Welcome to the North East Metropolitan Language Development Centre (NEMLDC) website. I am proud and privileged to be the Principal of such a dynamic, informed and influential school and supported by a diverse community of staff and families from across the north east metropolitan area.
I hope that as you browse through these pages, you will gain some understanding of our school and the support we provide for students both on site and in mainstream schools.
The NEMLDC is a one of five unique Independent Public Schools providing two distinct services to support students across the state with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD).
The first service is our school. We offer an intensive, specialised, early childhood (K-2) program for eligible students with significant language disorders. School staff work together to develop and deliver a mainstream curriculum with an Oral Language focus. Programs specific to the LDC support the development of students’ language and communication capabilities. These include programs for narrative, vocabulary, semantic, phonological awareness and comprehension development. The explicit and interactive teaching of social skills is a fundamental aspect of the program. A multi-disciplinary team consisting of educators, speech pathologists, school psychologist, occupational therapist and education assistants work collaboratively to develop and implement plans using a Tiers of Intervention model of program delivery, to address every child’s individual needs.
Outreach is a team of Support Officers – Speech and Language (SOSLs) made up of educators and speech pathologists who support mainstream schools to develop capacity of their staff to deliver oral language instruction for students in Kindergarten to Year 2. They support mainstream staff with interventions for students with language difficulties across the primary school years, including students transitioning into mainstream from the LDC. Outreach is committed to developing language leaders in the education community, to in turn develop Department staff capacity.
We believe every child at the NEMLDC can reach their future potential with the support of caring, positive and knowledgeable adults. Staff at the NEMLDC work hard to welcome and include parents as partners in their child’s education with regular communication, participation, planning and opportunities for parents to learn at our workshops.
We are committed to our core school values; Kindness, Respect, (for self, others and the environment) and Doing your best, and we strive to support students in understanding and applying these values in everyday life.
Our motto says it all… It’s what we do.
Developing language. Building futures.