home, to feel safe.

Justine Mackey:

To be.

Rachael Hamilton:

Yes.

Samantha Jeacle:

Interesting observation. And I think a really helpful one in this conversation, and it absolutely speaks to your experience of connection with the bands that you're in, and I think to Chris doing every single extracurricular additional activity that he could get involved with, with school. So we need to prioritize the inclusive idea of school and let's not let anything get in the way of the student feeling comfortable in the space and with the people and have that as our first instinct and the learning will come. Chris, is that really what we're trying to advocate for here?

Chris Varney:

Absolutely. There's one thing I want to add to communication, because I think primary schools are positioned pretty well to really support that communication structure because there's one teacher and education support officers are in the Catholic context or non-government context, learning support officers that can support that family. This is probably where we need to really support secondary schools. Well, specifically secondary school leadership teams to culturally celebrate and model great communication with families because it is challenging in a secondary school context when a learner has potentially nine different teachers who are all communicating with home. So the way that a secondary school leadership team sets up communication with families, whether through year level coordinators, wellbeing, learning, diversity teams, I think that's really where we're at in Victoria. How do we really support that communication back to secondary families that are experiencing anxiety in all its different forms? We've got some great examples in that secondary context, and I think it's really important to share them more widely because I think secondaries need support here.

Justine Mackey:

Are there any of those that you can share? Because I'm really picking up that idea of the importance of the partnership and the collaboration. Have you got some examples that you can share where those relationships and those partnerships between parents and students and the school are working really well?

Chris Varney:

Yes, I do. Hoppers Crossing Secondary College. There's an amazing teaching and learning culture there. Everyone is really committed to their students. I can give so many examples of this school. They don't let anyone fall through the cracks. Each year, they have autism and neurodiversity as part of their PD schedule. Even though they're all pretty well versed in it, they keep it on the agenda because no two autistic students are the same. They have an active focus on pathways post-school. So they're constantly thinking about, well, how do we make sure that post-school, this learner is set up for success? So I've had phone calls from senior leaders at that school talking about one student, and they're like a bull terrier. They haven't let go. They want to see success. And there's so many more primary and secondary schools that have these examples as well. But to give one example out there, that it's the staff culture that set that up. You can't be at that school and not be conscious of thinking about great individual outcomes for each learner. That's what sets them apart.

Justine Mackey:

All I heard was that unrelenting focus on the student, and there is nothing greater that we can do as educators and as leaders to have that unrelenting focus on those young people and thinking about them beyond the school.

Samantha Jeacle:

And I think Justine, so many teachers have that, but get a little bit stuck in the what to do. So I think the advice that we've had from Chris and Rachael today, start with the person, really, start with the family is so helpful. But maybe Chris, you can also tell us where else we can go to get some really good help.

Chris Varney:

Keep it really simple. Inviting your students to inform your practice. One thing, I've watched some great stuff in Victorian primary and secondary schools where school teams have invited students and parents to come to their PD days and talk to them about what school's like and how can we make school as safe as possible. iCAN Network where we're very lucky to work in 100 government schools and 34 non-government schools, and we're scaling up to deliver our program in 254 government schools over the next 4 years, which is very exciting. So we're determined to make sure that our program is as accessible as it can be for schools out there.

Our dream really is to see an iCAN mentor available to every school that needs one. So we're doing everything we can to get in that spot because our data from Australian Catholic University who did a big independent evaluation really brought home that message of you're getting outcomes in attendance and engagement with school all from that belonging. And the belonging someone feels when they meet someone like Rachael who's walked their journey, who can say, "I was where you were, and look at what I'm doing now, and you just stick it out and ask these questions, seek out help, be yourself, be proud of who you are." That is such an important message to give young people in their formative years.

Justine Mackey:

So thinking, I can hear the idea of this connection, the belonging, you keep coming back to it and putting our young people at the center of all that we do, but really bringing them into that conversation. There's such fabulous insights that you've given us today. For each of you, there's one last question for you to consider. Let's start with you first, Rachael, thinking about looking into the future, what is your hope and your vision for the education in supporting neurodiverse students?

Rachael Hamilton:

The dream, the ideal world, I think for me would be that there is no major wall that divides autistic and neurodivergent students and neurotypical students. Of course, there's going to be that two groups, but I'd like to see that merge, and I'd like to see this just become normal. This just needs to be normal. There needs to be discussions about every student and every little thing that's going on in everybody's life and how that affects them in the school environment.

Justine Mackey:

Same question to you, Chris.

Chris Varney:

For me, culture eats strategy and the culture that Rachael 's talked about is a normalization of this, across teaching practice, across the way we set up student assemblies and student year levels. I think the outcome and the vision behind it will be that every single school in Victoria is safe for any student locally. I think that's the long, long, long-term vision.

Justine Mackey:

Looking forward to being a part of that with you, and we thank you so very much for your time today. It's been an absolute pleasure to speak with you. Chris, Rachael, thank you.

Chris Varney:

Thanks for having us.

Justine Mackey:

And Sam, thank you.

Samantha Jeacle:

Thank you, Justin. It's been lovely.

Justine Mackey:

So we hope you enjoyed this podcast episode. You can stay up to date by subscribing to Academy Podcasts and following the Academy on social media.

Outro:

We hope you enjoyed this Academy podcast episode. You can find out more about our upcoming professional learning opportunities at academy.vic.gov.au and follow us on social media to stay up to date.