Adjusting Designs to School Use

John Ragsdale, senior lecturer, Department of Industrial Design, Lanchester Polytechnic, Coventry, has designed an adjustable furniture system for physically handicapped children. He has tried it out in a Coventry school with encouraging results     

The Four P's of Policy

Charles Palmer, Rob Redfern and Kate Smith, Coventry Education Service, describe a framework for developing special needs policies in schools which takes into account the draft Code of Practice, OFSTED's framework for inspection, draft regulations on school policies and Coventry's LEA policy. Charles Palmer is a senior educational psychologist with the Coventry Educational Psychology Service. Rob Redfern is the secondary support teacher and Kate Smith is a primary support teacher with the Special Needs Support Team in Coventry.     

Whole School Management: Turning an Illusion into Practice

Richard Aird, headteacher, and Sue Bainbridge, deputy headteacher, of Baginton Fields Special School, Coventry describe a system of audit model which takes as its starting point curriculum issues. Although it drives an authority funding formula, its educational importance is at a school level and the work of an individual school is described to illustrate how it facilitates decision making by all involved in the school.     

'Let's try that word again in a new way!' Helping failing readers to learn high frequency words

Heather Moran, Educational Psychologist, Kate Smith, Head of the Learning Support Service, Julie Meads, Teacher, Foleshill Primary School, and Maria Beck, Teacher, Good Shepherd R.C. Primary School (all of whom work for Coventry LEA) report on action research conducted in two primary schools in Coventry using the Word Association Method to help children to read common sight words.     

Promoting inner stillness: the value of a self-discovery programme for children with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties

Dr Lesley Cullen-Powell and Professor Julie Barlow are both chartered health psychologists and both work at the Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Health at Coventry University where Lesley Cullen-Powell is a research fellow and Julie Barlow is a director. In this article, they assess the benefits of a 'self-discovery programme' for children aged six to seven years attending one mainstream primary school. Staff at the school selected 18 pupils, many of them considered to be at risk of exclusion, to participate in the study. The children were allocated either to an 'intervention' or 'non-intervention' group. The children in the intervention group experienced the self-discovery programme over two terms.
Results suggest that the programme was well received by the children. They became more confident, respectful and calm and they displayed less aggressive behaviours during the self-discovery programme. Lesley Cullen-Powell and Julie Barlow are cautious in the interpretation of their findings, but suggest that the self-discovery programme has the potential to help children to feel more positive about themselves and their peers and to re-engage with learning. The authors argue that a wider implementation of the programme, with a controlled study, is now required to evaluate the self-discovery programme in more depth and detail.     

Parents: Underrated but Undeterred?

Family Focus, a group of parents in Coventry who have children with physical and intellectual disabilities, stresses the importance of what parents can bring to the assessment process and ways they can be helped to contribute     

Examination Results of Visually Impaired Students

The research undertaken by John Dunkerton, Senior Teacher at Exhall Grange School in Coventry, provides important statistical evidence about the achievements of visually impaired students in GCSE and A-level examinations.     

Target Setting in Special Schools

Jim Muncey, Chief Adviser, City of Coventry Education Service, and John McGinty, Headteacher, Wainbody Wood School, examine a model which ensures that target setting in special schools reflects both national demands and the particular nature of special provision.     

Launching SNAP in Coventry

James Muncey, senior educational psychologist, and Mel Ainscow, adviser, special educational needs, Coventry, describe an in-service programme which is based on the premise that all teachers are teachers of children with special educational needs     

Daily Evaluation in the Classroom

Children's day by day progress can be measured through precision teaching. James Muncey, senior educational psychologist, and Hugh Williams, educational psychologist, Coventry School Psychological Service, describe its value in both ordinary and special schools     

Gender and Religious Tradition: the role‐learning of British Hindu children

Much of children's attitude to gender is developed in their home. For children from a Hindu background dharma (right conduct) involves all aspects of life. It includes family and ritual responsibilities and they are largely gender‐specific. This article is based on research among 8‐13 year‐old Hindu children of Punjabi and Gujarati origin in Coventry [2] [2] The Hindu Nurture in Coventry Project and the Punjabi Hindu Nurture in Coventry Project, both parts of the Religious Education and Community Project, directed by Robert Jackson, were made possible by generous funding from the Leverhulme Trust. The Punjabi Hindu Nurture in Coventry Project focused upon children in two low caste communities, namely the Valmikis and being conducted among children in other faith communities as part of the Religious Education and Community Project with funding from the Economic and Social Research Council ‘Project number R000 232489’. View all notes. I contend that gender is significant in the religious involvement of both boys and girls. This article draws attention to areas of their experience as young British Hindus in which their gender is decisive and examines these in relation to the role expectations enunciated by the children.

     

Data-Pac: What's in it for Teachers?

Data-Pac materials which enable teachers, in conjunction with educational psychologists, to compile individual programmes of tasks and targets for children with learning difficulties are being used in a growing number of LEAs. Peter Leadbetter, senior educational psychologist, Birmingham Education Department, and David Winteringham, senior educational psychologist, Coventry Education Department, describe how the programmes work.     

Active Approaches to Social Education

An active approach to personal and social education, now familiar in many secondary schools, has been adapted to working with pupils in a range of special schools through an in-service programme for staff. Sylvia Lindoe, senior lecturer, Westhill College of Education, Birmingham, and Julia Bond, deputy head, Alice Stevens School, Coventry, describe the project.     

Support Teaching: Taking a Closer Look

Support teaching has been described in a number of previous articles in the journal but this is the first to concentrate on some of the issues and questions which the practice of support teaching raises for staff in individual schools. Jean Garnett writes from her experience not only as present head of the Special Needs Support Service, Coventry Education Department, but also as a former support teacher in Nottinghamshire and Oxfordshire.     

Measures for inclusion: coping with the challenge of visual impairment and blindness in university undergraduate level language learning

This paper develops from previous research ( Orsini‐Jones et al., 2005 ) and reports on the experience of three students, two visually impaired and one blind, reading languages at Coventry University, on the adjustments made to meet their needs and on the challenges encountered on their learning journey both from their point of view and from the point of view of the staff involved. It focuses on three students' experience of their languages course and considers the challenges they met in each of their years of study. It concludes by evaluating these students' language learning journey at Coventry University, reporting on their feedback on their experience and on whether or not they feel that staff have successfully catered for their individual needs. It is argued here, as in the previous related work ( Orsini‐Jones, et al., 2005 ) that ‘there still exists some tension between the reasonable anticipatory adjustments that lecturers can put in place and the necessary ad hoc ones that will be needed for a disabled student with very specific needs’.     

Educating for Disasters: An International Engineering First

This paper describes a unique and innovative undergraduate degree course aimed at meeting the educational and practical needs of graduates who intend to pursue careers within the international arena of disaster management. The course was developed as a result of a unique partnership forged between Coventry University and The Fire Service College (UK), resulting in a degree programme that, while based on the well-established discipline of civil engineering, can claim to be multi-disciplined in its content, innovative in its structure and mode of delivery, and international in its perspective.     

Broekman,Pauline van Mourik et al (2014) Open education Rowman & Littlefield (Lanham MD & Plymouth UK) isbn 978‐1‐78348‐209‐2 112 pp £16.95 https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781783482108

This short book is a result of a collaborative effort between staff at Mute Publishing and the Media Department at Coventry School of Art and Design (both based in Britain). One could describe it as notes towards a critique of open education. From the perspective of cultural studies, it provides rich material for reflection and further investigation. If the content of this book is likely to be relevant to you, I recommend that you buy a copy for your own use. Pete Cannell     

Supporting foreign language learning for a blind student: a case study from Coventry University

This article outlines the adjustments made to provide an accessible learning environment within the first‐year undergraduate curriculum of the languages degree course at Coventry University. Marina Orsini‐Jones, Kathy Courtney and Anne Dickinson describe how language staff collaborated with the Centre for Higher Education Development and the Teaching and Learning Support Unit both to raise awareness amongst all students about accessibility issues and to adapt materials for a blind student reading French, German and Spanish. The article includes a discussion of the challenges faced, and provides an action plan for future adjustments to the languages materials in line with the lesson learnt from the case study.     

From Head of Year to Year Curriculum Coordinator and Back Again?

This article is an account of the development of the course From Head of Year to Year Curriculum Coordinator? The story of its origins, its development and outcomes provides an opportunity to explore the impact of educational changes on conceptions of pastoral care, its management and organization, and how NAPCE has had to change the pattern and nature of its activities to support its members. It allows us to consider the enduring but changing role of the Head of Year.
Caroline Lodge worked for 25 years in urban comprehensive schools in Coventry and London, in many different roles (including Head of Year) before moving on. She is now occupied with earning a living as lecturer, writer, researcher, teacher, consultant and trainer and is also a student.