HMI Education 8-12 (1985)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages Contents, Preface
Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 The content of the curriculum
Chapter 3 Personal and social education
Chapter 4 Provision for children with special needs
Chapter 5 Planning, assessment, continuity and liaison
Chapter 6 The management and organisation of the teaching
Chapter 7 The main characteristics of the schools
Chapter 8 Some issues for discussion
Appendices Inspection procedures, background to the schools, Statistical notes, HMI schedules
Index

A survey by HM Inspectors of Schools (1985)

London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1985
© Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

Chapter 4 Provision for children with special needs
[pages 40 - 44]

4.1 The survey took place before the legislation concerning the identification of, and provision for, pupils with special educational needs, embodied in the 1981 Education Act, came into force. The findings do not therefore reflect the steps subsequently taken by local education authorities and schools in response to the 1981 Act. The first part of this chapter discusses the provision made for those children with special educational needs as now defined by the 1981 Act, while the second part relates to provision made for children with other special needs.

Children with special educational needs

4.2 At the time of the survey nearly all the schools carried out screening procedures but the identification of children's learning difficulties sometimes relied too heavily upon unsatisfactory tests. Although some of the schools made good use of expertise and resources, such as the school psychological service centrally provided by local education authorities, the majority needed more effective arrangements for identifying pupils' learning difficulties and for planning responses to them.

4.3 Few of the schools had effective written guidelines covering special educational needs nor were such needs recognised in the subject schemes of work. This failing was associated with a lack of differentiated work in some classes where, for example, slow learners and pupils with learning difficulties were working with unsuitable material.

4.4 Specific accommodation for children with special educational needs was not necessary in many schools either because of the small numbers involved or because they were taught in normal classes for most of the time. Three of the schools had permanent specialist accommodation for remedial teaching. A third of the schools had no suitable area for the teaching of groups of children withdrawn from lessons. As a result the work had to be carried out in small or otherwise inconvenient spaces such as corridors, libraries or secretaries' rooms which lacked privacy and were susceptible to interruption.

4.5 About a fifth of the schools made satisfactory provision for meeting pupils' special educational needs throughout the age range by carrying out appropriate assessment and diagnostic procedures which enabled children to receive teaching and resources specific to their needs and closely related to the work of the majority of the pupils in their age group.

4.6 The largest group of pupils identified as having special educational needs were those with low attainment in the basic skills of literacy and numeracy. The vast majority of the schools provided help for such children by withdrawing them for special tuition, individually or in groups. The time given to this work ranged from ninety minutes to one day a week. The work was mostly concerned with the improvement of reading and writing skills and occasionally with mathematics. In some cases this work was little more than the practice of reading skills and was insufficiently related to the work in mainstream classes. The time spent in withdrawal groups was sometimes excessive or inappropriately allocated, for example, when children missed work in science, music or art in order to have additional help in English. Four of the schools had full-time remedial classes and this limited the amount of help available to other children who from time to time might have needed extra support to overcome particular learning difficulties. About half the schools had a teacher with responsibility for remedial work. In a substantial number remedial work was undertaken by peripatetic teachers, some of whom assumed responsibility for the coordination of the remedial provision in the school. In the few instances where the teachers had attended in-service training in remedial education, the courses had focused mainly upon the teaching of reading. In a few of the schools efforts were made to inform parents of low-achieving children about the procedures and aims of the teaching programme, but generally there was scope for improved communication concerning these children.

4.7 Eight of the schools had one or more pupils assessed as having moderate learning difficulties. Some of these children had been assessed by local education authority's psychologists and were waiting a placement in special schools. None of the schools had a special unit and none of the teachers had any special qualifications for work with this group of pupils. Some of the children were taught in remedial classes, where such existed, and others were taught in mixed-ability classes.

4.8 In half the schools there were children with a degree of impaired hearing; eleven schools had five or more such children. One school had a unit for partially hearing children while in other schools these pupils were taught in ordinary classes. The children were usually identified as having a hearing loss in routine audiometric screening tests carried out by the local authority for all children in the school. A few schools reported that no such tests had been administered. Some children had very slight hearing loss and were considered to need no special treatment other than ensuring their close proximity to the source of sound. There were indications in some schools that although hearing loss had been noted, little account was taken of this in the way children were treated. In these cases there was a need for more exchange of reliable information between those responsible for diagnosing the children's hearing difficulties and the teachers. Greater recognition that hearing loss may be a long standing condition and may account for learning difficulties requiring appropriate provision is necessary. Where local education authorities gave support to children with impaired hearing, this was of a high order. There were usually good links between the schools and the support services and a high degree of parental support and involvement. The schools were appreciative of help given to the children by visiting teachers who had relevant qualifications and expertise.

4.9 Children with physical handicaps, other than impaired hearing, were found in less than half the schools; only four of these had four or more such pupils. Among the disabilities reported were partial sight, asthma, diabetes, heart malfunctions, speech defects, spasticity, mild cerebral palsy and epilepsy. The majority of such children were successfully integrated into ordinary classes with some extra support where necessary. Some of the schools used ancillary staff to help disabled pupils and the majority of schools with physically handicapped pupils aimed to provide these pupils with access to the corporate life of the school and to participation in the curriculum. Activities for such children in lessons such as physical education sometimes had to be limited in the interests of safety.

4.10 Approximately three quarters of the schools identified children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. Although the majority of these schools had very few such children, seven schools claimed that they had ten or more. The range of difficulties reported by the schools varied from mildly disruptive behaviour to cases of severe maladjustment. In the majority of the schools parents were consulted when behavioural and learning problems arose and teachers met the parents informally during parents' evenings where progress reports were given. Fifteen schools reported contacts with educational psychologists about individual pupils. The general ethos of most schools was supportive and, through informal patterns of organisation, set out to help these pupils. Most difficulties were contained though not necessarily resolved. More effective collaboration between local education authority agencies and the teachers concerned with supporting these children is needed.

Children with other special needs

4.11 Twenty-two schools had children whose mother tongue language was other than English and who required some extra help to learn English as a second language. In the majority of these schools the number of such pupils was small but in five schools there were twenty-five or more. In some cases, the teaching of English as a second language took place at a language centre separate from the school. Where this happened there was often the need to establish better links between the work done in the centre and the work of the schools. Schools attempted to keep parents informed about their children's progress, but parents were reportedly sometimes reluctant to visit the schools.

4.12 Few schools considered that any of their children were especially gifted, although they considered that a number of their pupils were very able. Generally, little special provision was made for exceptionally able pupils though one school provided an advanced mathematics group in Years 3 and 4 [now Years 6 and 7] and some other schools made special arrangements for instrumental teaching for able musicians. One school had a 'Gifted Pupils' Support Scheme' which used a wide-ranging schedule for the identification of such children and made arrangements for their educational needs through accelerated promotion, early transfer or other means. Though many schools considered that their existing arrangements and range of resources enabled exceptionally able children to make appropriate progress, generally such pupils were not given sufficient encouragement to extend their own learning or to explore material in greater depth than their peers. Where there was expert tuition available, for example in music, exceptionally able children made appropriate progress. Few schools used materials which had been specially developed for such children.