Description
Ballarat Specialist School | Allied Health Team
$93,265 - $109,967 + Supper |Paid School Holidays | PD Budget | Dedicated Therapy Space
Ongoing - Start 5th October 2026
Ballarat Specialist School is seeking a motivated and innovative Paediatric Occupational Therapist to join our multidisciplinary Allied Health Team.
This position has a strong focus on functional capacity, curriculum access, task modification, assistive technology and equipment prescription.
Your role will be to identify what is preventing a student from successfully participating in learning and then work alongside the student and their classroom team to find a solution.
Sometimes that solution might be assistive technology or specialised equipment. Sometimes it will involve modifying the task, environment or teaching approach. At other times, the best intervention will be developing the student's underlying functional capacity so that, over time, they can participate with greater independence and fewer adaptations.
That balance between providing access today and building capacity for tomorrow sits at the heart of this role.
Why you'll love working with us
We want to provide our Occupational Therapists with the time, resources and professional autonomy to do great work.
This role offers the benefits and security of working within the Victorian Government school system, combined with a level of clinical autonomy and resourcing that allows you to genuinely develop your practice.
Competitive Victorian Government salary
The position will be classified at Education Support Class, Level 1, Range 4 (ES 1-4) under the applicable Victorian Government Schools Agreement, with salary determined according to the successful applicant's classification and experience.
School-based working hours
Enjoy working predominantly within school hours, providing greater consistency and work-life balance than many traditional community, NDIS or private-practice caseloads.
Generous leave and paid school holidays
Enjoy the leave entitlements available through the Victorian Government school system, including paid school holiday periods, providing a working calendar that is difficult to match in many clinical settings.
Dedicated therapy spaces
You'll have access to dedicated spaces for individual therapy, small-group interventions, assessment, planning and collaborative work — while still having the flexibility to work directly within classrooms and other school environments.
A generous operational budget
We want our clinicians to have the resources they need to do their jobs effectively. You'll have access to a generous operational budget to support the development of therapy programs, resources, equipment and new initiatives.
Work as part of a genuine multidisciplinary team
You'll work alongside a multidisciplinary team of Allied Health, Mental Health, Wellbeing and Education professionals, with opportunities for regular collaboration, shared problem-solving and multidisciplinary intervention.
Dedicated professional development support
Continued professional growth is important to us. You'll have access to a professional development budget to support relevant training, courses and development opportunities.
Autonomy to create and innovate
This isn't a role where every hour of your week is dictated by billable appointments.
You'll have the autonomy to manage your caseload and referrals while identifying opportunities to develop new programs, staff training, group interventions, resources and whole-school initiatives that improve outcomes for our students.
Full-time preferred — part-time considered
We are ideally seeking a full-time Occupational Therapist, however we are very open to discussing part-time arrangements for the right applicant.
What will the role involve?
Working as part of our Allied Health Team, you will support students with a broad range of disabilities and functional needs.
Your work may include:
- Completing functional and occupational assessments to understand barriers to participation.
- Assessing how a student's physical, sensory, cognitive, fine motor, visual-perceptual and executive functioning skills impact curriculum access.
- Working directly within classrooms to analyse learning tasks and identify barriers to participation.
- Modifying classroom activities and learning tasks to improve accessibility.
- Recommending and prescribing assistive technology and specialised equipment.
- Supporting positioning, seating, access and functional participation within learning environments.
- Trialling equipment and strategies within the student's actual classroom environment.
- Developing individualised programs to build students' functional capacity and independence.
- Supporting fine motor, upper limb, handwriting, technology access, self-care and other functional skills where they impact participation at school.
- Delivering targeted 1:1 therapy and small-group interventions.
- Working alongside teachers and Education Support staff to embed therapeutic strategies within everyday learning.
- Providing staff training, coaching and modelling around equipment, adaptations and therapeutic strategies.
- Monitoring outcomes and progressively modifying or reducing supports as students develop greater independence.
- Collaborating closely with Physiotherapists, Speech Pathologists, Occupational Therapists, Exercise Physiologists, Allied Health Assistants, Teachers, Education Support staff and families.
Access now. Independence for the future.
We don't want adaptations to automatically become permanent.
Where equipment or task modification is necessary, we want our students to have access to it.
At the same time, Occupational Therapy should continually ask:
"What skills could we build so this student can do more for themselves?"
A student may initially require adapted equipment, modified materials, physical assistance or assistive technology to participate in a classroom activity.
Your role is not only to establish that access, but also to consider the student's long-term functional development.
Can we improve upper limb function?
Can we develop fine motor capacity?
Can we improve postural endurance?
Can we teach a more efficient way of completing the task?
Can assistive technology increase independence?
Can we progressively reduce the level of adult assistance?
We are looking for an OT who enjoys answering those questions.
Beyond individual therapy
This is not a role limited to pulling students out of classrooms for individual therapy sessions.
You will work across 1:1 intervention, small groups, classrooms and whole-school capacity building.
We want our Occupational Therapists to influence the environment around the student.
That means working alongside teachers and Education Support staff to help them understand:
- why a student is finding a task difficult
- how a task can be modified without unnecessarily reducing its learning intent
- how equipment and assistive technology should be used
- what therapeutic strategies can be embedded into everyday classroom routines
- how staff can promote independence rather than inadvertently creating dependence.
Why Ballarat Specialist School?
School-based Occupational Therapy provides an opportunity that is difficult to replicate in traditional clinical practice.
Instead of assessing a child in a clinic and recommending what might work at school, you can be in the classroom with them.
You can observe the task.
You can see the barrier.
You can trial the solution.
You can train the staff.
And you can come back and see whether it actually worked.
You'll work as part of a multidisciplinary Allied Health Team with opportunities to collaborate closely with other Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists, Speech Pathologists, Exercise Physiologists, Allied Health Assistants and Education professionals.
You'll also have the autonomy to identify gaps and create solutions — whether that's a new student program, staff training package, equipment trial process, classroom resource or targeted intervention.
The person we're looking for
We are particularly interested in applicants who are self-driven and motivated to make the role their own.
The autonomy within school-based Allied Health practice means strong time management and initiative are essential.
We want someone who can manage their own caseload and referrals, but who also looks beyond their existing caseload and asks:
"Where else could Occupational Therapy make a difference?"
If you are an Occupational Therapist who enjoys problem solving, functional rehabilitation, assistive technology and helping children become more independent, this is an opportunity to apply those skills directly where kids spend much of their day.
Join Ballarat Specialist School and help our students move from simply accessing learning to participating in it as independently as possible.
Key Selection Criteria – Paediatric OT
1. Paediatric Occupational Therapy and Functional Capacity
Demonstrated knowledge, skills and experience in the provision of Occupational Therapy services to children and young people with disability, developmental differences and/or complex functional needs, with particular emphasis on assessing and developing the functional capacities required for participation, independence and access to education.
2. Functional Assessment, Task Analysis and Curriculum Access
Demonstrated ability to undertake functional assessment and task analysis to identify the physical, sensory, fine motor, cognitive, visual-perceptual, executive functioning and/or environmental factors impacting a student's ability to access and participate in learning. Demonstrated ability to use assessment findings to develop, implement and evaluate practical interventions within the student's everyday environment.
3. Assistive Technology, Equipment and Task Modification
Demonstrated knowledge and experience in the assessment, trial, prescription and implementation of assistive technology, specialised equipment, environmental modifications and/or task adaptations to improve student access, participation and independence. Demonstrated ability to balance the provision of appropriate adaptations with interventions that progressively develop a student's functional capacity and reduce unnecessary reliance on equipment or adult assistance where appropriate.
4. Collaboration, Staff Capacity Building and Classroom Practice
Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively with students, families/carers, teachers, Education Support staff, Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists, Speech Pathologists and other relevant professionals, including the ability to translate Occupational Therapy recommendations into practical classroom strategies and provide coaching, modelling and professional learning that builds staff capability.
5. Initiative, Autonomy and Innovative Practice
Demonstrated ability to work independently and proactively, manage a caseload and referral priorities, and use sound clinical reasoning to identify opportunities where Occupational Therapy can improve student participation and independence. Demonstrated capacity to initiate and develop individual interventions, small-group programs, classroom strategies, resources, staff training and/or broader initiatives in response to identified student and school needs.
6. Evidence-Based Practice, Evaluation and Professional Communication
Demonstrated commitment to evidence-based, outcome-focused and reflective Occupational Therapy practice, including the ability to establish meaningful functional goals, evaluate intervention outcomes and adapt practice accordingly. Demonstrated high-level written, verbal and interpersonal communication skills, commitment to ongoing professional development, and ability to seek and respond constructively to professional supervision and feedback.
Requirements
We are looking for an Occupational Therapist who is:
- Passionate about paediatrics, disability and functional participation.
- Skilled or interested in functional capacity assessment and intervention.
- Experienced or interested in assistive technology and equipment prescription.
- Able to analyse tasks and environments through an Occupational Therapy lens.
- Creative in adapting activities while preserving meaningful participation and learning.
- Passionate about developing independence and functional capacity.
- Confident working collaboratively with teachers and Education Support staff.
- Able to translate clinical recommendations into practical classroom strategies.
- Comfortable providing individual therapy, group interventions and classroom-based support.
- Highly organised and able to independently manage referrals and caseload priorities.
- Proactive and willing to identify opportunities for new programs, interventions and staff training.
Experience within paediatric disability, assistive technology, equipment prescription, functional capacity assessment or complex disability would be highly regarded.
