Current Developments in Scotland in Inservice Courses for Teachers of Pupils with Special Educational Needs

Principles affecting inservice training of teachers are influenced by national technological and demographic developments as well as the economic and political climate. Effects of these different factors are discussed briefly and illustrated by the experience of one College's inservice course for teachers of pupils with special educational needs.     

Psychologists,Psychiatrists and Special Educational Needs in Britain since 1944

This paper provides an historical survey of special educational provision in Britain by tracing the part played since 1944 by psychologists, psychiatrists and guidance clinic personnel in meeting the requirements of children with special educational needs. While the pre‐1944 story is covered in such standard works as Pritchard (1963), discussion of the period since the Education Act of 1944 is scattered in research journals and isolated book chapters. The present account attempts an initial synthesis, outlining the history of educational psychology since the appointment of Cyril Burt in 1913; the change from a medical to an educational model of special need; the growth of child guidance clinics; the role of the psychiatrist; development of new guidance concepts in the 1970s; and an outline of treatment approaches in child guidance. The paper concludes by referring briefly to the allied fields of counselling and research in education for children with special needs.     

Pragmatism, Ideology and Educational Change: The Case of Special Educational Needs

A major theme of recent debate and policy development in the area of special education is that of inclusion: the placement of all pupils in mainstream schools and the development of curriculum and pedagogy to meet the needs of all. Analysis of national statistical data shows some movement in this direction, but of a slow and very uneven kind. An exploration of the concepts of pragmatism to describe an important aspect of LEA decision making and of ideology to describe an important aspect of pressures for inclusion helps to explain this pattern of development. The paper concludes that both approaches require further systematic empirical data on the outcomes of different patterns of educational provision.     

Race and Special Educational Needs in the 1990s

Fernando Almeida Diniz, currently in the Faculty of Education at The University of Edinburgh and formerly Reader in Special Needs in Education at the University of Greenwich, considers the effects of 'institutionalised racism' on the education of black and ethnic minority children with special educational needs.     

Special Needs, Special Issues

Services for children and young people with special educational needs are not well prepared for responding to the National Curriculum, local management of schools and other challenges of the 1990s. This is the conclusion drawn by HM Inspectorate (HMI) in the latest booklet in their Education Observed series entitled Special Needs Issues. The survey, which was published by the HMSO in June at £2.95, looks at developments in special educational provision which have occurred in England since the publication of the Warnock Report in 1978.     

Stress, Burnout and Workload in Teachers of Children with Special Educational Needs

Whilst stress in teaching has received much attention in recent years, for teachers of children with special educational needs (SEN) specific stress-related research is relatively rare. This study sought to address this issue by investigating stress, burnout and workload in teachers of children with special educational needs. A postal questionnaire was sent to 56 ordinary schools and eight schools for children with moderate learning difficulties (MLD), eight for children with severe learning difficulties (SLD) and eight for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD). The schools were situated in inner city, urban and rural areas in the south-east of England. A total of 221 teachers responded. Results indicated that, whilst generalised claims for burnout may not be justified, within all three special school settings there was evidence of a high level of emotional exhaustion as measured by the education version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). In addition, all groups were subject to long hours of work, and work overload was high for ordinary school SEN teachers and teachers working in MLD and SLD settings. Reference to sources of intense stress indicated some differences according to setting but generally implicated workload and challenging behaviour. The conclusions are that further research into stress and burnout of SEN teachers is required if effective coping and preventative strategies are to be designed.     

Social and Educational Disadvantage: Reconnecting Special Needs Education

Alan Dyson, Professor of Special Needs Education at the University of Newcastle on Tyne (in BJSE 's 'The New Professors' series) argues that special needs education has, at a time when there are concerns over falling standards in education generally, lost sight of the relationship between children's difficulties in school and wider patterns of socio-economic disadvantage and inequality, and suggests that special needs education in the late 1990s is incapable of addressing basic failings and inequities in our education system and within society as a whole.     

The Assessment of Special Educational Needs for Bilingual Children

Tony Cline, Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Luton and Chair of the Editorial Board of NASEN Journals, examines the challenges that face those involved in the assessment of the special educational needs of children for whom English is an additional language. He rejects some notions of the ideal that have stood in the way of achievable good practice and argues for a closer look at the learning environments in which children are placed.     

Implementing the Code of Practice for Special Educational Needs

Abstract

This article explores the provenance and features of the new Code of Practice for special educational needs and then reports on research on the implementation of the Code in one Local Education Authority. It is argued that the Code has managerial, curricular and consumer dimensions, all of which have a number of implications for policy and practice, for both LEAs and schools. In particular, the Code can be seen as a mechanism for controlling and targeting resource allocation as well as a means of increasing accountability in relation to provision and partnership with parents. The Code is also closely linked to the changing role of LEAs and is therefore likely to affect the relationship between LEAs and schools.     

Measuring Value Consensus Among Teachers in Respect of Special Educational Needs

Previous educational research has argued that consensus upon values and goals among teachers within a school is a necessary condition for the successful development of provision for pupils with special educational needs. This paper describes a study designed to investigate this assertion empirically. Questionnaires were administered to a crosssection of teachers in five English secondary schools which belonged to a consortium dedicated to the development of special educational needs provision. On each of four different dimensions, teachers were asked to rank five alternatives in order of importance. The strength of consensus in the sample as a whole, and within each school, was measured using Kendall's coefficient of concordance (W). A novel clustering technique was then applied, which succeeded in identifying groups of teachers who shared a stronger consensus than obtained in the whole sample or within each school. The findings suggest that other factors, such as the teacher's position in the school, amount of teaching experience, gender and type of subject taught, may be more important in the production of consensus than which school a teacher belongs to.     

Computer Use with Children with Special Educational Needs in Primary Schools

The use of computers to enhance the learning of children with special educational needs has many advocates. Such children in mainstream schools, however, may be failing to obtain the full benefits of computer aided learning through limited resources and lack of teacher expertise. After a period of advisory work in this field, Bill Goler is now teaching in a special school for pupils with moderate learning difficulties. His article is based on a dissertation for the Master's degree at Manchester University.     

Short sprint or an endurance test: the perceived impact of the National Award for Special Educational Needs Coordination

This paper evaluates the perceived impact of the National Award (NA) for Special Educational Needs (SEN) Coordination in English mainstream schools. The Award was introduced in 2009 and has been mandatory for all new Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCos) since its inception. The framework used for the evaluation is based on the learning outcomes of the NA, which were formulated by the Training and Development Agency and focus on areas related to the pedagogical, managerial and leadership aspects of the SENCo role. Findings suggest that the NA has impacted most significantly on participants’ pedagogy and strategies for removing barriers to learning. Participants’ preparedness for training at post-graduate level is also investigated and consideration is given towards further training and study beyond the completion of the NA. Additionally, the paper investigates areas that are perceived as challenges (e.g. lack of time and leadership status) to the successful implementation of their coordination role and any impact the NA has had in this respect.     

试论大特殊教育观

本文从我国社会基础,特殊教育发展趋势,特殊教育与普通教育关系,服务对象概念的变化,特殊教育安置形式和实践特征等方面阐述了大特殊教育的观念,宏观地勾画了我国特殊教育发展的新前景     

Special Educational Needs and the Issue of the School Prospectus

Regulations require the school prospectus to contain information on special educational needs (SEN). Ian Copeland, lecturer at The University of Reading shows that half of the schools sampled omitted to do so. He discusses the schools' depiction and classification of SEN pupils, the assumptions made about the prospectus, strategies for SEN pupils, and the opportunities presented by the new Code of Practice.     

The National Literacy Strategy and Pupils with Special Educational Needs

Richard Byers, an independent consultant on curriculum development for pupils with learning difficulties, and a part-time lecturer in special educational needs at the University of Cambridge School of Education, considers the effectiveness of the National Literacy Strategy and the relevance of recent guidance.     

Feeling Different: Viewpoints of Students with Special Educational Needs

Barrie Wade (Reader in English in Education, in the School of Education, The University of Birmingham) and Maggie Moore (Senior Lecturer at Newman College, Birmingham) focus on ways in which students with special educational needs perceive themselves. They have discovered that a significant number of a cross-cultural sample, most of whom are denied school responsibilities, felt inadequate compared with their peers. It appears that more consultation, with serious implications for school policies, is necessary to lessen feelings of difference.