The SEN Handbook for Trainee Teachers, NQTs and Teaching Assistants

Wendy Spooner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780415567725
• eBook ISBN: 9781136879135
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Accessibly written with the needs of trainee teachers and Higher Level Teaching Assistants in mind, this new edition of Wendy Spooner's popular SEN Handbook provides an up-to-the-minute introduction to key issues.

Student teachers and teaching assistants will find the case studies and vignettes invaluable as they bring these issues to life, and present important opportunities for reflection on how these issues relate to practice.

Core standards for teachers, QTS and HLTA qualifications are highlighted enabling the reader to understand exactly what is expected of them – and how to achieve it. Coverage includes:

• self-assessment of your own attitudes towards SEN issues
• legal definitions and current legislation and guidance
• identification, assessment and support for children with SENs across the Key Stages
• issues of inclusion and exclusion
• a range of teaching approaches and strategies
• school-based training and SEN issues that may arise
• further reading, websites and resources lists.

Practical and comprehensive, this is an invaluable resource for all teaching professionals working towards providing inclusive learning environments.

PART 1
Legislation, Frameworks and Issues

CHAPTER 1
What are special educational needs?

In this chapter you will be introduced to the concept of special educational needs. A brief history of special educational needs up to the present will provide the context for considering how attitudes and values have changed over the last 150 years.

Q 2, Q10, Q15, Q18, Q19, Q25a C 3, C18, C19, C29a HLTA 3, 7, 9, 15

At various points as you read you will find questions or activities that are designed to help you to think about your own attitudes towards special educational needs and difference. Working through these will support you in meeting elements of professional standards for teachers (QTS and Core) and for Higher Level Teaching Assistant (HLTA) status.

Your personal starting point and attitude

I wonder what you feel is meant by a special educational need or SEN? This will, of course, depend largely upon your past experiences and some readers will already be familiar with the legal definition. However, it is worth stopping for a moment to consider what the term means to you at this particular time.

What point are you starting from when thinking about this question? You may, for example, have a child or a sibling with a disability or you may have worked as a learning support or teaching assistant (LSA or TA). In either case you will have direct experience, but perhaps within a limited field. For others, much of your knowledge and understanding may come from the media – from television documentaries, films or magazine articles. Your attitude to children with special educational needs will also be coloured by your own experiences. If a family member is autistic or dyspraxic, for example, you may feel very differently about social or behavioural difficulties from someone who has had no experience of this at all.

Your attitude will have a major impact on how you respond to children in the classroom as well as to their parents and other professionals, so it will be a recurrent theme in this book.

The personal audit in Figure 1.1 may help you to identify some of your feelings and attitudes. Put a cross on each line to mark what your current feeling or attitude is. You may like to come back to this at a later stage to see if anything has altered.

Figure 1.1 Personal audit – attitudes and feelings about special needs

The legal definition of special educational needs

The legal definition is contained in the Education Acts of 1981, 1993 and 1996.

This definition excludes the needs of some children whom you personally may consider also have special educational needs, e.g. the gifted and talented or children for whom English is a second language (EAL). The Act makes it clear that children for whom English is an additional language should not be considered as having special educational needs for this reason alone, although some children with EAL may of course have learning difficulties as well. The needs of children with EAL, those who are gifted and talented and other children who have particular needs will be considered further in Chapter 3.

When reading the legal definition of special educational needs, what strikes you? Does it help you to understand better what a special educational need might be? Or are you feeling unsure as to what the definition is really saying? What, for example, does the phrase ‘significantly greater’ really mean? How significant does ‘significant’ have to be?

Take a few minutes to write down any queries and questions you still have about this definition and where you would like some clarification. Look back at this list from time to time and consider how your reading and further experience contributes to your understanding of the concept of special educational needs and the legal definition.

Children have special educational needs if they have a learning difficulty which calls for special educational provision to be made for them. Children have a learning difficulty if they:

a) have a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of children of the same age; or

b) a disability which prevents or hinders them from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for children of the same age in schools within the area of the local education authority; or

c) are under compulsory school age and fall within the definition of a) or b) above or would do so if special educational provision was not made for them.

Children must not be regarded as having a learning difficulty solely because the language or form of language of their home is different from the language in which they will be taught.

Special educational provision means:

a) for children of two or over, educational provision which is additional to, or otherwise different from, the educational provision made generally for children of their age in schools maintained by the LEA, other than special schools, in the area; or

b) for children under two, educational provision of any kind.

(Education Act 1996, section 312)

Figure 1.2 The legal definition of special educational needs

Historical context

We will be coming back to the definition but, before we do so, let us briefly look at the history of special educational needs in England. The history of special education is fascinating in its own right, mirroring, as it does, the history of social welfare. However, it also provides ...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PART 1 Legislation, Frameworks and Issues
• PART 2 Developing your Practice
• Appendix A: Standards information
• Appendix B: Individual Education Plans
• Appendix C: Acronyms
• Resources and further reading
• References
• Index