This week one of my wife's relations asked me questions for an assignment for her Teaching Assistant course. Perhaps some of my answers may lift the lid a bit on the world of special education. All observations and opinions are, of course, my own and not official.
1-Do you
have any experience working with special needs children?
Yes. [Looked After Children two years... For a
year or so I also taught at a project to reintegrate 15-year-olds youngsters
who had been out of education for some time... some supply teaching at special
schools for physically disabled children...autistic children at an ASD special
school for a couple of months... From 2006 on at primary age Pupil Referral
Units... now I am the Targeted Intervention Lead Teacher and assist staff with
assessments of various kinds.]
2-Do you
feel that children with disabilities should be integrated into mainstream
schools or segregated into special schools? Why?
Some yes,
some no. Integration can be good for the pupil, because it helps prevent
institutionalisation and low expectations; it can also be good for the
mainstream children to learn to mix with, cope with and help children who are
different from them. But there are some children with emotional or behavioural
difficulties (EBD), or who are on the Autistic Spectrum (ASD), who don’t mix
well with mainstream children or cope well with a large group. Perhaps physical
disability is easier for “ordinary” children to see and understand.
3- What
effect do the SEN children have on the mainstream pupils?
I don’t get
to see this much in our context. Mostly, we cater for children who have been
excluded from mainstream. And it depends on what kind of SEN it is –
emotionally upset and attention-demanding children can seriously subvert the
work of a class, which is why they tend to get excluded. Autistic children can get very stressed by
noise, changes of location etc. In a mainstream school it takes a very skilful
and energetic teacher to manage children of different kinds in one class and
still make adequate academic progress overall, and the workload and stress on
the teacher can be considerable.
There is
also the question of how different SEN types react to each other. EBD and ASD children
don’t understand each other; EBDs wonder why ASDs “don’t stick up for
themselves” and also why they butt in, pass annoying comments or tell teacher
about misbehaviour, whereas ASDs wonder why EBDs aren’t following rules, and
don’t understand why they get hit for telling the truth. EBDs enjoy being a bit
out of control; ASDs try to control everything (e.g. I know a little girl who
made a coloured time chart for when each of her friends was supposed to spend
time with her).
3-In your
experience of education (personal +professional) how have attitudes +policies
changed towards special education?
Many
primary schools are now much more aware of the need to use strategies to manage
behaviour, and are on the lookout for special needs. But the skill level is
patchy – there are still schools that let a child’s problems continue for years
and then throw them out as SATS looms up. Secondary schools are, I understand, generally well behind primary schools in
adapting to the behavioural variety of their intake.
Screening
and funding arrangements for special needs are currently changing, and some
suspect that there is a save-money agenda behind some of the changes. Our PRUs
feel that there are not enough special school places and the system is
creaking; it doesn’t help that we now have so many broken and abusive or
inadequate families that yield children with enduring emotional problems.
4- Do you
have a teaching assistant to support you in your daily routines? What do you
feel are the benefits and disadvantages of this?
Yes, we all
have at least one full-time TA in every class in our PRUs. It’s essential for
managing the children’s behaviour, and for professional protection against
false accusations (we sometimes have to handle children physically, for their
own and others’ safety). And there is so much paperwork.
A number of
TAs are agency staff and need to be shown how to do things our way; this means
more time in training and supervision. It’s a hard job and not everyone stays
with us.
5 – Within
your setting how do you ensure that the planning and day-to-day routines are
flexible to accommodate individual children needs?
Activities
are planned to meet the range of abilities, so there is differentiation in task
and outcome. We also look at learning styles (visual/audio/kinaesthetic), do
regular assessments of behavioural risk, have individual Behaviour Management
Plans, Individual Education Plans (IEPs), CRISP analysis (Criteria for Special
Provision) and do social developmental and attitude testing using the Boxall Profile
or PASS (Pupil Attitudes to Self and School). Staff have to be flexible because
individuals can still “kick off” and the work of the class may have to be
suspended while issues are resolved.
6- Do your
children have a voice in your setting? Please give examples.
Yes. For
example, many are involved in the Common Assessment Framework and some are
Looked After; both processes allow the child to express opinions. And we have a
School Council that meets several times a term – they enjoy the sense of responsibility.
When they have seriously misbehaved they do a Put It Right sheet that asks them
to reflect on what they did, why, what the result was and what they should do
next time. In their exercise books they can indicate how well they think they
understood their lesson.
7- In your
opinion does statementing lead to a more inclusive practice? Please explain.
Most of the
primary schools that buy into our additional services work hard to spot and
help children with difficulties. The SENCo in such schools will usually be
pretty good at doing CRISPs, IEPs, IBPs (for behaviour), Pupil Provision Plans
etc. Young teachers also seem to be fairly well briefed on managing behaviour
and special educational needs – far (far) better than the teacher training I
received in the 70s.
A Statement
of Special Needs has legal teeth and is reviewed at least annually. It defines
the child’s needs and how they are to be addressed. You can end up with a
formidable list as SENAR (Special Education Needs and Review) takes in reports
from all and sundry and in effect turns all of it into action points. You then
have a recommendation as to placement – which is decided by SENAR in
association with the parents/carers: mainstream with funded support, special
school, or a “resource base” (a school with some mainstream classes but also a
special unit where the child may spend much of the time).
We do see
placements fail in secondary, especially in Year 7, as many children can’t cope
with the transition, so our [PRUs are] now doing more to hold onto and support
children across the KS2/KS3 divide, and in KS4 the youngsters are being steered
into projects like the XXXX Project, rather than into secondary schools that
can’t or won’t effectively cater for their needs. Not everyone is made for
mainstream school.
8- You said
you work with inter-agency and CAF. Can you tell me a bit more on how this
supports the inclusion of the child?
Think of
the child’s difficulties as symptoms and their family and its circumstances as
the causes. The CAF process can reveal what’s really going on at home, and help
to get agencies to work more urgently to solve problems (e.g. re inadequate
housing). Education and social work have a significant interface, and if you
don’t deal with the whole child you’ll only get partial success.
But it also
becomes clear that in some cases, even the parent/carer isn’t as committed to
the child’s needs as they should be. Ultimately this can lead to a social
services referral for neglect or abuse – but at least that is also a kind of
progress in solving the child’s problems.
We are now
generally doing fCAFs (Family CAFs) rather than individual child CAFs, because
more often than not there are other children in the same family with problems,
or the adults have their own difficulties, or the family as a whole has a
problem (e.g. housing).
The
government has latched onto CAF as a tool for tackling “problem families”,
which means that in some cases the agenda can be at least partly driven from
above rather than by the clients. CAF was set up as a voluntary system and the
official “mission creep” could undermine the consensual nature of the process.
9- How does
funding affect inclusion for your setting?
We get
additional funds, but I’m not an expert in this. However, we are not a special
school and so don’t get the level of resources they do.
10 – Do you
find there is any policies or provision that restricts you doing your job?
Our
children have significant social and emotional difficulties. The demands of the
National Curriculum can be a burdensome distraction in these circumstances,
because until the emotional needs are met the learning can’t proceed. It’s
quite a juggling act. I’m wondering whether provision like ours shouldn’t have
its own specialised curriculum.
We also
tend to be used as a prolonged, cheaper alternative to special school
provision. The original concept for our PRU was that children would only be
with us for a few weeks, while we did assessments and organised reintegration;
instead, we have had a number of children who have been with us for 1 – 3
years. Partly that’s down to a shortage of special school places and partly to
difficulties in getting readmittance to mainstream. There is also the question
of how long it takes to conduct a Special Needs Assessment – typically at least
6 months; and unless it starts early in the Autumn Term you’re unlikely to
complete in time to secure a place in special school for the following
September.
11- I know
from experience that some families are hard to reach, how does your setting
encourage parent partnerships?
CAF is
helpful. We also had Family Support Workers that liaised between us and the
home, but this ended in April when we reorganised. We used to have a nominated
Integrated Family Support Team member, but again this has faded back and now we
are just referred to the local IFST for such support as they may be able to
provide. Our plan is to develop some of our TAs to offer some support for
parents and carers; and they are currently being trained by me to take over
CAFs, which until recently I’ve run myself.
12 –If you
were developing a 5 year plan, what would you like to change or develop in your
setting?
a.
Radically shake up Special Needs Assessment, to be more like a Formula 1
pit-stop – get the professionals to see the children and write their reports
within a few weeks at most. Ideally a Statement should be finished in 4 – 6
weeks, in my opinion. Also, these assessments should be made at the child’s
home or mainstream school – not wait till a permanent exclusion.
b.
Following from (a), as soon as a Statement is finished, the child is entitled
and should begin receiving it in full immediately and with full funding, not
languish in a PRU like someone whose plane has been cancelled.
c. Work
with primary schools to create Transfer Panels as in secondary schools, who
have taken on pupil-swapping and made it a success.
d. More
training and support for staff in mainstream schools, to help identify and
support children with additional needs.
e. Rethink
the curriculum and provide more standardised resources and courses of work.
Teachers are spending too much time on the paper side of things and in dread of
OFSTED, when their energies should be going into the children.
If we did
all the above we would hardly see any children arrive in our PRU. This would be
a good thing, as putting children with behavioural difficulties together in one
place is like the cross-infection of a doctor’s waiting room.
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