Schools that work particularly close with their feeder primary schools are able to identify those pupils in need or at risk of disengagement, and to give them a fresh start as they move into Year 7. Early identification of a pupils needs gives the opportunity for a learning mentor and parent-support advisor to work with the pupil and their family before and after the transfer to get to know them and gain their confidence. This helps ensure that the teachers in the secondary school are quickly able to adapt to meet the needs of the pupil and help them settle in quickly (OFSTED, 2008: 9). Early identification can also help match pupils to staff with the most appropriate skills to meet their individual needs or provide the opportunity for Year 6 pupils to spend some time in the schools learning support centre before they moved so that they know what support will be available in their new school. (OFSTED, 2008:10). Mrs Solisbury an experienced SENCO explained in an interview on 4th December some of the problems encountered with early identification of pupils needs. Most importantly the secondary school has to be aware that some pupils will have slipped thought the system and have not being identified as having an individual educational need that requires some kind of support before arriving at a secondary school. There are many reasons why this could quite easily happen; staff in the primary school might not want to label pupils at such a young age, the school may only have limited access to outside agencies or the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) may just be the head of the school and not fully trained. To combat this problem the secondary school needs to make sure it has qualified teachers with the training required to help identify pupils that may have an individual education need.
In a study by Law (1993) he used focus groups and interviews with parents of 22 children with disabilities to explore cultural, institutional, physical and social environment factors associated with home, neighbourhood, school and community environments. He concluded the most frequent occurring barrier to activity and participation limits for children with disabilities were institutional and attitudinal.
Parents felt frustrated with the regard to the lack of information and feeling of helplessness toward having their children’s needs addressed. To overcome these barriers parents expressed the necessity for better communication methods between the schools and parents, the opportunity to educate service providers about their child’s needs and the provision of more coordinated and understandable information about programs and policies (Law. 1993).
Parents singled out the attitudinal and social barriers as the main difficulty for their children, including inappropriate comments, lack of knowledge, or rude behaviour by both adults and children. The main suggestion for development was to integrate and include pupils with disabilities within all aspects of society (Pivik et al. 2002: 99). Hanson et al. (2001) interviewed parents to determine their perspective of their children’s school experiences in order to identify those factors that influenced their inclusive placement choice.
Although the majority of parents valued inclusive placements for their children with disabilities concerns about class size, availability of therapeutic services, acceptance by other children, attitudes about the child’s disability, as well as teachers’ level of training and experience were expressed (Hanson et al. 2001).
These concerns could be assured by keeping close communication links with parents and informed of their child’s progression and this will help to build a relationship between the schools and parents as well reducing the parents concerns for their child (Pivik et al. 2002: 105).
In order to effectively re-engaging disaffected or unwilling children, good systems for internal communication need to be in place. This ensures that all the relevant staff can receive essential information about disaffected students, including details of any planned interventions. This promotes a continuity approach which can help win over students and their families that the staff cared about them and want to meet their needs. While not shying away from giving difficult messages, a method of good practice is to convey positive information to parents and carers to help them see that their child is valued in the school (OFSTED 2008: 17). A key issue also reiterated in the interview with Mrs Solisbury and noted in the OFSTED (2008: 21) report is communication and involvement with parents. A close partnership with parents or carers is fundamental to re-engaging and keeping students on track. Problems can arise from this as some parents/carers feel intimidated or uncomfortable by visiting the school and therefore the school needs to address these apprehensions. Methods used were providing parents/carers with the telephone number of one particular member of staff to allow a relationship and consistency to develop. Once this bond has been created and any barriers removed it becomes allows effective communication of both difficult and positive messages to be exchanged. A harder barrier to overcome (Solisbury 2009), although it is very rare is when the parents/carers will not acknowledge that their child has an educational need that requires further support. This can put the school in a difficult position as the work the school provides for the student is often easily undone once the child returns to their parents/carers. This problem was also noted in the OFSTED (2008: 4-5) report along with two other factors working against the re-engagement of disaffected students: reluctance on the part of the parents to work alongside the school and, in some cases, collusion with the students against the school; external influences and attractions that were more compelling for the students than school, such as gangs, criminal activity an drug-use; and weaknesses in the provision made by the schools and other services for their students.
In mathematics teachers needs to consider the full desires of the inclusion statement when planning for individuals or groups of pupils. Teachers will have to integrate strategies into their plans on how to deal with potential barriers faced by the pupils in mathematics. Such an event may be to provide specific help with number recall or the interpretation of data in graphs, this will compensate for difficulties in the long- or short-term memory or visual discrimination. Other events may require help in interpreting or responding to oral directions when making mental calculations, to compensate for difficulties in hearing or with auditory discrimination (National Curriculum, n.d.). The Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (2008) (QCA) have developed four documents to support inclusive teaching in mathematics; identifying gifted and talented (GAT) learners, planning, teaching and assessing the curriculum for pupils with learning difficulties, pathway to learning for new arrivals and respect for all. The first document gives guidance on identifying GAT learners, but also gives problems that can occur and prevent identification. A pupil’s lack of ability to communicate their understanding will initially appear to be struggling with the work when their understanding is correct and sometimes exceptionally mathematically gifted pupils will reject obvious methods and answers as too easy, and then try to over-complicate the question. Therefore in order to identify GAT pupils in mathematics formal assessment is not enough and enrichment and extension exercises should be provided and observed to see how the pupil accepts and challenges the given work. The QCA (2001) published a document on planning, teaching and assessing the curriculum for pupils with learning difficulties for mathematics, which provides support for all adults who are concerned with meeting the needs of pupils with learning difficulties. They help overcome the barriers created by the learning difficulty and give advice on modifying the mathematics programme of study, improving access to the curriculum and assessing performance.
What is proving to be a common issue is the interpretation and implementation of inclusion in to practice. Far too often too much time is been spent over concerns about inputs and settings that needs to be spent on developing experiences and outcomes for the pupils. It is crucial that the school and LEA provide an approach focusing on both the rights of children and the effectiveness of their education. Clear guidelines need to be researched and produced to help inform LEAs and schools how to implement policy on inclusion into practice. When researching these guidelines careful consideration needs to be taken when determining what is ‘good practice’, Linday (2003: 10) describes the need for more ‘highly developed, substantial studies using quasi-experimental approaches to examine the strengths, and relative impacts, of a range of factors, together with qualitative examination of the experiences of key participants’ in order to help determine ‘good practice’.
References
Ainscow, M., Booth, T. and Dyson, A. (2006) Improving schools, developing inclusion. London: Falmer Press.
Department for Education and Employment (1997) Excellence for All Children. London: The Stationery Office
Department for Education and Employment (1998) Meeting Special Educational Needs: A Programme for Action. London: DfEE
Department for Education and Skills (2001a) Special Educational Needs Code of Practice. London: HMSO.
Department for Education and Skills (2001b) Inclusive Schooling: children with special educational needs. London: DfES
Dyson, A. (2004) Inclusive Education: a global agenda? Japanese Journal of Special Education, Vol 41, No 6, pp 613-625
Hanson, M., Horn, E., Sandall, S., Beckman, P., Morgan, M., Marquart, J., Barnwell, D. and Chou, H. (2001) After preschool inclusion: Children’s educational pathways over the early school years. Exceptional Children, Vol 68, pp 65-83
Law, M. (1993). Changing disabling environments through participatory research. Canadian Journal of Research habilitation, Vol 7, No 1, pp 22-23
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National Curriculum (n.d.) Inclusion in mathematics, Available:
Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (2002) LEA Strategy for the Inclusion of Pupils with Special Educational Needs, E-publication
Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (2008) Good practice in re-engaging disaffected and reluctant students in secondary schools. London: Alexandra House
Pivik, J. McComas, J. and Laflamme, M. (2002) Barriers and Facilitators to Inclusive Education. Exceptional Children, Vol 69, pp 97-107
Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (2008) Equalities, diversity and inclusion: mathematics, Available
Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (2001) Planning, Teaching and assessing the curriculum for pupils with learning difficulties Mathematics, London: QCA
Solisbury, K. (2009) Interview held on the 4th December, Branksome Schools SENco.
