Case study: Kai

Our case study illustrates adjustments for a student with disability studying Mathematics Standard. Kai is in Year 11 and has a mild intellectual disability. Learn about the personalised adjustments made to his teaching, learning, and assessment activities.

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Sample Mathematics Standard Stage 6 (Year 11) unit for Kai


Kai’s Mathematics teacher is programming a unit of work for the Statistical Analysis topic. The unit focuses on data collection and classification. It also focuses on the representation and interpretation of data. Students will gather data from Government websites. They will be assessed on their ability to apply their knowledge, understanding and skills to analyse the data.

Read our sample unit to see how Kai’s teacher incorporates appropriate adjustments into the teaching, learning and assessment activities. 

The sample unit also includes teaching and learning activities for students in the class who are following the Mathematics Life Skills Stage 6 Syllabus (2017).

Sample unit – Classifying and representing data – with adjustments and including Life Skills (DOCX 78.52KB)

Sample formal assessment task – Statistical analysis – with adjustments (DOCX 54.31KB).

Collaborative curriculum planning for Kai

Kai is in Year 11 and has a mild intellectual disability. It affects his learning such as his understanding of abstract concepts. Kai is studying Mathematics Standard for Stage 6 as he would like to develop his fundamental numeracy skills.

Kai has limited working memory. He struggles to:

  • retain facts and information, particularly mathematical formulae and strategies
  • apply his learning to different contexts
  • comprehend complex texts.

Kai learns best when he is able to engage in:

  • concrete tasks
  • hands-on experiences
  • learning that connects to everyday contexts.

Kai is able to socialise well with others and contributes confidently in group work.

Through collaborative curriculum planning, the school’s special education teacher discusses Kai’s learning goals and priorities with Kai and his parents. They identify Kai requires supplementary adjustments in all his subjects.

Adjustments for Kai

Through collaborative curriculum planning, it’s decided that Kai would benefit from the following adjustments:

  • presenting new material in smaller chunks
  • breaking down instructions into manageable steps
  • providing additional explanation of key concepts and repeated modelling
  • using visual scaffolds to aid memory and retention
  • using examples and non-examples to illustrate a concept
  • demonstrating cognitive strategies to support problem-solving. For example, visualising, verbalising, self-questioning, highlighting key information and using procedural prompts
  • explicit teaching of subject-specific language.

Kai’s Mathematics teacher considers how these adjustments can be used to support Kai’s learning throughout the unit of work.

Kai’s Mathematics teacher also considers the adjustments Kai will need for the assessment task. The chosen adjustments enable Kai to access the task and demonstrate his achievement on the same basis as other students.

Marking guidelines provided with the assessment task will be used to assess all student’ responses, including Kai’s. The adjustments provided for Kai do not impact on the outcomes to be assessed or the knowledge, understanding and skills students are to demonstrate.

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