The right school for the right student
The expansion and welcome increase in funding for SAS schools, due to changes in the Schools Assistance Act going back a decade means that they are no longer underfunded and precarious. The significant investment in these SAS means that we now must ask of them that they provide more than an alternative enrolment away from the mainstream. How can we be assured system that for the most vulnerable students they can find the right “place where they could receive an education in a style that suits them, with the personal support they might need and the prospect of being equipped with the skills and knowledge necessary for them to exercise genuine options in their adult lives.”
As SAS are independent school sit is hard to quantify the number of enrolments across Australia. In 2024 there were 18,000 young people Special Assistance Schools in the Independent sector. There were another 2,500 students in Emund Rice Education Australia Flexi schools , as well an unknown number of students in other SAS schools. What we do know is that growth in the number of SAS and the number of students in SAS have grown at an astonishing rate since 2014
Special schools, MATSIS and SAS account for only 3% of all independent school enrolments. However, over the past five years these schools have accounted for nearly 10% of all additional enrolments in independent schools. This is primarily driven by SAS schools, with average annual growth of 17.7% since 2016.
ASIS research report 2024 Pge 25
In our South Australian Case Study, the first SAS grew from a Catholic education outreach service began in 2015 with an initial enrolment of 67 students. In 2025 there were 10 campuses of 6 schools with an enrolment of 1039. The majority in the Northern Suburbs, 3 in the CBD and 1 in the Southern Suburbs. The largest provider is the newest that grew from 1 campus of 20 students in 2020 to three campuses with 306 enrolments in 2025.
These are schools with wrap around services that have been able to demonstrate that they cater primarily for young people with “behavioural, emotional or learning difficulties” It is clear from my engagement with SAS schools over the decade that the SAS do enrol students that have difficulty in mainstream, have not completed mainstream schooling and dare to look for a place where they can find support and have their educational needs met. What we know is that the formal outcomes for students in these schools is low, and that attendance remains an issue in many of these schools which are indicators that the young people have not yet found the place where they can receive an education in a style that suits them. Part of that is that is we do not know of the process by which students access the programs or how they are selected.
We know that from talking to students and to providers that many of the students move between the FLO/TL enrolment at a school, to FLO/TL Community Learning Centres and now between different SAS looking for a place that they can stay that meets their needs for appropriate support and an education with articulated pathways to further work, training and education.
Over the last 5 years FLO enrolment has been decreasing. ….This decrease is partly due to an increasing number of schools actively managing alternative programs for students vulnerable to disengagement as these students are not formally enrolled as FLO students.FLO redesign paper FOI 2023
In our first Leadership Paper “Its Time to Act” Andrew Bills and I addressed the complex system that young people disengaged and detaching from school faced as they moved from school to school, program to program looking to find a place where they could receive the education and support, they needed to make successful transitions. We recommended that the sectors cooperate to ensure that young people, the families, and schools could respond to ensure that all young people received the education and support needed to make successful transitions. We know that from talking to students and to providers that many of the students move between the FLO/TL enrolment at a school, to FLO/TL Community Learning Centres and now between different SAS looking for a place that they can stary that meets their needs for appropriate support and an education with articulated pathways to further work, training and education.
What we have instead is a complex of alternatives that compete for enrolments for young people. Young people in the Northern Area who are looking for an alternative placement can physically access the Department’s Northern Adelaide Senior College, FLO/TL provision through The Community Learning Centre, as well as five choices of SAS; Compass Catholic Community, EREA Flexi school or one of the three Indie School campuses. They can travel into the city to access Youth Inc. or SASY or the Inventorium.
We know that students move between these offerings and that the cohort of students is shifting. The range of students that can be encompassed under the category of “social, emotional or behavioral difficulties.” Is very broad. Schools attract extra funding under NCCD to take action to “enable a student with disability to access and participate in education on the same basis as other students. As more of those enrolling in SAS are neuro diverse young people we need to examine why mainstream schooling are working against inclusion and ensuring that the SAS is not just another place to fail.
The need to ensure that alternative schools are not dead ends but offer a genuine and viable education has a long history. The funding bis there now to ensure …”that such schools should be constructed as a genuine alternative that still provide quality curricula and facilitate access to higher and further education beyond the school years.”