Student Services

Senior Site

Gold Creek School provides an alternative model to the traditional welfare team, by providing a holistic approach to Student Support. The Student Services team operate a range of services to support students and families, to help remove the barriers to learning.

The team includes;
Pastoral Care Coordinator (Executive Teacher)
School Counsellor
Youth Support Worker
Special Needs Executive Teacher
Case Management Executive
Deputy Principals of both the Middle and Senior Schools
Careers and Work Experience Teacher
Defence Transition Mentor
Chaplain

This holistic approach recognises that the provision of student services often involves teaching and welfare professionals from different delivery areas, rather than just providing pastoral care that takes a single track. The team has adopted a ‘systems’ approach that brings together careers and work experience, the school counsellors, youth worker, special needs, pastoral care executive teacher and the deputy principals of both the Middle and Senior Schools located in one dedicated Student Services area. The team offers counselling and mediation as well as actively pursuing ways to further develop the school's links with the Gungahlin Community including the Gungahlin Youth Centre, Gungahlin Police and agencies to ensure students and family are supported.

To complement this innovative model, Gold Creek School supported its implementation with a whole school (K-10) social and emotional learning (SEL) program across the school aimed at explicitly teaching and modelling social and emotional skills and developing empathy and acceptance.

Student Services model also supports the embedding of restorative practices across the school as a practice and in repairing the harm to relationships that occurs after incidents occur as well as the use of circle time in classrooms as a pedagogical tool in debriefing, curriculum delivery and building relationships.

The role of Student Services is a proactive one in terms of providing support to students and linking them with appropriate agencies and programs, whilst this is related to behaviour management, behaviour management is not the role of Student Services and we have Year Coordinators, Executive Teachers and Deputies to work with students, staff and parents within our processes and structures to manage behaviour.

Students and families can seek support from Student Services by contacting the Front Office on 62051814 or by sending an e-mail to studentsupport@goldcreek.act.edu.au .