About Our School
Kotara School aims to provide the opportunity for every student to achieve success in all aspects of their life. To provide an environment that supports students to find the ‘courage to learn’ and the ‘courage to change’.
Kotara School is a school for specific purposes on two sites. The school has an enrolment of 42 students who are offered a place by our district placement panel. The panel is made up of staff from Adamstown Educational Services, psychologists, principals and consultants.
We aim to create an environment where students have the space and supports they need to identify and work on the behaviours that have led to their placement at Kotara School. Through the partnership between students, their parents and communities, Kotara School and their census school we teach new strategies to allow students to return successfully to their census schools and rejoin their classrooms and their friendship networks. Our behavioural interventions are based on the work of Dr Bruce Perry and his Neurosequential Model for Education.
Our student body are drawn from a wide area including Newcastle, Lake Macquarie and Port Stephens area.
Kotara School is staffed with a school principal, two assistant principals, classroom teachers, student learning and support officers, and a school administration manager.
At our campus we cater for 28 students in 4 classes from years 3-6. Our 4 classes are Yellow Class, Red Class, Blue Class and Green Class. Each class has a classroom teacher and a Student Learning Support Officer.
Kotara School has extensive partnerships with other service providers and agencies in Newcastle and surrounds. We have developed quality relationships with partner schools and provides a range of professional learning opportunities to support them and the wider educational community.
Kotara School provides significant support the Newcastle and surrounds Special Educator’s Hub as part of our mission to inform and support the wider special and mainstream education community.
Kotara School also supports and contributes to other professional learning resources for our wider community. The Inclusion I and Inclusion II conferences are a join partnership we support along with the Educational Services teams of Newcastle and Adamstown.