Working With Hannah

A Special Girl in a Mainstream School

Chris Glass, Liz Wise

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN:
  9781138175150
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134595877
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Working with Hannah is a unique and detailed snapshot of the first years of schooling for a child with Down's Syndrome and severe mobility and communication problems. Written by two classroom assistants, who supported Hannah during her two and a half years in a mainstream infant school, this book shows how the right level of support can make inclusion a success not only for the child and family but also for the school itself. This practical guide describes the 'hands on' approach of Hannah's day-to-day management in a busy school. Topics covered include:
*finding a school
*how the school prepares
*adapting the curriculum
*recognising the importance of friendship
*incorporating therapies into the school day
*additional aspects of personal and, physical care
*setting up communication systems.
There are key points at the end of chapters, which highlight the salient aspects and offer practical advice.

1 An overview of inclusive education

 

 

 

There have always been children with different types of disability in our society. At the beginning of the twentieth century, depending on the nature and severity of the disability, a child could spend a large amount of the time in a hospital or institution or, if lucky, be cared for at home. For many of these children, the experience of going to school was not an available option. For those with a mild disability, or one that had gone unnoticed, they might get to school and be taught alongside other children. Record books from the time use such terms as ‘imbecile’, ‘cretin’ and ‘weakling’ to describe those children who found it hard to ‘keep up’ with their peers.

When considering disability, the model used until recently was one of a deficit or problem that lay within the child from a medical or psychological point of view. The 1944 Education Act defined categories of disability with, in addition, a group that was deemed to be uneducable. These categories included blindness, deafness, physical impairment, speech problems, educational sub-normality and maladjustment. Special schools were set up to educate these groups of children. In 1970 the law was changed, and there had to be provision for the education of all children with disability. Responsibility for this new initiative moved from health authorities to education authorities, and no one was deemed to be uneducable.

The Warnock Report (1978) was a watershed in the approach to the education of children and young people with disability. There was a move away from the medical/psychological model that presented learning difficulties as fixed within the child. Instead, they put forward a model that emphasised the dynamic nature of learning and focused on the specific needs of the child within the home and the learning environment. It was recognised that the home background, the way the child was educated and the curriculum delivered were of paramount importance in determining the learning that took place. The term ‘learning difficulty’ was proposed, divided into the categories of mild, moderate, severe and specific. It was pointed out that these children had ‘special educational needs’ that were not that different from some of their peers in mainstream education.

The 1981 Education Act took up many of the Warnock Committee’s recommendations. It gave a definition of special educational need as ‘a learning difficulty which calls for special educational provision to be made … significantly greater than [that] of their peers of the same age’, or ‘those with a disability that impedes access to education’. Local Education Authorities were required to ensure that children with these special educational needs were educated in mainstream schools provided that:

• the views of parents were taken into account

• the school could combine the special provision for the child with the education of other pupils

• there was efficient use of resources.

The Education Act (1993) (subsequently consolidated into the 1996 Education Act) introduced the Code of Practice offering practical guidance for schools and education authorities with regard to the education of children with special needs. Schools were required to identify a Special Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) with the responsibility of ensuring that the school adhered to the special educational needs policy and that the Code of Practice was implemented. This is outlined in more detail in Chapter 2.

The legislative framework was in place. Disability rights groups and bodies such as the Independent Panel For Special Educational Advice (IPSEA) were instrumental in helping to change the climate so that children with learning difficulties were seen as children first and foremost; the role of the school was to provide the learning opportunities best suited to that child. Despite this philosophy, there remained a great deal of anxiety in ordinary schools with regard to meeting the needs of these children. There could still be the tendency to separate many of them out into special schools or adjoining ‘units’. Many classroom teachers and head teachers remained unsure of their ability to cope with children with special educational needs and to meet their day-to-day learning requirements. Because of this, there has been a new emphasis on providing training and support for staff. Teacher training courses now have special needs education as an essential part of their curriculum. There are many very useful publications, notably from David Fulton Publishers, to inform and enhance the work of the teachers. There is also a National Association for Special Educational Needs which produces relevant journals and is dedicated to improving the development of children and young people with special educational needs and to supporting those who work with them. Despite these developments, governors, teaching staff and often local education authorities can remain apprehensive when including these children in mainstream schools. More training and support is becoming available but, at times, remains patchy and hard to access.

This book has been written in order to demystify the experience of having a child with severe learning difficulty and extreme physical impairment in a mainstream school. It describes the day-to-day needs of a specific child and how these were met within the ordinary school environment. Problems did arise but were overcome. We hope that by sharing the experience and offering approaches and practical solutions which we found helpful, we will give parents and teachers the confidence to include more children with significant learning difficulty and/or physical problems in mainstream schools.

2 The statementing process

The realisation that a baby is different and may have a range of disabilities is the beginning of a long and hard struggle to ensure the best for that child. Some parents know from birth that their child is going to have long-term problems. If the diagnosis is obvious, they will be told very soon after the child is born. This is a critical time, and the manner in which they are told can have a lasting effect on the parents’ attitude and response to their child’s disabilities. Parents remember forever how the news was ‘broken’ to them, how supportive the professionals were and what underlying message was being delivered.

Perhaps it is even harder for parents who do not have a clear diagnosis from the beginning. They watch their child failing to thrive, not meeting the milestones reached by peers. The baby is seen by a myriad of professionals — midwife, GP, health visitor, hospital doctors, community paediatricians. Parents clutch at straws — friends and family reassure them:

• ‘Lots of babies roll their eyes.’

• ‘My niece’s child was slow to gain weight and she’s fine now.’

• ‘My feeling is that he will grow out of this and catch up with the others.’

There comes a time when there has to be some sort of realisation that the child is different. That first indication can come as an enormous shock. It may be in the form of a chance remark from one of the many professionals seeing the child: ‘Of course this type of play is typical in children with autism.’

Parents who have lived with a niggling fear for months or years now have to face the reality of having a child with disability. At this time they have to cope with different authorities and professionals, all there to help the child but with their own political, financial and professional agendas. Parents have to find their way through the numerous bodies and agencies who are supposedly available to them and yet who seem steeped in red tape, employing a language which maybe totally alien to them.

• ‘Is he on the special needs register?’

• ‘Has she been having Portage?’

• ‘Have you asked for a statement yet?’

Knowing that a child has long-term disabilities, parents are faced with a journey which is completely different to the one they envisaged. They may be unprepared and frightened. They slowly accumulate a huge amount of information regarding their child’s physical health, speech, social skills and fine and gross motor techniques. In addition they and their family have to make decisions while finding their way through new systems, cultures and politics. All this at a time when they are acutely aware of the need to do the ‘best’ for their child, who is already at a disadvantage.

A child with a disability may become known to the authorities in several different ways. From birth they may be placed on the local authority register for special educational needs. This is to help with long-term planning of resources required in the area. Some areas may have ‘Portage’ support available. This service originated in a place called Portage in Wisconsin, North America. It involves working with children of pre-school age in their own homes and monitoring their progress in the development of speech, gross and fine motor skills and social interaction. If a child is receiving Portage at home they will become known to the school psychology support service. The Local Educational Authority (LEA) is then alerted that the child may require some sort of extra support when they reach school age. During these years other professionals may become involved with the child: physiotherapist, occupational therapist, speech therapist, dietician, health visitor, GP, community paediatrician, hospital specialists, educational psychologist, clinical psychologist. The list can be daunting for parents trying to formulate priorities for their child.

In addition to these professionals in mainstream care, parents will be faced with many other approaches and suggestions regarding what is best for their child. Cranial osteopathy (see glossary), aromatherapy massage, ‘brushing’, special diets, could all be offered as suggestions. Parents have to decide the best way of helping their child. They will slowly build relationships with the professionals involved and may have the help of a partnership worker who can support and enable them in their communication with different bodies/professionals.

Children born with a disability may require formal support in their education and this is outlined in a ‘statement’. The statementing process itself is set out in 1993 Education Act. The Code of Practice on the identification and assessment of special educational needs (Department for Education 1994) followed the Act and was to give practical advice to parents, local education authorities and the governing bodies of maintained schools. It included monitoring arrangements for children with special needs, guidelines for parents and the setting up of special educational need (SEN) tribunals to offer a quick and independent system of appeal against decisions about which parents are unhappy. The code offered a five-stage assessment process to assist the education of children with special needs. It is important to realise that a child may miss some stages, and that the process may not even begin until after the child has attended school for the first time. Not all children will move up through the stages to a statement; the formal assessment procedures which may lead to statementing only begin at Stage 4. Children can move down through the stages as well as up.

Alternatively, the health or social services department may have brought pre-school children to the attention of the Local Education Authority, or the parents may have made a formal request themselves.

Stages 1 to 3 of the statementing process are school based and do not require the statutory involvement of the Local Education Authority (although the educational psychologist may be called in at Stage 3)

Stage 1

This stage takes place when there is an expression of concern from the class teacher that a child is showing special educational need, together with some evidence for that concern from another teacher, parent or another professional. At this stage the teacher would seek advice from the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) in the school and consult the child’s parents. The Head teacher may be informed.

The class teacher is responsible for gathering information to make an assessment of the child’s special need and, usually with the help of the SENCO, initiate different work in the classroom to better meet the needs of the child. The teacher will also monitor and review the child’s progress with the parents, usually at the Parents’ Evening. The SENCO ensures the child is included in the school’s SEN register.

Stage 2

The SENCO takes the lead in assessing the child’s learning difficulty and planning, monitoring and reviewing the provision. The child’s parents are kept informed and an individual education plan (IEP) is formulated for the child. The trigger for this stage may be a review of progress at Stage 1, or the SENCO may start a child on Stage 2 if early intensive support is deemed necessary.

Stage 3

The school calls upon external specialist support usually following two reviews at Stage 2; or if the SENCO considers early intensive action, with outside support, is necessary. The school may first call upon a special advisory teacher from the LEA, followed, if necessary, by an educational psychologist. If the child’s needs are complex, the referral could go straight to the educational psychologist. The child may receive additional specialist support from the LEA at this stage, for example for hearing or visual impairment, behavioural or specific learning difficulties.

Nationally, in almost three per cent of children overall, the Authority will have to make a statutory assessment of special educational need. This happens when it appears that the child’s needs may not be met within the normal provision available in the school.

There is statutory involvement of the LEA at Stages 4 and 5.

Stage 4

The Authority is asked to consider the need for a statutory assessment of the child’s special educational needs. The referral may come from the school, or parents may formally request it themselves at any stage. It is important to realise that statutory assessment does not always lead to a ‘statement’. The information gathered may indicate that the child’s needs can be met within the school without any provision determined by the LEA.

The LEA must write to parents informing them of their proposal to make a statutory assessment. If parents wish to submit their own written evidence they are asked to do so within 29 days. The parents are given access to a named officer in the Authority and a named person (independent of the Auth...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• 1 An overview of inclusive education
• 2 The statementing process
• 3 Hannah's story
• 4 Finding a school
• 5 Hannah arrives
• 6 The school responds
• 7 Talking without speech
• 8 Moving around the school
• 9 Hannah's physiotherapy programme
• 10 Eating, drinking and using the toilet
• 11 Will you be my friend?
• 12 Day-to-day learning
• 13 Being different
• 14 Moving on
• Afterword: A note from Hannah's parents
• Appendices
• Glossary
• List of useful organisations
• Bibliography