Education is full of acronyms, but even teachers and administrators who have served for decades in Christian schools may be unfamiliar with NCCD – which stands for the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data.
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Well, the NCCD acronym has become very important for people like Swan Christian College (SCC) staffers, Mr Lachlan Wilson (Head of Inclusive Learning) and Mrs Julia Aland (Dean of Inclusive Education), who administer government funds for the provision of students who require inclusive and remedial learning. Without these funds, educational support cannot be provided for children who need specific support in order to learn and grow in our SCEA schools.
Each year, the government funding for inclusive education is calculated based on school-supplied enrolment numbers using calculated algorithms and allowances for educational needs. However, when NCCD announce that they are coming to visit one of our SCEA schools to conduct a routine post-enumerative audit (ie. please account for how you have spent these government funds), there is an onus on staff such as Mr Wilson and Mrs Aland to be up-to-date with all of their paperwork and records.
Couple with this the need to ensure that all enrolment records are correctly completed and stored (enter Mrs Jane Jayes – Registrar, SCC) and funds are being appropriately allocated (Dr Ray Bartell – Business Manager, SCC) under the guidance of a College Principal who has significant experience working with students and staff in the area of inclusive education (Dr Darnelle Pretorius) and you have a wonderfully skilled team!
And so, after two thorough days of auditing (19-20 June 2023) the NCCD team concluded that SCC had a ‘clean bill of health’ and the College was allocating and using these funds wisely, for the correct purposes.
Credit for this process must also go to Dr Thelma Perso, whose SCEA document ‘Students with Disability for Principals’ was compiled in 2022 to assist with such situations. The benefits of Dr Perso’s vast knowledge in policy and reporting are continuing to reap the rewards for school staff and leaders as they seek to run their schools efficiently for the students and families in our system.
Congratulations to our colleagues at Swan Christian College, who have worked diligently over the past month to ensure that this week’s audit was a success, paving the way for other SCEA schools who will inevitably need to complete this process in the years to come.