Warnock (1978)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages Membership, Contents, Introduction
Chapter 1 General approach
Chapter 2 Historical background
Chapter 3 Scope of special education
Chapter 4 Discovery, assessment and recording
Chapter 5 Children under five
Chapter 6 Schoolchildren with special needs: introduction
Chapter 7 Special education in ordinary schools
Chapter 8 Special education in special schools
Chapter 9 Parents as partners
Chapter 10 Transition from school to adult life
Chapter 11 Some curricular considerations
Chapter 12 Teacher education and training
Chapter 13 Advice and support in special education
Chapter 14 Other education service staff
Chapter 15 Health service and social services
Chapter 16 Relations between professionals, confidentiality and coordination of services
Chapter 17 Voluntary organisations
Chapter 18 Research and development
Chapter 19 Priorities and resources
Summary of recommendations

Appendices

Appendix 1 List of contributors
Appendix 2 Categories of handicapped pupils
Appendix 3 Possible grid as basis for statistical returns
Appendix 4 Organisation of health service
Appendix 5 Research project on services for parents of under 5s
Appendix 6 Research project on pre-school education
Appendix 7 Research project on employment experiences of handicapped school leavers
Appendix 8 Survey of teachers' views on special education

Index

Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the education of handicapped children and young people

London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1978
© Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

ISBN 0 10 172120 X

Appendix 8 Survey of views of teachers in special and ordinary schools on special education
[pages 393 - 394]

1. At our request the Department of Education and Science conducted a survey of the views of teachers in ordinary and special schools in England, Scotland and Wales on various aspects of provision for children with special educational needs. The main aim was to discover what resources, what supporting services and specialist advice and what kinds of additional training were considered by teachers to be most likely to improve their effectiveness in dealing with children with special educational needs. It was hoped that the survey would also shed light on the reasons for the apparent failure of much educational research significantly to influence teaching practice.

2. Following pilot surveys in England and Wales, questionnaires were issued in May 1976 to a total of 5,240 teachers and head teachers in all the special schools and classes in Scotland and in a sample of special schools, classes and units in England and Wales, stratified by type of school. The following month questionnaires were sent to the head teacher and one other teacher in each of 1,088 ordinary maintained primary and secondary schools in England, Wales and Scotland. The probability of the head teachers being selected was proportionate to the size of their school.

3. The questionnaires to teachers and head teachers in special schools covered the following topics: changes in the curriculum or in teaching methods in their class or school and the factors contributing to such changes; areas in the work of the school where changes were considered necessary; the ways in which parents were involved in the activities of the school; the impact of different sources of information about new ideas, good practice and research in special education, as well as the effects of different forms of educational research on teaching practice; difficulties faced by teachers in applying examples of good practice and research; the availability of advice and support from members of different professions; the value of courses of in-service training taken by the teachers, reasons for not applying for or not taking courses of in-service training, and areas in which the teachers felt a need for in-service education.

4. The questionnaires to teachers and head teachers in ordinary schools included questions about the number of children in their school ascertained as handicapped and, separately, the number considered by them to have special educational problems; the nature of those problems and the ways in which special educational help was provided; the availability and usefulness of support and advice from members of different professions; the factors contributing to the successful integration of handicapped children in the regular classes of ordinary schools; the advantages of such integration; and any training or previous experience in the teaching of children with special educational problems.

5. Both sets of questionnaires contained some questions to which answers could be selected from a given list and other open-ended questions. The answers to the open-ended questions were coded by Mrs K O'Hagan.

6. The response rates to the questionnaires were disappointingly low. The response rate to the survey in special schools was 56 per cent, that to the survey in ordinary schools 49 per cent. The low response rates can be attributed mainly to the issue of the questionnaires late in the summer term when many teachers were preparing to depart for their summer holidays. The timing was unavoidable, given the need to carry out the survey before the end of the academic year. A comparison in respect of age and sex, however, between the teachers in special schools, classes and units who responded to the survey and the total population of teachers in special schools, classes and units in England, Scotland and Wales suggests that the respondents were reasonably representative of the total population of teachers in this sector.