Mainstream primary school settings are generally more conducive to inclusion offering a secure nurturing environment with routines and consistent adults. Edinburgh has been particularly successful and is demonstrating that Down’s syndrome pupils can be easily included in a mainstream setting with some training and support for the staff. A clear structure for the transition from nursery to primary school is put in place to ensure the child will successfully adapt into their new surroundings and routines. Teaching Assistants support the Down’s syndrome child closely without allowing them to become dependent. Staff are aware that the ability of these children vary greatly and the gap can steadily widen between them and their peers (Seith, 2009) causing the student to spend more time with their teaching assistant.
Children who are working at a drastically different attainment level to their peers can become isolated within the class. A primary school pupil with profound and multiple learning disabilities, working below national curriculum level 1, was taught predominately by their teaching assistant but was included within some music and art classes in accordance with their ability. On the surface this student was encountering an inclusive education yet Ofsted declared that she had a ‘lonely experience each day’ (Ofsted, 2004: 17) She was denied the opportunity to mix with other children similar to herself because there were no other pupils of similar ability in the school.
The recent documentary, ‘Born to be Different’ (2009), follows seven year old Nathan through his daily life. His parents were adamant that he should go to a mainstream nursery and primary school because of the inclusion benefits for both their son and the children in his class. Despite this, his parents are now questioning whether inclusion really works because he is beginning to demonstrate unpredictable behaviour. It is increasingly evident that the work Nathan is producing at school is below his peers and he spends a lot more time with his teaching assistant and finds it difficult to participate in practical activities. His parents realised that Nathan was able to identify other Down’s syndrome children and so took him to a local sport’s project. Nathan has started to play football with other children with Down’s Syndrome and he really enjoys the feeling that this brings. Because Nathan is able to recognise that these children are the same as him, he is comfortable in their company.
As the attainment gap increases, nearing the end of the primary years over 75% children with Down’s syndrome from mainstream primary schools make the decision not to go to a mainstream secondary school (Born to be Different, 2009). Although primary schools appear to have more success including special education needs into their classes, ‘Harbour Community School’ is a comprehensive school for 11-16 year olds. There are 1200 students on role with approximately 240 in each year group. The school is situated in a predominately white working class area with many students living in difficult economic circumstances. They have 35-40 profound and multiple learning disabilities students accommodated in two rooms within the centre of their mainstream school. The position within the school is ideal yet the two rooms are small and were not originally designed for wheelchairs making moving around the class for activities very challenging. All of these students attend some mainstream lessons on an ad hoc basis according to their capacity. The school acknowledges that they do not have sufficient dedicated space or therapy provision for the children they have but are clear that they don’t want to turn into a special needs school with only some mainstream provision (Gray-Fow, 2005:89).
On the surface, Harbour Community School appears to be achieving inclusion yet the pupils remain in the segregated unit and only venture out for occasional classes which they are able to participate in. The DfES has concerns over how effectively schools are able to cope with the diverse needs in an inclusive setting and how far pupils with special education needs are helped to achieve their potential (DfES, 2004, p50). To be able to provide students with the support they deserve many professionals from different organisations are connected to these students. The complexities of this system causes problems and therefore dictates that detailed sets of records are kept in school ensuring the students are receiving their entitled support allocation (Tutt, 2007, p24). In a large school, this can be very time consuming and deficiencies in provision may occur.
Where it is argued that students have a human right to inclusive education a reciprocal responsibility may be implied; the right and responsibility to participate in learning alongside others (Black-Hawkins et al, 2007:49). Many students with special education needs are motivated to try hard and produce work to the best of their ability utilising the adult support they are offered yet unfortunately in my experience this is not always the case with all students. An increasing amount of time is spent trying to persuade pupils to return to their classroom after a minor disciplinary incident rather than allowing them to roam the school premises causing mischief. The increased needs of children call for increased teacher training to ensure the incident does not escalate. School staff also need to acquire a better understanding for the innate behaviour nurtured in the child’s home environment which is far harder to challenge.
Not all special needs affect the child’s ability to learn. Many physical disabilities can be included with little effort. Tom Shakespeare is an academic with achondroplasia, a genetic disorder which is a common cause of dwarfism. He researches issues surrounding disabilities including the social implications of being different. The DVD, ‘The Unusual Suspects’ is a small insight into his life and this area of his work.
Ivy, Tom’s daughter, also has achondroplasia but has been brought up with the feeling that disability is a difference that doesn’t really matter, like gender, race or sexuality. This has been possible partly because her father, grandfather and many people she knows are either short or disabled in other ways. Within the society they live they are completely included and do not feel discriminated against. Shakespeare believes that ‘people are disabled by society, not by their bodies’ (DD122, 2006, DVD).
This is demonstrated well by Karin who was born with a visual impairment (DD122, 2006, DVD). When she was eleven years old she was taken to an institutionalised, residential school for the blind and felt very scared at being left. She did not feel any comfort that the other children were also visually impaired and believed that she was in a ‘false environment’ being told when and how to do everything. The children followed a strict timetable outside of the academic subjects that were taught yet she left the school feeling helpless despite achieving many qualifications. She did not have any life skills to cope alone in the world. In her school the children with more sight were valued highly and given more support and privileges. This discrimination consequently left Karin, her sight very poor, with less opportunities or assistance than the others received. Medical and genetic problems were a focal point for the children and genetic counselling was given to the children as they got older.
This segregated school devalued the children they should have been supporting and taught them how to be the disabled person that many people stereotype. This experience tends to agree with the Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education that segregation does not lead to inclusion. Even with these harmful experiences, Karin has progressed to complete a MA and employs a personal assistant to help her. She enjoys the freedom that being in a society gives her and acknowledges that her disability may be the reason that she is not controlled by men or pressurised to marry like other Asian women she knows.
In contrast, Eddie Hardy describes himself as different, not impaired (DD122, 2006, DVD). He was born with spina bifida but was brought up the same as his four brothers attending the same schools. Although he appreciates this approach he feels that he was denied access to his disabled person culture. At Art College he very competently drew self portraits from his shoulders up but was unable to deal with the reality that he was in a wheel chair. Once this was overcome he began to campaign, and protest for, disability human rights. He believes that people should be proud to be different and not discriminated against. He admits that during the protests his emotions can rise and he often feels the urge to be physically aggressive towards able bodied people. Only one aspect of his complex character is that he is disabled and he insists that there are many other parts to his personality. Superficially it appears that Eddie was included within his school and society as an equal yet he has demanded that his differences should be acknowledged. He searches for the inequalities of disabled life and protests for the equivalent opportunities that are provided to able bodied people.
Britain has a very diverse population including a large multilingual society. It is estimated that two thirds of the world are bilingual or multilingual which makes the deaf community part of the linguistic majority (Knight & Swanwick, 2002:18). Many deaf people are able to communicate in both English and British sign language and believe that deaf children should be considered as English as an additional language pupils where their primary form of communication is British sign language. Increasingly deaf children are encouraged to use British sign language to be able to communicate with the world around them and the deaf community reject the practice of enforcing speech. They consider ‘Oralism’, the educational system imposed that promotes the use of speech, lip reading and hearing aids, taught by hearing teachers, to be an ‘institutionalised form of child abuse’ (Ladd, 2003:439). They argue that being taught by hearing teachers, the child is only able to communicate with other hearing people and not members of their deaf community.
The deaf community consider themselves to be a minority ethnic group with their own culture, traditions and history. They use British sign language which has its own complex visual grammar. Hearing teachers who use sign language tend to use the Total Communication method where speech and signing is delivered simultaneously. This can cause problems due to some of the signs being absent and the rearranged order makes little sense to the deaf students (Ladd, 2003: 148). In a sign bilingual classroom, the deaf adults use British sign language and the hearing adults use their ‘best British sign language’ rather than sign supported English (Knight & Swanwick, 2002:71). Best British sign language is in recognition that they are not using their first language to communicate and therefore will not always be grammatically correct.
Ladd believes that deaf children should be educated as bilingual pupils with a linguistic need to be with their peers for healthy, social and emotional development yet the education system deems them to be considered disabled or having special education needs (Ladd, 2003:442). Up to 40% of deaf children are likely to have a difficulty in addition to their deafness and these are the students who tend to go to special schools (Knight & Swanwick, 2002:35). However for the majority of deaf children their only barrier to learning is their ability to communicate with hearing teachers. Where deaf teaching staff are available this barrier can be eliminated. Inclusive education is gaining momentum and instances of children who are unable to speak being recommended to special schools despite being able to communicate in sign (Beazley & Moore, 1995:68) are reducing.
Hearing impaired children are the largest disability group in mainstream schools with 95.7% in attendance (Ladd, 2003:158). This high percentage shows that these children can easily be included in mainstream classes but to maximise their potential the inclusive practice used needs to be suitable for their needs. Research has shown that students given the opportunity to learn through their first language for as long as possible are more likely to have a higher final attainment (Knight & Swanwick, 2002: 17). The deaf community would like an increased use of deaf adults in the classroom to improve the transition from a child communicating through sign to a bilingual child lip reading and understanding English.
Some existing primary schools offer this facility but deaf bilingual secondary schools are difficult to locate. Ideally these schools would offer deaf studies as a central part of the curriculum as well as hearing studies to be able to negotiate successfully between the two communities (Ladd, 2003: 440). A bilingual school can easily provide an inclusive environment offering all students the opportunity to learn sign and communicate with their deaf friends.
Schools have an increasingly diverse student population to which they need to relentlessly seek to improve the achievement of all their students. (Black-Hawkins et al, 2007:29). For this to happen, schools need to foster good inclusive practice requiring a school ethos of respect, adequate training for staff to learn effective teaching & learning methods. Local mainstream and special schools need to work together as a partnership with parents being involved throughout their child’s learning journey. Schools also need to provide effective induction procedures for new children, a sanctuary area for vulnerable students and ensure targeted use of peripatetic support services (Knowles, 2006:30). This is a huge challenge for a mainstream school requiring a dedicated and skilled work force. Inclusion in mainstream schools may need to follow a more structured program of change incorporating the recruitment of specialised staff to be able to offer places for children requiring this type of support.
Inclusion campaigners are not promoting that all students should be in the same class learning the same thing. The type of provision available is paramount. Resourced provisions are bases or units where specialist teaching or other support is available for special education needs students for part or all of the school day, or where small groups can receive additional support through special classes (Tutt, 2007:13). Ofsted discovered that the most effective provision was equally distributed between mainstream and special schools yet more good and outstanding provision was found in resourced mainstream schools (Ofsted, 2006:2). This shows that it is not just the act of inclusion but the facilities offered to the child that will make a difference to their education.
DfES agrees that children, wherever possible, should be able to attend a local mainstream school and parents should be able to feel positive that this is the correct choice for their child (2004, p39). This cannot be achieved by an individual school alone therefore special and mainstream schools must collaborate closely. The close relationship between these schools will allow children with physical and sensory disabilities the right of an inclusive education to be fulfilled. This must be accompanied however, by an education in which their aspirations can be increased so that they are able to realise their potential in all aspects of their life (Gilbert, 2006:143), not just with their academic achievement.
The DfES predicts that the proportion of children educated in special schools will fall over time as mainstream schools increase their skills and capacity to meet a diverse range of needs (DfES, 2004). Teachers in mainstream schools should therefore expect to teach children with special education needs and be trained sufficiently with the skills to teach them effectively. The diagram below to some extent shows the transition the Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education described. It is the system needed to achieve total inclusion in mainstream schools. As more children move away from special education, specialist teachers will need to move with them to allow the quality of provision which only their expect knowledge and skills can offer.
(DfES, 2004:56)
The theory of inclusion is an excellent ideal to solve society’s problems of discrimination and prejudice, however this ideal is grounded on the concept that if some children with special education needs can succeed in the mainstream environment then they all can (Farrell, 2006:v).
The Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education is an independent organisation with charitable status that was started in 1982. It actively supports inclusion claiming that it is a basic human right that every child should receive. They campaign to end segregated schooling and hope to provide inclusive education for those students ‘whose parents would prefer them to go to separate, special schools’ (CSIE, 1989:2). The aims of the organisation are admirable yet many parents with children with special education needs may question their objectives. Numerous parents want their children to attend mainstream schools yet appreciate that when the gap between the child’s ability and that of their peers becomes too wide then inclusion is not always the best solution.
Removing Barriers to Achievement describes the right of every child to be educated appropriate to his or her needs (DfES, 2004) yet if the educational setting does not provide adequate equipment or care for these children then the education will not be appropriate to the child’s needs. There are many children who require additional equipment and therapy to achieve educational and emotional well being yet currently there is not adequate provision within a mainstream setting to facilitate this.
Children from a deaf society require a school in which they can be educated and also maintain their ability to communicate with others in their community. A forced inclusion into a mainstream school removes the child’s right to their disabled identity. Even when Eddie was raised the same as his brothers he felt that he had been denied access to the disabled part of his personality and heritage as a person in a wheelchair. The result of his mainstream childhood has caused him to seek the missing part of him through campaigning for disability rights.
It may be true that segregation does not lead to inclusion however inclusion is not a simple cure for society’s attitudes towards disabilities. Adults who have experienced an inclusive education do not feel more included in society because of it. Some feel incomplete because the disabled part of their character has been ignored yet in comparison other adults who have attended a segregated school now enjoy a fulfilled life. Inclusion is not a simple process that can be achieved successfully by all schools. Schools need to be inclusive for the children who attend their school. A child who spends an excessive amount of time with school staff is not being included and may benefit from the experience a different school may offer. The Government’s SEN strategy is aiming for a similar result to the Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education but is focussing on the inclusion of the child in suitable environment to achieve their potential. This will not always mean a mainstream school but maybe through a combination of resources that collaborative provision can bring.
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References
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