Dr Coral Kemp OAM

Dr Coral Kemp OAM is the Founding Director of Specialist Teaching and Research (STaR) Ltd, formerly the STaR Association. She established STaR in December 2001 at her own expense and has contributed pro bono to its governance, development and evidence-based practice ever since. STaR was founded on her belief that, with the right support, all people can and should learn together, and that lifelong learning is a human right.

Since completing a Master of Arts in Special Education, Dr Kemp has taught typically developing children, gifted children, and children with a range of disabilities, including multiple disabilities, from birth to 18 years, across special schools, special classes, preschools and playgroups. She has worked as a special education teacher for the NSW Department of Education, including supervising special education units in mainstream schools, as an early interventionist for a community-based disability organisation, as a preschool special education consultant for the NSW Department of Education, and as a special education consultant for the Association of Independent Schools. She has particular expertise in the assessment and programming of young children with special needs, and in working collaboratively with parents and schools.

For much of her career, Dr Kemp taught special education at undergraduate and postgraduate level at Macquarie University, as a Lecturer (1991 to 2002) and Senior Lecturer (2003 to 2014), and she is currently an Honorary Senior Lecturer engaged in collaborative research and the supervision of research students. During this time, she also served as Deputy Principal and Acting Principal of the MUSEC Special School, a school for primary-age children with documented disabilities, and as Director of its Early Intervention Program. Her doctoral research at Macquarie University focused on the inclusion of students with intellectual disabilities in mainstream early childhood and primary classrooms.

Dr Kemp established two early childhood inclusion models, a reverse-inclusion program at Macquarie University and a cluster program in a private childcare centre and wrote the successful application for a federal grant to establish an inclusion support program for children with disabilities in childcare centres in predominantly disadvantaged areas of Sydney. The project was externally evaluated and recognised by the Australian Institute of Family Studies as a promising practice. The program has continued, and now, more than twenty years later, is known as STaR’s Early Years Program.

Recognised nationally and internationally for her expertise in special education, Dr Kemp has more than 90 peer-reviewed publications and work cited more than 3,000 times. She is a Board member of the International Society on Early Intervention (ISEI) and chaired the Scientific Committee for the ISEI conference held in Sydney in 2019, and she has served as President and National Councillor of the NSW Chapter of the Australian Association of Special Education and on the Research Committee of The Shepherd Centre. She has acted as an independent consultant to schools on the inclusion of students with disabilities, an advocate for families navigating their children’s educational placements, and an expert witness in cases involving people with disability, and she is known for her generosity in mentoring educators and students, many of whom have gone on to successful careers in special education.

In 2017 Dr Kemp established InSpEd, the Institute of Special Educators, which she chairs, to improve the quality of special education provision in Australia across early intervention, school, and post-school and tertiary settings, and to give special educators a foundation from which to inform, mentor and advocate for the profession.