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SEND
FEATURE LEARNERS WITH SEND Making learners with special educational needs and disabilities feel included and valued is a vital part of the role of further education BY ELIZABETH HOLMES
EDUCATION FOR ALL
n our diverse world, there is an ever-present need for inclusion. In educational institutions, where neurodiversity in particular – variation in the human brain – can pose challenges of access for learners, inclusion is the key to helping young people to thrive through learning.
Teresa Carroll is national head of inclusion at the Education and Training Foundation (ETF). “We have moved away from the defi cit model of disability and now work in terms of inclusive teaching and learning practice for everyone,” she says.
In June 2019, the ETF announced three Centres for Excellence in SEND: City College Norwich, Derby College and Weston College. These fl agship centres provide expert support regarding SEND and neurodiversity. “They help organisations to put learners with SEND at the heart of their work, to do inclusion well,” Carroll explains. “They have an inclusion philosophy. Everyone wins when we get inclusion right. It makes business sense and it makes education sense.” I GETTY IMAGES
Approaches to inclusion
Sarah Le-Good is director of inclusion at Derby College Group, one of the ETF’s Centres for Excellence. She feels it is important to take many approaches to enabling young people to achieve. “We co-ordinate inclusion support for all students, regardless of need,” she says. “We off er careers advice and guidance as well as eff ective planning for transition into work. This way we really get to know the person and aim for seamless support.”
Experts working in the fi eld have found that the language around SEND is not always helpful. “We don’t have ‘SEND’,” Le-Good explains. “We have young people with inclusion needs rather than special educational needs. We are moving from ‘support plans’ to inclusive
teaching and employment plans. The emphasis is on how students develop skills to manage their own inclusion needs and on teachers to teach inclusively.”
In all settings where inclusion takes priority, the continuing professional development of staff is key. At Derby College, young people are asked to deliver sessions where possible. This is sometimes done with teachers who have inclusion needs too. “It’s powerful learning for staff to hear from students about the changes that can be made to improve inclusion, and also about the impact on learning when those adaptations aren’t made,” Le-Good explains.
It is essential to develop good communication, not only with young people, but also with whoever young people want to communicate with. “We help teachers and young people to manage the internal environment in a classroom so that inclusion is not hidden,” Le-Good says. “These conversations can be hard when a young person has a hidden need. We support them to be open with other students and encourage them to talk about strengths rather than needs. It is a celebration of positives!”
These sentiments are shared by Carroll. “We all have support needs of some form or another,” she says. “That is a core message of inclusion. People should not feel ‘diff erent’. We must ensure that there is something for everyone in our learning environments. Across the whole sector, inclusion works well when we are listening and talking to each other, when we develop links between home and further education providers so that we can keep the conversation going.”
Effective strategies
There are some strategies that all settings can employ to improve inclusion. Carroll suggests getting to know learners through the information you receive from previous settings as well as links with parents and carers.
“It is important to understand fully where the learner is coming from,” she says. “We need to have healthy conversations and look beyond diagnoses. Process and strategies must support the learner rather than the other way around.”
The need to know your learners is also emphasised by Dr Janet Goepel, senior lecturer in inclusion, and lead for SEND, at Sheffi eld Hallam University, and coauthor of A Critical Guide to the SEND Code of Practice 2015. “Find out how the young person wants to learn, what their interests and aspirations are, and form a partnership with them which enables you both together to agree ways in which learning can take place,” she advises.
“Show the young person that they have value and they matter and can make a valuable contribution to society. Clear, achievable targets should be jointly set, leading to focused outcomes which are regularly reviewed under the graduated response of assess, plan, do, review.”
Sajid Mohammad is an academic support worker in a large FE/higher education setting, and provides learning support in class to FE students with special educational needs, as well as one-to-one tutorials with any FE student who requests them. He identifi es three powerful strategies when working with learners with SEND: pre-teaching, worked examples and assigning competence.
“Pre-teaching involves introducing learners to key elements of the curriculum such as underpinning skills or subject-specifi c vocabulary in advance of lessons,” he says. “This can be done in one-to-one tutorials by a learning support practitioner or as a short session before
the main lesson by the lecturer. This can be a great way to allow equality of opportunity and encourage confi dence.
“Worked examples are an eff ective way to model how to complete a task. Begin by walking learners through how to tackle a particular task. Use questioning to check their understanding. If they’re still unsure, model a similar task again, breaking it down more.
“Assigning competence is about recognising when learners have achieved something of great value, especially when it benefi ts the whole class. It may not happen straight away but, in time, learners will grow in confi dence and feel more secure about their learning.”
Inclusion from a distance
Supporting inclusion through a global pandemic can present its own challenges. Jane Vivian, project manager for new initiatives at Weston College, and lead at the ETF’s Centre for Excellence in SEND, has been instrumental in setting up #MyVirtualCollege, which helps to ensure that learning continues through the challenges of social distancing. With the prospect of working around Covid-19 for some time, addressing inclusion needs is essential if no learners are to be left behind.
“For our learners with SEND, the creation of a virtual timetable has been a real challenge for staff skills development, not just in learning new digital skills but also creative ideas to teach virtually, and for learners with little to no interaction with digital learning,” Vivian explains.
The Inclusive Practice team at Weston College has embraced this to ensure the needs of learners with SEND continue to be met during this time.
“Delivering learning and support digitally has not been without its teething problems,” Vivian says. “Over the past few weeks we have seen learner engagement with our online curriculum gain a staggering level of momentum and positive engagement. The feedback from learners and parents has been positive, and we are continuing to adapt what we are doing in response to feedback.”
For Carroll, teaching and learning through the adaptations that pandemics demand means paying special attention to inclusion. “Inclusive teaching and learning means thinking about your learning environment, and asking yourself how you present,” she says. “Do you give learners enough time to consider things? In the current context of much more learning taking place at a distance, are we aware of how exhausting this can be for all learners, especially those with inclusion needs?”
Central to all approaches to inclusion by the Centres for Excellence in SEND and other settings in the FE sector is the acknowledgement that it must embrace all, and not be limited by diagnoses and plans. Diversity exists; it is an accurate refl ection of the vibrant world in which we live. Inclusion, therefore, is key to helping young people thrive and make a healthy transition into adult life.
ELIZABETH HOLMESis a freelance writer and author specialising in the education sector. She also teaches on under- and postgraduate education courses in HE
SUPPORT FOR SEND BUILDING INCLUSION Joe Baldwin is assistant principal, learner journey, at Bridgend College. Here, he offers advice on inclusive practices in FE settings:
TRANSITION IS KEY Link with schools to ensure timely information sharing, develop relationships with parents/carers and ensure that learners have a personalised transition plan.
THINK AUTONOMY AND INCLUSION Enable and empower a young person to manage their own learning journey through the use of assistive, adaptive and accessibility software. Fantastic free and built-in features are now commonplace in much of the digital technology used within colleges (Microsoft 365 and Google’s G Suite for Education).
FOLLOW BEST PRACTICE Following basic principles or a checklist when preparing sessions, digital resources and handouts will create a better learning experience for everyone. Adjusting and adapting delivery, teaching and assessment is the responsibility of the teacher.
NO QUESTION IS A SILLY QUESTION Don’t be afraid to link with the learning support team within a college and ask for support and advice. Colleagues might have some fresh ideas, some tried and tested approaches or may just be a supportive ear to bounce some concerns or ideas off.
THINK ABOUT THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE Coming to college isn’t just about engaging in timetabled lessons. The start and end of a college day, break times and unstructured times can bring huge amounts of uncertainty and anxiety. It’s essential to think about how learners can be supported to develop and enhance skills for life.
TIME We use and promote the idea of ‘take up time’. It can be tempting to fi ll a silence, to layer further clues or reword a question, but silence is good. Allow learners time to think and refl ect.
BE CLEAR AND PROVIDE STRUCTURE Be clear on session outputs and the structure for a session. Use visuals to support text and don’t rely on heavy blocks of text or PowerPoint presentations.
ASSESSMENT METHODS We often rely on written assessment methods that don’t allow for creativity or other approaches to demonstrating learning and knowledge. Recorded discussions, screencasts, debates and visual representations can help to add variety and enable learners to translate and transfer their knowledge into demonstrable outputs.
