Rationale
Shenton College Deaf Education Centre can enrol a diverse range of Deaf and Hard of Hearing students in the school, who can then access the services and facilities of Shenton College. For these students to view audio/visual texts, it is necessary for all such texts to be captioned.

Policy Statement
It is the policy of Shenton College Deaf Education Centre and Shenton College that all media shown in the classroom be captioned. Staff shall always ensure that only captioned media are shown in classes with Deaf or Hard of Hearing students.

If you have media that you would like captioned, or if you would like to source captioned media on a given topic, please contact the captioning office of the Deaf Education Centre held in M2.10.

Access to the Curriculum

Schools are now mandated to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the Disability Standards for Education 2005. The Act and Standards place an obligation on schools to ensure that all students who are Deaf or hard of hearing are provided with equitable access to the curriculum. Measures for compliance with the Standards include the availability of materials in a format that is appropriate for the student. (Disability Standards for Education 2005 sections 5.2 (1) and 6.2 (1)).

The Disability Standards for Education 2005 also places an obligation on schools to ensure that students are not disadvantaged by the time taken for conversion of materials into alternative accessible formats. (Disability Standards for Education 2005 section 6.3(c)).

In addition, the Standards provide for staff to be informed of the availability of specialised services to enable them to assist students to access these services. (Disability Standards for Education 2005 section 7.3(a)).

In reference to the Disability Standards for Education 2005, schools may already be able to meet these obligations because many commercially produced DVDs come with pre-installed captions/subtitles. However, there are still several items being used in schools that do not have this feature.

Background
The Deaf Education Centre provides a service to all staff to ensure that it is possible to obtain a captioned copy of any visual media file, including Podcasts. The Deaf Education Centre places all media captioned into its DEC Captioning Browser for all staff and students to access.

Many DVDs are commercially available with closed or open captions. Either way, they can be shown to the students. If the DVD/media is not available through any of these means, the Deaf Education Centre can caption a copy of the media. The school must have a purchased copy of the DVD before we can make another copy for captioning.

The Captioning Centre is unable to obtain Visual media from online subscription services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime etc.

Procedures

Deaf Education Library
To make use of captioned media from the Deaf Education Centre, please access the DEC Captioning Browser. https://dec.shenton.wa.edu.au/caption

ClickView
ClickView has a comprehensive and regularly updated library of ClickView-produced videos aligned to the education curriculum, plus the best available free-to-air TV programs and movies.

Getting a Television Program Recorded
Free-to-air television programmes are now viewed through ClickView 24/7. Captioning staff can upload any programme with television subtitles, within a fortnight of the broadcast.

Captioning Media
Captioning is a time-consuming process, so staff need to give at least two weeks’ notice of items requiring captioning, particularly if the item is longer than 30 minutes. Once completed an MP4 version will be made available on the DEC Captioning Browser.

For more information, please contact Senior Captioner Lisa June on lisa.june@education.wa.edu.au.