explore the issue of Inclusivity and Further Education with regard to students who have a disability.
Inclusivity
Foreword
This assignment has been written in order to explore the issue of Inclusivity and Further Education with regard to students who have a disability. Paying particular attention to students with Severe Learning Difficulties and Moderate Learning Difficulties and the opportunities and barriers they make come across when accessing and participating in FE. During the course of writing this assignment I have discussed Past, Present and future Legislation, and what this means to students and staff involved in this particular areas of education.
It has been my privilege to spend two years as an Inclusive Learning Officer and a further year has a Student Teacher in the Community Access Division at Burnley College and I have relied heavily on my experiences and observations during this period to complete this assignment. I have been able to do this as the staff and Governors pride themselves on providing an educational establishment that promotes ever widening equality of opportunity and have had no hesitation in answering my many questions and enquiries.
Introduction
This extract taken from the minutes Of a Northwest Development team meeting sums up what inclusivity means to people involved in the education sector today:
An educational system that segregates disabled people is increasingly offensive to all learners. It damages relationships between disabled and non-disabled people. It is grossly ineffective and a waste of our most valuable resource- human beings.
We have to be more creative in the way we value and actively encourage difference. More direct action is required to end this educational apartheid.
"Change the label- say black instead of disabled and see if anybody would tolerate this kind of prejudice as it is against a disabled person."
Hanson J Head Teacher of a Special Needs School Canada
(http://wwwnwtdt.com, 2003)
Nevertheless, despite nearly four decades of government legislation the international educational establishment is still looking for ways to improve inclusivity and equality of opportunity with regard to the disabled student.
Discussion
Politically Inclusion certainly seems to be the buzz-word of the 20th and 21st century but what exactly has this meant for the disabled student of the past and what does it mean for the disabled student of the present and future.
The Past
In 1896 the Education Department established a Committee on
Defective and Epileptic Children. At this time these children fell into
one of two categories, The imbeciles who were considered uneducable by reason of mental defect and could not be educated into being self supporting citizens, these it was recommended were to attend the asylums. The second were the feeble minded, who it was considered, were unable to be taught in main stream- schools. Therefore, the local school boards would be expected to provide education facilities from the age of seven to the age of fourteen in classes of not more than twenty, for four and half hours a day. This standard of education provision continued in broadly
the same form until the introduction of the Education Act 1944.
In 1944 recommendations were made to reorganize the structure of education provision with regard to disability. The Handicapped Pupils and School Health Service Regulations 1945 redefined eleven categories of disabled pupils: Blind, partially blind, deaf, partially deaf, delicate, diabetic, educationally subnormal, epileptic, maladjusted, physically handicapped, and those with speech defects. These were then split into two groups of serious disabled and disabled. The regulations prescribed that the blind, deaf, epileptic and physically handicapped fell into the latter category and must be accommodated at special schools, but where ever possible students in the second category should attend main stream schools.
However, these recommendations were not totally successful until the 1960's. Post war practicalities were the issue many buildings had not survived the bombings and those that had were in a bad condition. Post war building regulations only allowed for the erection of schools that would accommodate classes of 30-40 pupils. Such classes were too large to enable effective special education provision. The 1960's saw a change in this there was a revival of special education provision in ordinary schools. Special classes and units were established in main stream establishments and a variety of remedial forms of education were developed across the country.
Support for the inclusivity of disabled children in main stream education appeared to go from strength to strength during the 1960' s-1970. The Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act of 1970, implemented action requiring local education authorities so far as practicable to provide for the education of deaf/blind, autistic and acutely dyslexic children to be placed in maintained or assisted schools. Since the implementation of the Handicapped Children's Act 1970 and the Mentally Handicapped Children's Act Scotland 1974, all handicapped children no matter how serious the disability have been included in the framework of special education. Following that the 1976 Education Act recommended the implementation of educational provision should be provided to improve greater integration of children with disabilities into ordinary schools.
However, despite the landmarks regarding the integration of children with disabilities into mainstream schools there was little attention or provision made toward the further education of these students once they reached the compulsory school leaving age that is until the Warnock Report in 1978.
The Warnock Report investigated the need for more resources to be provided for the disabled student with regard to accessing FE, particular emphasis was paid to the Special Educational Needs Students. They looked at the areas of provision for basic skills courses, vocational courses and the difficulties a disabled student may experience when accessing or participating in ordinary courses within a FE establishment.
Recommendations:
Wherever possible young people should be given the necessary support to enable them to attend ordinary courses of FE.
That some establishments of FE should experiment with modified versions of ordinary FE courses for young people with special needs.
That some establishments of FE should provide special vocational courses at operative level for students with special needs and special courses of training in social competence and independence.
That within each region there should be at least one special unit providing special courses for young people with more severe disabilities or difficulties which would be based ...
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Wherever possible young people should be given the necessary support to enable them to attend ordinary courses of FE.
That some establishments of FE should experiment with modified versions of ordinary FE courses for young people with special needs.
That some establishments of FE should provide special vocational courses at operative level for students with special needs and special courses of training in social competence and independence.
That within each region there should be at least one special unit providing special courses for young people with more severe disabilities or difficulties which would be based in a establishment of FE.
That every establishment of FE should designate a member of staff as responsible for the welfare of students with special needs in the college for briefing other members of staff on their special needs.
That a co-ordinated approach to FE provision for young people with special needs should be adopted and publicised by the LEA's
within each region against a long-term plan within which arrangements for individual institutions will take their place. Further, the institutions themselves should publicise their policy
on
the admission of students with special needs as well as courses and special facilities, which they provide for them. That the national colleges, which currently provide FE or training for young people with disabilities, should in time all become part of
the regional patterns of FE for students with special needs.
(Warnock Report 1978)
The Present
It is evident to anybody involved within the FE establishment that the Warnock Report of 1978, and the recommendations made have been an immense contributing factor regarding the Inclusion of young disabled students within FE structure. However, despite these great strides the Tomlinson Report 1996 criticized the then FE establishment maintaining that the approach to learning, which focuses on making students with learning difficulties and/or disabilities different from or more special than other learners has not worked.
The Report recommends that more emphasis should be made on the individual educational establishment capacity to understand and respond to individual learner's requirements. That this will move away from labeling students piecemeal and move towards
creating a much more appropriate educational environment.
Tomlinson States:
" The aim is not for students to simply take part in further education but to be actively included and fully engaged in the learning. At the heart of our thinking lies the idea of match or fit between how the learners learns best, what they need and want learn and what is required of the FE sector, the college and teachers for successful learning to take place."
By inclusive learning therefore we mean the greatest degree of match or fit between the individual learners requirements and the provision that is made for them
(http://inclusion.uwe.ac.uk/csie/ukedlaw.htm.)
Since Tomlinson, many FE establishments have committed themselves to adopting the approach that Tomlinson recommended by looking to the individual rather than the disability.
Thompson 1998 has pointed out that theories of inequality and discrimination and oppression are still at a relatively early stage in their development and that there is a great deal of theory building left to be done. Currently we can find a mix of both radical and liberal ideas being used in education applied from the institutional level through departmental policy to the individual.
(Thompson N, 1998)
I Have to agree with Thompson 1998, that in many areas of education that this maybe the case. However, strong moves in changes of policy within the education system and certain Acts are looking at positive changes to the system.
Nevertheless, despite the attempts of educational establishments and supporting agencies to attempt to make this transition from School to adulthood with regard to careers as unproblematic as possible an article published in the British Journal of Special Education noted that there are areas of concern. The article is based on a piece of research conducted by Derrick Armstrong and Paul Davies the research was conducted with the co-operation of 29 young people who were about to leave 6 special education schools in the North of England. Armstrong and Davies took into consideration the support offered by the schools and specialist careers advisors, and the opportunities and barriers experienced during this transition.
The 29 young people were interviewed in their last term of school. In addition all teachers and careers advisors were interviewed in regard to they're opinion of the young peoples understanding and coherence of the subject of leaving school and their future aspirations. The interviews focused on 6 questions.
> What are the main characteristics of the occupational aspirations of the leaver's of this sample?
> What main assets /opportunities do these students have in assisting them to achieve their aspirations?
> What are the main obstacles and barriers they might face?
> What types of careers / employment advice do the students want/need and what do they receive?
What systems of support were perceived to underpin the vocational advice the student received from the teachers and careers advisors?
Table 1: Distribution of school leaver's sample by type of
school attended
Type of School
No of
Schools
No of Pupils
Day School: moderate learning difficulties
4
Residential School: moderate Learning difficulties
5
Day School: emotional and behavioral difficulties
4
Residential School (LEA): emotional and Behavioral difficulties
2
8
Residential School ( non-LEA): emotional and behavioral difficulties
8
Total
6
29
Although initially all teachers and careers officers were in agreement that the students had an overall understanding of career opportunities available and what it would entail to secure a career of their choice, upon reflection it became clear that this was not necessarily the case.
Table 2: Student occupational aspirations:
Physical education instructor
4
Catering
3
Army
2
Motor mechanic
2
Computer work
2
Hairdressing
2
Work with animals
2
Butcher
Farming
Shop work
Clerical
Practical work
Gardening
Beautician
Masseur
Comic writer
2
Don't Know
2
Noting reasons such as intense competition for certain jobs
And that the students would compare badly with candidates from main stream schools even though they would be probably capable of completing the necessary training courses. Another reason given, that students attending residential schools had a tendency to lose touch with the 'occupational realities' of the localities from which they had come and to which they would return. It was also suggested that although many had fixed occupational plans, it was apparent that several students had fluid ideas, which could change from week to week.
Table 3: Intended first destinations
Course at college of further education
9
Youth training scheme
4
Stay on at school
2
Enter directly into work
2
Enlist in the armed services
2
As you can see from Table 3, many of the students realized that a certain amount of further education would be necessary in order to qualify for the careers they had chosen. As mentioned previously in the document this piece of researched conducted by Armstrong and Davies, involved identifying aspects of assets, opportunities and barriers faced by special school leavers during this transitional period, with regard to this subject of FE and further training. Careers officers and teachers were of the opinion that special school leavers have the advantage over mainstream school leavers, whereby specialist provision is on offer within youth training and further education facilities. For example, Category B funding enables a training provider to receive additional money for a student with special needs.
During the research it became apparent that the support network that these students had experienced during their final year at special school became fragmented once they leave these establishments leaving the students highly vulnerable at the point of transition from school to employment, further education and youth training. Armstrong and Davies state: that there is no lack of professional will, but it also seemed clear that a support infrastructure within which the different professionals working in partnership could co-ordinate their support, was missing.
With regards to the subject matter of this piece of work the careers officers and teachers suggested two ways that would make the pathway into further education a smoother transition.
. Extend the policy of statementing to enable special educational support to be offered more easily within training and further education.
2. Encourage communication between agencies such as the careers service the probation service, social services and homes for the homeless in order to provide a more integrated support network. (Armstrong D and Davies P 1995)
However, I am proud to say that during my time at Burnley College, both as a student and has a member of staff Burnley College has taken positive steps, to make this time of transition for special school leavers. Has painless as possible and to address areas of discrimination and these are by no means exhaustive. Staff are positively encouraged to submit any ideas that they may have in this area and the College follows a firm policy of implementation of their Mission Statement which includes the statements:
To make learning increasingly flexible and accessible and support individuals in achieving they're full potential
(Annual report 2001/2002)
As soon as a student enrolls for a course at Burnley College attempts are made to identify if the students consider themselves to have a disability, medical condition or learning difficulty. If they Tick section 2 of the enrolment form they are advised that they need to complete an AS1 form, this form asks for a more specific detail of their disability, medical condition, learning difficulty. These forms are then passed onto the Inclusive Learning Manager In order to assess if any kind of learning support is needed. At this point a students are invited to attend an informal interview to assess what form of assistance they may need. They may be assessed as needing the assistance of an Inclusive Learning Officer. An ILO may be allocated to an individual who needs may be on a 1.1 basis or to a group of students who may need assistance in their day to day studies.
There is also a range of equipment available to support students in their studies. These will be issued after a diagnostic assessment has shown that an individual requires the equipment or evidence is submitted, as obviously there are not limitless resources these consist of:
* Lap top computers,
Statemented dyslexic students, students with physical disabilities, for whom writing is difficult
* Spell checkers
Dyslexic students or students with spelling problems
* Spell checkers with speech
Dyslexic students or students with spelling problems
* Tape recorders
Dyslexic students, hearing impaired, visually impaired and physically disabled students.
* Wrist rests
For use with computers, for students with physical problems in the neck and the arm area
* Screen shields
For use with computers, for the visually impaired
* Ergonomic chairs
Students with physical disabilities-normally chronic back pain
* Adjustable height tables
Students with physical disabilities - normally chronic back pain
* Lift Keys
Physical disabilities, asthma medical conditions
* CCTV
Partially sighted students
* Loop Systems
Hearing impaired students who use hearing aids
* Radio Microphones
Hearing impaired students who use hearing aids
* Specialist Software
Text help for dyslexia support, Zoomtext, Jaws and Lunar for visually impaired students
* Car park pass
Available only to orange/blue badge holders
* Alpha smart keyboards
Portable text processor for students with physical disabilities
(Tutors Hand book 2002/2003)
This list is not exhaustive because has new technology becomes
available Burnley College will aspire to acquire it.
Burnley College also has close links with Connexions and many of the Special Needs Schools in the area. Such as Primrose Hill, Calder view, Tor View and Meadow Bank, to name but a few, many of the students attend Burnley College on a part time basis and in many cases they eventually enter Burnley College as full time students. In these cases the college maintains files of any additional support that may be needed when they start to attend as full time students and any records of statementing are automatically sent on to the college. However, a few of the feeder schools experience difficulties in passing on information due to confidentiality procedures and this can sometimes be problematic. Despite these initial problems this arrangement between the schools and the college enables the students to adapt to the college environment at a much quicker rate, than if they were entering a new environment for the first time.
Students who may not have attended these schools but have the disabilities SLD or MLD are quite often invited into the college on taster days prior to enrolling on a full time FE course at Burnley
However, despite the fact that Burnley College attempts to maintain a status of full inclusivity every request for additional funding from the Learning Skills Council has to be
justified. The outcome of initial assessment is an Additional Learning Support plan, which details the provision a learner will need to achieve his or her learning aims. This provision will be costed as part of the process of completing the ALS costs form. The costing used in completing the form should reflect the actual costs borne by the institution. Institutions should adopt costing formulas, which reflect the variations of provision. So just having good intentions is not enough to offer a full time course to any student that may need additional support in any guise as to be fully audited and accounted for by any college wishing to have inclusivity included in its learning agenda.
Stages in the process of identifying and providing ALS
Timing
Process
LSC Requirements
Previous institution year
Strategic Planning including activities such as schools liaison multi agency planning
Strategic plan which includes a needs analysis of learners with learning difficulties and /or disabilities
February of previous year
Estimate of numbers of individuals requiring ALS and the level of their needs
Provision of supporting information to local LSC
Including an estimate of the amount of ALS funding required
Pre-entry/entry
Initial identification of needs, that is the admissions and induction processes, Detailed assessments of each individual ALS needs
Back-up all evidence from ALS costs form
Entry /induction
Development of a plan to support learning and costing the ALS to be provided
Completion of the ALS costs form
On-programme
Regular review of ALS needs
Revision of the ALS costs
Achievement
Identifying support requirements for end of programme review, assessment, accreditation.
Estimate all costs to be included in ALS costings
(http://www.lsc.gov.uk)
Although the financial costing of a disabled student is important to the FE institution concerned. In order to ensure that the student with a disability receives the same equality of resources as a student without a disability, the responsibility of the FE institute with regard to inclusion does not end there.
Each and every member of staff must ensure that the student's experience in achieving success is enjoyable when engaging in FE education.
Positive demonstrations of these actions can be observed within the Burnley College campus. Any visitor to Burnley College can observe disabled students and students without disabilities interacting on every level both in their studies and socially and staff positively encourage this interaction. This is not to say that there are not the occasional problems but students and staff are aware of the codes of conduct and are expected to adhere to it.
The roles of the tutors and programme leaders are considered of vital importance when dealing with inclusivity. It is their job to ensure that each and every individual students needs are met
All staff should be made aware of problems that may occur when teaching people with disabilities. Staff development and training is the vehicle that is used to convey this information. On these days staff are reminded of internal policies regarding equal opportunities and government legislation
However, the subject of individual needs and inclusivity is a very complex area and there is more to it than just applying equality of opportunity and consequent pieces of legislation. This soon became apparent when working alongside of colleagues in the capacity of an ILO and Student Teacher within the Community Access Division. The Knowledge gained whilst researching this piece of work as provided an insight into the difficulties which occur on daily basis. As previously stated, when a student with a disability enrolls at the college a variety of financial assistance is often required. However, the financial assistance provided and the reality of providing adequate provision of resources can differ entirely.
For example, many of the students with SLD and MLD may require the support of ILO on a 1.1 basis not just during the learning environment but during social activities such as breaks and lunch hours. Nevertheless, on a practical level this would be impossible as this would mean employing staff at a level of two or more based on individual students needs. Therefore, the college provides support staff based upon a system of priority. However, taking into consideration new government legislation specifically the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 as amended by the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 it is now unlawful for providers of education and related services to discriminate against disabled people. Therefore, would it not be considered an act of discrimination to refuse to provide an ILO for every student enrolled at the college that requires ALS.
There are also other areas of concern confidentiality is considered imperative when a student enrolls at the college and many tutors are concerned about this when additional support is required just how much information should the additional support staff be privy to without endangering the privacy of a particular student. This may appear to be trivial when first asking this question but it maybe that important facts need to be made clear in order for the student, tutor and ILO to have successful interaction during a learning session.
Programme leaders and tutors need to be aware from the beginning of the year the amount of SLD students they can expect to enroll on a given course in order to ensure that the ALS is in place both man/woman power and resources. All of the students when enrolled are individually assessed and are then set an individual learning plan along with the compulsory scheme of work. This alone involves a lot of extra work and time for the staff concerned. Although these courses do not involve an external exam evidence of progression is insisted upon when any lesson is OFSTED inspected. For the academic year 2003/2004 the Co-ordinator for the SLD students along with other concerned tutors have designed individual LogBook's so that progression can be tracked. Tutors have to show evidence of tasks completed throughout the learning year. This is seen as a positive step in ensuring that each, and every, student is successfully achieving their targets. These targets and tasks are not devised without the student's knowledge every student is consulted about their individual targets and are asked to put forward any requests for additional learning. These LogBooks also serve a dual purpose, the students are also aware of their own progress this helps with their self-confidence and motivation.
With regard to students with MLD although the concerns are different inclusivity is still a complex area. Many of the students enroll on the Edexel Course year one in order to gain the qualifications to access higher level courses in the college or to seek employment. Many of the students require ALS and for the reasons mentioned previously there may not be enough staff to offer the right kind of support. These students need to establish a rapport with their tutors from the out set, as trust is a vital ingredient when working with these students. Differentiation techniques are applied throughout the learning sessions, use of OHP's with larger fonts using different coloured pens and print is considered appropriate if you have a student with dyslexia as their eyes may only react to a certain colour. In one particular case a students has an hearing and speech impediment and tends to take a back seat during the learning sessions therefore questioning techniques such as quiz's and word games are applied in order to draw this student out without making obvious to the other students. In this case the response is positive and inclusive learning is achieved, but that may not always be the case, then alternatives must be found. Students with MLD have to learn at their own pace so quite often a tutor may have to cover certain aspects of the subject matter in several different ways in order to reinforce that learning as taken place. A set lesson plan may overlap into another session and tutors have to consider this when developing a scheme of work for the year. Many of the colleagues use role play, music and TV/Video when putting a lesson plan together as many MLD students are Audio Visual Learners and respond to these techniques.
Once again confidentiality is an area of contention when working with students with MLD just how much information should be passed onto supporting staff, this subject is broached at many staff meetings. Should an ILO be advised of any potential problems and advantages when supporting a disabled student or should it be left to the individual tutor's discretion. Are the students going to be disadvantaged when they're may be an ILO that has specialist knowledge of working with a certain type of disability and could be assigned appropriately? This area of contention may be solved in the future within Burnley College, as it is under consideration whether to have ILO's assigned to individual divisions within the college in the future.
Whilst conducting this piece of research it as become apparent that the FE educational organization in particular Burnley College take the subject of inclusivity very seriously. Whilst the financing and structure as been put in place in order to ensure that disabled students have equality of opportunity when accessing FE, there are still going to be occasions when the system will fail despite complicated pieces of legislation to make this avoidable. To be able to meet the requirements of individual case is an enormous task, as the make up of the learners and resources and funding and all the other factors that affect this area of education are in a cycle of change. The only guarantee that can be made by the FE educational establishment, is to ensure that all staff members report and act upon any act of inequality and discrimination act they may come across and that they and the establishment will continually address areas of development within this subject area.
Bibliography
Armstrong D & Davies P (1995), 'The transition from school to adulthood: aspirations and careers advice for young adults with learning adjustment activities', British Journal of special education
Burnley College (2001/2002) Annual Report, unpublished
Burnley College (2003) Tutors Handbook, unpublished
Learning Skills Council
Internet http: www.lsc.gov.uk, accessed 2003
Northwest Training Development Team
Internet http://www.nwdt.com accessed 2003
Thompson N (1998) 'Promoting Equality', Macmillan Press Ltd
Tomlinson (1996) 'inclusive learning'
Internet http://inclusion.uwe.ac.uk.csie/uklaw.htm accessed 2003
Warnock H M (1978), Report of the Committee of Enquiry
Into the Education of Handicapped Children and Young People
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