Leaving School on the NDIS: What Happens Next in Victoria

Published by SESI Care Services · Updated September 2026 · 4-minute summary

Quick answer: School provides roughly thirty structured hours a week for about forty weeks a year, and on the last day of Year 12 all of it stops at once. Nothing automatically replaces it. What fills the gap is whatever you arranged in advance: usually some mix of School Leaver Employment Supports (SLES) from the capacity building part of your NDIS plan, Inclusive Employment Australia, the Australian Government program that replaced Disability Employment Services on 1 November 2025, study at TAFE or university, supported employment in an Australian Disability Enterprise, and community participation hours. Victorian schools must run career action planning from Year 9 through the Student Support Group, so the planning structure exists, but it will not build your post-school week for you. Start naming what you want at the beginning of Year 11, get an employment goal into the plan before the last reassessment of school, and know that from 1 October 2026 social and community participation budgets are the ones being reset, so a week built entirely on day program hours is the most exposed shape you can choose.

Key takeaways

• The drop is about thirty hours a week. Roughly six hours a day, five days, forty weeks. Whatever you do not arrange stays empty.
• Start in Year 11, not Term 4 of Year 12. Victorian schools must maintain an annual career action plan from Year 9, and the Student Support Group is where post-school options belong.
• SLES is still funded in 2026. It remains a support item in the NDIS Pricing Arrangements for 2026-27 and sits in capacity building, not core.
• Disability Employment Services no longer exists. Inclusive Employment Australia replaced it on 1 November 2025, with no time limits on how long you stay with a provider.
• You can register as an Eligible School Leaver while still at school, under 22 and in your final year, without being an NDIS participant and without being on a payment.
• The NDIS does not pay for education. No course fees, no textbooks, no learning adjustments. It pays for the disability support that lets you attend.
• Employment supports are carved out of the October 2026 reset. Social and community participation is not, and that difference should shape the week you build.

The cliff, described honestly

For thirteen years someone else has organised your child’s day. Transport arrives, a timetable exists, other people are in the room, and staff notice when something is wrong.

Do the arithmetic on what that is worth. A Victorian secondary school day runs roughly six hours, five days a week, across about forty school weeks a year. Call it thirty hours of supervised, structured, social time, delivered without you building any of it. The day after the last day of Year 12, that becomes zero. Not reduced, not restructured. Zero.

Unlike every other transition in the school system, nobody sends you a letter. There is no automatic enrolment anywhere, the NDIA does not ring you, and the school’s obligation ends when the student leaves. The families who come through this well are not the ones with the biggest plans. They are the ones who started naming the pieces about eighteen months out, while the school was still in the room with them.

What the Victorian school is actually required to do

Victoria has more structure here than most families realise, and most of it goes unused because nobody says out loud what the meeting is for.

Departmental guidance on transition to post-school options says transitions should be part of a whole school approach to career development from Year 7 to Year 12, and that all students in Years 9 to 12 are required to have an individual annual career action plan, owned by the student and updated at least yearly.

The Student Support Group is the vehicle, and the guidance expects it to draw in people from outside the school: workplace learning coordinators, employment placement officers, disability liaison officers from higher education. That is the meeting where you ask, in Year 11, what the week after school looks like and who is arranging each part of it.

The senior pathway matters too. Victoria offers the VCE, the VCE Vocational Major and the Victorian Pathways Certificate, the last a foundation level certificate for students not yet ready for a VCE level qualification. A student already doing work related learning is not making a standing start in January.

What School Leaver Employment Supports is, in 2026

SLES is NDIS funding for the gap between finishing school and being ready for a job. It pays for the practice, not the job: work experience, job skills, workplace communication, travel training, and working out what kind of work suits you at all.

Two things get misreported. First, it still exists. SLES remains a listed support item in the NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits for 2026-27, effective 1 July 2026. It has not been abolished or renamed.

Second, it is not an entitlement with a fixed length. SLES has commonly been funded for up to two years after Year 12, and you will still see that figure quoted everywhere. The NDIA’s current guide to employment support for young participants frames employment support as available to participants aged 14 to 24 with an employment goal, and states no two year rule. Treat two years as a common pattern, not a promise. What you get is what your plan funds, which is why the goal has to be in the plan before you need the money.

If your child is 14 or older and still at school, the NDIS can already fund work experience beyond what the school provides, and support for a part-time job outside school hours. Most families never ask, and it is the cheapest way to reach Year 12 with something on a resume.

What replaced Disability Employment Services, and when

DES ended. Inclusive Employment Australia (IEA) replaced it from 1 November 2025. The Department of Social Services describes IEA as a new specialist disability employment program and says plainly that there are no more time limits, so you can stay with a provider as long as you need. You do not need a government payment to be in it, and it now accepts people with an assessed future work capacity of zero to seven hours a week, who were shut out of the old program. One inconsistency worth naming: some government pages still show the replacement commencing 1 July 2025, the original policy date. Where a page still says July, it has not been updated.

For school leavers there is an Eligible School Leaver pathway. The DSS fact sheet for young people with disability sets the conditions: under 22, in your final year of school or a school-based apprenticeship, of legal working age, with a substantial barrier to employment because of disability. You can register while still at school, you do not have to be an NDIS participant or on a payment, you will need a Centrelink Customer Reference Number, and you can use this entry point once.

SLES and IEA are not alternatives. SLES builds readiness, IEA finds and holds the job, and it works best when both are in place before the last day of school.

Australian Disability Enterprises and supported employment

An Australian Disability Enterprise runs a commercial operation while employing a workforce that is mostly people with disability, with supervision built into the job: packaging, grounds maintenance, laundry, assembly, hospitality, recycling. For some school leavers it is the right answer, and it deserves a proper look rather than being dismissed on principle or accepted without questions.

Pay is where the honest conversation is. These employees are covered by the Supported Employment Services Award, which includes Grade A and Grade B classifications for employees whose disability prevents them working in higher grades, and provides for a supported wage assessed as a percentage of the relevant rate under the Supported Wage System. That means productivity based pay, which can sit a long way below the full award rate. Ask any ADE what grade the role sits at, what assessment tool is used, how often it is repeated, and what the take-home figure actually is.

The NDIS side is separate. Your plan can fund supports in employment, the on-the-job coaching and disability-specific support that makes a job workable. It does not fund wages, superannuation, recruitment, work equipment, or the adjustments an employer is already required to make.

Further education, and what the NDIS will not pay for

The NDIA’s work and study guideline draws the line clearly. The NDIS can fund personal care while you study or are on an approved placement, transport where your disability prevents independent travel, and training for TAFE, university or host employer staff about your support needs. It does not fund tuition or course fees in any setting, educational learning supports, or aids such as modified computers and textbooks.

That second half is not a gap, it is somebody else’s obligation. The Disability Standards for Education 2005, made under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, apply to schools, vocational education and higher education, and require reasonable adjustments so students with disability can participate on the same basis as others. If a TAFE suggests you fund an adjustment from your plan, that is a question for their disability liaison officer, not your plan manager.

What you need	Who is responsible
Course fees, tuition, textbooks, campus learning support	The education provider, under the Disability Standards for Education 2005
Personal care while at TAFE or university	NDIS
Transport to study where disability prevents independent travel	NDIS
Job searching, resumes, interviews, employer contact	Inclusive Employment Australia
Building work readiness before you are job ready	NDIS, through SLES
On-the-job disability support once employed	NDIS, as supports in employment
Wages, superannuation, workplace adjustments, work equipment	The employer
Travel training, catching a bus alone, navigating with an app	NDIS, capacity building
Structured daytime activity, groups, community access	NDIS, social and community participation

How the capacity building budget works for this age group

Employment supports sit in capacity building, not core. A school leaver’s plan usually draws on three areas: employment supports for SLES and later supports in employment, improved daily living for skill building, and social and community participation for the hours in between.

Funding periods change the pacing. Since 19 May 2025, new and reassessed plans generally release funding in three month funding periods rather than making the year available at once. Your total does not change, but a SLES program that front-loads work experience into one term needs discussing with the NDIA rather than assuming.

Goals do the work. Capacity building is funded against goals, and “get a job” is too vague to defend at reassessment. “Travel independently from home to a workplace in Narre Warren by bus, four days a week, by December 2027” tells a planner what they are funding and gives you something to evidence. Our guide to how capacity building helps you achieve independence covers the logic, and development of life skills and assist travel and transport are where most of it lands.

The October 2026 reset, and why it matters to school leavers

From 1 October 2026, under the Securing the NDIS for Future Generations Act, funding for two named groups of supports can be reduced by ministerial determination: assistance with social, economic and community participation, and improved daily living skills. The NDIA’s summary of the changes says budgets for social, civic and community participation and for capacity building daily activities will reset progressively as plans are reassessed or renewed, over about twelve months.

The carve-out matters as much as the cut. The NDIA states these changes will not affect funding for education supports, employment supports, disability related health supports, or help with eating and drinking. Employment supports, including SLES, sit on the protected side of the line. Day programs and community access do not, and that is exactly where many school leavers land by default, because it is the option that takes the least arranging. If the whole post-school week is community participation hours, you are building on the one category the legislation is aimed at. We set out what the Act does and does not allow in what the NDIS legislation actually changes.

This is not a reason to avoid community participation. It is a reason not to let it be the whole answer by accident. A week weighted towards employment supports, skill building and real work experience is both a better life and a more durable plan.

Building the replacement week

Timing	What to do
Start of Year 11	Put post-school options on the Student Support Group agenda in writing, and ask for the career action plan to be reviewed with transition in mind
Through Year 11	Ask the NDIS to fund work experience beyond what the school arranges, and try one thing that is not a school activity
The next plan reassessment	Get an employment goal into the plan, because without it employment funding is hard to argue for later
Term 1, Year 12	Shortlist and visit SLES providers, and register as an Eligible School Leaver with an IEA provider
Terms 2 and 3, Year 12	Lock in transport, and start practising the actual journey
Term 4, Year 12	Have the January timetable written down, hour by hour, before the last day of school
First six months out	Expect it to be rough, and review at three months rather than waiting for the reassessment

Transport is the piece families underestimate. School buses do not follow you out of school, travel training takes months rather than weeks, and it is the difference between a young adult who can get to a job and one who cannot. Our post on what NDIS assist travel covers explains how that funding works.

If the arranging itself is the problem, that is what support coordination is for, and it runs by phone and video Australia-wide. The hands-on side, the assist life stage transition supports that put a worker alongside a young person through the change itself, is delivered in person across Victoria, including from our base in Narre Warren. Our earlier overview of what assist life stage transition means covers the category across any life change, not just this one.

Frequently asked questions

Talk to SESI

If you are in the last two years of school and trying to work out who arranges what, tell us where your child is up to and we will talk through the pieces.

Tell us what’s going on: sesi.com.au/referral · Call: 1800 017 374

This guide is general information based on National Disability Insurance Agency, Department of Social Services, Fair Work Ombudsman and Victorian Department of Education guidance current at September 2026. It is not advice about your individual plan, your child’s schooling or any employment arrangement. For questions about your NDIS plan, contact the NDIA on 1800 800 110.