How to support a child with ADHD or a learning difficulty in Victorian schools: a practical guide for parents

You already know something is off. Maybe the school has flagged it, maybe you've been watching it for years. Either way, the system that's supposed to help can feel opaque, slow, and full of acronyms nobody bothers to explain.

This post is a plain-language guide to how Victorian schools actually support kids with ADHD, dyslexia, and other learning difficulties, and what you can do alongside that to make real progress.

What the school system can offer

Victorian schools use a framework called the NCCD (Nationally Consistent Collection of Data) to identify students who need adjustments. This isn't a diagnosis. It's the school documenting what support they're already providing, and it feeds into funding decisions at a national level.

For students with more significant needs, there's the Program for Students with Disabilities (PSD). PSD funding is targeted at students whose disability has a substantial functional impact on their learning. It's worth asking your school directly whether your child has been assessed for PSD, because many families don't know it exists.

The IEP: what it is and how to use it

If your child has an identified learning difficulty, they should have an Individual Education Plan (IEP). This document sets out specific learning goals, the adjustments the school will make, and how progress will be reviewed. In practice, IEPs vary a lot in quality.

Ask to be included in every IEP meeting. Bring notes. Ask specifically what adjustments are happening in the classroom right now, not just what's planned. Good questions include: Is my child getting extra time on tasks? Are they seated away from distractions? Is the assessment format adjusted? You're entitled to know, and you're entitled to push back if the answer is vague.

ADHD in Victorian classrooms

ADHD is one of the most common reasons parents seek tutoring support, and also one of the most misunderstood. Schools can and should make adjustments for ADHD students, including flexible seating, chunked instructions, and movement breaks, but these require a formal diagnosis or professional report to be taken seriously.

If you haven't already, getting a formal assessment from a paediatrician or registered psychologist gives the school a document they can act on. Without it, you're asking teachers to take your word for it, which puts you in a much weaker position.

For high-performing kids with ADHD, the challenge is different. A bright child who is managing to keep their head above water often gets missed entirely, because their results look fine. If your child can do the work but is exhausted by the effort it takes, that's worth investigating too.

Dyslexia and reading difficulties

Dyslexia is not a vision problem and it's not about seeing letters backwards. It's a language processing difference that makes decoding written words genuinely harder than it should be. In Victoria, schools are expected to use evidence-based reading instruction, and the Science of Reading underpins the current curriculum approach, but implementation varies significantly between schools.

If your child is in the early years and struggling with reading, ask the school specifically what structured literacy or phonics-based approach they use. Ask to see your child's phonics screening results. If they're in upper primary or secondary and still reading significantly below year level, that gap doesn't fix itself. It needs targeted, systematic intervention.

What to do when school support isn't enough

Schools are doing a lot with limited time and staff. Even with the best intentions, a classroom teacher with 25 students cannot provide the one-to-one repetition and immediate feedback that many kids with learning difficulties need to make real gains.

This is where outside support makes the biggest difference, and it's also where getting the right match matters enormously. A tutor who understands how ADHD affects working memory, or how dyslexia affects reading fluency, approaches a session completely differently from someone who just re-explains the classroom content.

How Tuterly can help

If you're at the "what do I actually do next?" stage, Tuterly connects Melbourne families with tutors who have experience supporting kids with learning difficulties. When you're looking through our directory, you can filter for tutors with specific experience, so you're not starting from scratch.

Every session comes with a written report through the parent dashboard, so you can see exactly what was worked on and what needs practice next. For kids who need a lot of repetition on specific skills, the platform's targeted practice questions let you keep that practice going between sessions without having to find your own materials.

The goal isn't just to survive the school year. It's to build real skills that close the gap.

Find a tutor near you or browse our tutor directory to find someone with the right experience for your child.

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