Hearing-impaired children struggling in open-plan classrooms

Some parents of children with hearing impairments are concerned a trend towards open-plan classrooms is failing the needs of their children.

The Ministry of Education is spending millions of dollars on what it calls ‘Modern Learning Environments’ (MLE), in new and existing schools. The open-plan classrooms are designed to accommodate more than 100 children at a time.

A Chatswood woman who did not want to be named said her seven-year-old son, who suffers from sensory processing disorder, found it “really difficult to focus or learn well” at his MLE school.

The boy's classroom has around 120 students and five teachers. His mother said her son struggled with the transition from a normal classroom to an open-plan classroom, and his learning has since “plateaued”.

She said that an MLE school was “the worst possible environment” for her son, but there was no other option.

“What happens when there’s siblings involved and you both work? How do you manage to get to multiple schools and work places on time in the Auckland traffic?”

The woman and her husband spend more than $200 a week on therapy for their son because she said there was “zero funding to help him in these schools.

“It’s shocking. We both work but if we didn’t our child would just be left to fall through the cracks. It’s really stressful on our family. We spend so much on it every year.”

Sharnie Hill, who is studying to be a primary school teacher, said MLE schools were “just not working” for children with any kind of hearing impairment.

Ms Hill’s eight-year-old son suffers from auditory processing disorder. He currently attends a regular school, but Ms Hill said she was worried about the possible transition to an MLE school.

“He’s in a classroom of 22 kids and he’s already struggling. [An MLE school] is not at all feasible for him. It would be beyond comprehension.”

Another parent who did not want to be named said her 16-year-old son struggled in an MLE school.

"His teachers are not well-trained on how to use the classroom technology."

Open-plan education was first introduced into New Zealand schools in 1970, but was unsuccessful.

Ms Bourke said it felt like another “social experiment”.

“We’ve done this before as a country and it was a giant failure.”

Hear for Families, an auditory processing disorder support organisation, said there was “minimal allocation of budget from the Ministry of Education for considered and appropriate acoustically designed teaching spaces” in MLE schools.

Katrina Casey, Head of Sector Enablement and Support at the Ministry of Education, says regardless of whether a classroom is traditional or an MLE, there are "a variety of strategies that teachers can use to ensure children with hearing issues are able to take part fully".

"We don't believe the acoustic design of the bigger open-plan classrooms is the issue in itself. All new classrooms have to meet high acoustic standards."

Ms Casey said these standards will be updated again in a few months.

The Ministry works with acoustic consultants to ensure MLE classrooms support students to effectively hear and learn, but made no mention of what measures are taken to ensure children with hearing impairments receive the same support.

Ms Casey did not comment on the allocation of budget for the assistance of children with hearing impairments in MLE schools, but said there is funding available for technological solutions dependent on the level of impairment.