Transcrição em inglês do DVD – Prática Inclusiva – Educando crianças com Síndrome de Down na Escola Primária, do Down Syndrome Educational Trust, do Reino Unido
Trecho do vídeo: Sue Buckley “Comparando a escola especial com a regular, quando vemos os resultados para esses indivíduos, quando adolescentes, as crianças que estiveram no ensino regular estão mais de 2 anos à frente na linguagem falada, mais de 3 anos à frente nas habilidades de leitura e escrita, têm ganhos significativos de matemática, melhores conhecimentos gerais e são melhor incluídos em suas comunidades sociais fora da escola, além de mostrarem menos problemas de comportamento.”
http://www.downsed.org/practice/transcripts/downsed-primary-inclusion-transcript.pdf
Inclusion in Practice: Educating children with Down syndrome at primary school
Transcript
Section 1 – Introduction
Time [min:sec]
Narration/soundtrack
00:00
Ewan Butterworth, “Oh…Oh…OK”
Jan Pereira, “And this one, do you know what we are going to do with this one”
00:11
The inclusion of children with Down syndrome in mainstream schools is now commonplace in many countries around the world.
00:16
In the UK, over three quarters of children with Down syndrome attend their local primary school. Many go on to continue their education in mainstream secondary school.
00:27
The benefits for these children and the success of their placements depend on a wide range of factors.
00:34
This video aims to highlight some of the keys to successful inclusion, based on the experience of schools in Portsmouth.
00:42
Portsmouth was one of the first cities in the UK to adopt a policy of inclusion for children with Down syndrome. Since 1988, most children in the city have attended their local primary and secondary school.
00:56
During this time the local education authority has worked in partnership with The Down Syndrome Educational Trust, which is also based in the city.
01:07
This video illustrates the principles of effective inclusion by focusing on five of the children with Down syndrome included in Portsmouth primary schools from Year 1 to Year 6.
01:17
Alongside footage filmed in the classrooms, it includes contributions from the various people involved in each child’s education – their parents, teachers, learning support assistants, special educational needs coordinators and head teachers.
01:32
It also offers the perspectives of psychologists from the local education authority and The Down Syndrome Educational Trust who have both played a key role in supporting schools in the local area over the past two decades.
01:47
The video starts with a summary of the benefits of inclusion, before considering some of the ways schools can plan ahead at the start of a child’s placement.
01:56
It then focuses on approaches to enable each child to access the curriculum taught in the primary classroom, with sections offering specific advice on numeracy, and language and literacy.
02:08
The video then looks at the social aspects of inclusion, with sections on encouraging friendships, appropriate behaviour and independence. It concludes with some final comments on the impact of inclusion.
Section 2 – The benefits of inclusion
Time [min:sec]
Narration/soundtrack
02:39
Sue Buckley
Here in Portsmouth we’ve been including youngsters in mainstream schools with their peer group since 1988, and in that time, we’ve clearly seen the benefit for individual children and for the schools they’ve been in – and this is what teachers have reported back to us.
02:57
In addition, and maybe more importantly, we’ve collected research data from a number of carefully designed studies…and we’ve been able to compare children of similar abilities and similar family backgrounds who have gone either into an inclusive mainstream placement or into the traditional special education class.
03:22
When we’ve looked at outcomes for them when they’re teenagers, by that stage the children who’ve been in mainstream classes are more than two years ahead with their spoken language skills, they’re more than three years ahead with their reading and writing, they have significant gains for maths achievement, they have better general knowledge, they’re more fully included in their social communities outside school and they show fewer behavioural difficulties.
03:54
Now those are all very significant gains, and for the spoken language we don’t only have a measurable gain in them using better and more complete sentences, they also speak more clearly.
04:09
We think there are probably two main factors involved in the benefits we’ve measured. One is simply the immersion with the other children, children who talk properly, who are also roles models for learning to read, learning in the classroom, role models for age-appropriate social behaviour. We think that’s a large part of the benefits that we see.
04:34
The second part is the fact that it is easier to adapt the curriculum to meet the children’s specific learning needs in a mainstream classroom.
04:44
Ken Bowen
And anecdotally, we’ve seen the benefits in all kinds of ways. I guess I would pick out language development being key, social skills development crucially, early literacy development, we’ve seen the benefits there for children being included in mainstream.
04:58
But for me, it goes beyond just what happens in the school day. By being included within the local mainstream school, that child is also included as a member of the local community. They are not the isolated boy or girl down the road who goes off to a different school. So they become the children who play with the neighbours, get invited to birthday parties, and the benefits of that are enormous too.
05:19
Tracey Parkin
Well, I was aware of the evidence that putting them in mainstream schooling was better for them to cope in life outside of school really. And I wanted her to be part of the community. Her elder sister went to the local school, and I wanted her to go to the local school and have local friends.
05:37
Debbie Hayes
I really wanted Conor to go to the same schools as his brother and sister and to be a part of the community and that was my main decision for wanting him to go through to the mainstream, so people, the children around would get to know him and that his communication skills would increase within that system as well.
06:02
Suzanne Drummond
I felt that Ewan would be known to his local community, that was the main thing…I wanted people on the street to look at Ewan and know he was Ewan, Callum’s brother, Michael’s brother, our son.
06:16
Max Walker
The whole reason for Joe going in mainstream was that Joe was going to, as I’ve said before, was, we would hope that Joe would pick up from his peer group the social skills and the interaction with his classmates, with the classmates, and develop as you would expect a child to do, because an awful lot of what they do at that age is very much what you see, you know they copy, they copy how others behave, they copy how others interact with each other.
Teaching Assistant, “And read the next bit.”
Sarah Plater, “In the garden”
Teaching Assistant, “Right, so it’s…”
06:53
Gwen Shaw
It’s a joy to go to Sarah’s school now and to listen to what they’re saying, to see all the other children relating to her and all the positive things they say. And she just adores school, she just wants to be there, so proud of the school as well.
Section 3 – Planning ahead
Time [min:sec]
Narration/soundtrack
07:24
Ken Bowen
I think when you’re looking at a placement for any child with additional needs, preparation is the absolute key. It’s not always easy, because sometimes people change their minds and sometimes people move into an area, but wherever possible we try to plan very early for a child going into a school or transferring schools.
07:40
So the local authority’s job is to make sure schools (a) know the child is coming (b) have all the information about the child’s particular needs, and that we can begin to facilitate initial planning meetings between schools and those who know the child.
07:57
Gillian Bird
The school will need to find out how the placement is going to be funded and supported from the LEA and from other services, such as speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, other physical services, sensory services for children with hearing impairment and/or visual impairments. And also to think about what training their staff are likely to need.
08:24
Now most of that information will be on the child’s statement but it will probably be reassuring to start meeting real people and finding out what they have to and where they can start get help and training and support from.
08:41
Ken Bowen
What’s crucial is that from an early stage, schools are clear about what support needs to be put in place to meet a particular child’s needs, what elements of that support come from the school’s delegated budget and what additional funding is going to be made available to them. They need that information early so that they can start planning how they are going to use the support, how they are going to deploy staff, and if necessary, recruit staff.
09:04
Gillian Bird
The next area will setting the school up so that the school can deliver this in an inclusive way and with the whole school on board, for the child and all of the children in the school. And we find that it is really helpful for somebody to go into a staff meeting before the child arrives and allow people to talk and ask questions and also to present the information about why the child is coming to this school and the long term benefits of inclusion.
09:36
Julia Knowles
I think it’s about having an open mind to begin with, it’s seeking, you know, professional advice from people who have got that wealth of experience in a variety of contexts, it’s listening to them. It’s also working very much as a team, it’s not an individual teacher that’s working with the children, it’s actually the whole team across the school that’s working with them. It’s having that training before children arrive in school. We were lucky because we knew the children were going to be arriving with us, we were able to put in whole staff training in the term before they actually arrived in school. I think it’s that preparation that’s so key to a successful inclusion of the child.
10:15
It’s about all staff understanding the needs of the child, it’s not just the one class teacher that that child’s going to come to. And by all staff I mean dinner staff, reception staff, everybody in the school having an understanding. Also building up a very close liaison with parents.
10:33
Gillian Bird
Then the next area is finding out about the child that’s coming to the school and that would mean going to visit the child, meeting with the family, setting up a friendly relationship with the family that’s going to be the foundation for good communication.
10:50
Suzanne Drummond
I think there really does have to be a dialogue between school and parents…you know, there’s a conversation going on and that it’s a two way process and they’re listening to you and you’re listening to them.
11:02
Tony Murray
That’s been a very important issue and the parents have been very supportive and right from the very beginning they’ve been involved, meeting us regularly, regular contact with the class teachers, and I think maybe they’ve maybe been very positive as well about Conor being placed in mainstream. Obviously that’s what they wanted and as I say, they’ve been very positive and very supportive
11:21
Debbie Hayes
And we went in for interviews and introduced Conor to the school. Initially the teachers there were a little bit apprehensive because they hadn’t had a child with Down syndrome there before, but it went really well, you know, we met up, they came to the nursery, we went into the school with Conor until they got to know Conor, and they realised, you know, that we were adamant that that’s the place we wanted him to go to.
11:55
Tracey Parkin
Well we had meetings with the school, so we made it very clear about what it was we wanted for Bronwen in school. We really emphasised the importance of appropriate age behaviour and that we wanted her to be treated as much as possible as an equal, so we didn’t want her to be babied, and the fact that because she wasn’t able to communicate didn’t mean that she didn’t necessarily understand what was going on.
12:20
Ken Bowen
Teachers are passionate about wanting to promote the development and learning of all the children in their class. And when you are asked to include a child with additional needs in your class, the feeling can be, I’m not sure that I’ve got skills and the competence and I know what to do to enable that child to succeed. And there’s also sometimes the anxiety about well, what impact will having that child in my class have on the achievement and learning of all the children? Will I have to devote a lot more attention to that child and will I be stretched then to give other children the attention they need? And teachers then need reassurance about the support that’s available to them, the training that’s available to them, and the ongoing consultative support they might get from partnership services.
13:03
Julia Knowles
It’s about seeking advice from professionals, being open minded, being accepting of the fact that these children are very capable children, you know, but we just need to make sure we’re providing them with the correct level of challenge.
13:16
Ian Lapworth
The most important thing is getting together with the people that have done it already, you know, just that important, valuable information from the person that’s had the experience already, and I think that interaction with the person who has already been involved is critical.
13:38
Georgina Tuzemen
There is support there in terms of learning support assistants, your SENCOs, outside agencies and that I think ultimately that every child is an individual, and every child has needs in my class, I think recognising that they are all special, but wanting them to feel a part of that class environment.
Section 4 – Learning in the classroom
Time [min:sec]
Narration/soundtrack
Meeting individual needs
14:15
Sue Buckley
In order to achieve the positive outcomes for children with Down syndrome that we know can be achieved in mainstream school I think there are two things to stress. That the young person needs to be fully included in the social life of the school, and secondly that teachers need to know how to adapt to the child’s particular profile of strengths and weaknesses.
14:43
We are always very keen to base our advice on evidence, and in the past 15 or 20 years there’s been accumulating evidence that the children have a particular profile of strengths and weaknesses we can use to plan for them.
15:02
The key points from this profile are that the children have good social understanding relative to their nonverbal abilities. They have good independence and practical skills over time. And both their social understanding and their practical independence stand them in good stead for coping in mainstream settings.
15:26
On the weaknesses side, the children have specific delay in spoken language – they understand more than they there are able to communicate verbally and this can be very frustrating for them at times.
15:40
In addition, they have verbal short-term memory delay, but they’re better at learning visually. Their visual short-term memories are better than their verbal memories.
15:52
If we take the speech and language and verbal memory delays together then the message is we need to support everything in the classroom visually. We need to use signs, pictures, print, present information on the computer, to make sure the child has every opportunity to access what’s going on in the classroom.
16:13
And it’s also important for teachers to remember that we need to give them ways of showing that they understand by pointing or choosing the right answer.
16:22
In addition to taking account of the speech and language delay in adapting the curriculum improving their spoken language should also be a specific target.
16:34
Fortunately for many children with Down syndrome reading is a strength, so immersing them in literacy activities in the classroom – all the teaching of reading, writing, spelling, phonics – will not only help the children to learn to read, it’s also a powerful way to improve their spoken language.
16:56
Many children will also have some degree of hearing loss – as many as 4 out of 5 youngsters have hearing loss in their early years. Also many children with Down syndrome wear glasses. So advice from sensory impairment may be important for the children. They will also have delayed but these will steadily improve with practice and with full inclusion in physical education. They will also usually be small in stature for their age, so may need smaller chairs and other adaptations.
17:18
Most children with Down syndrome will have some degree of motor delay for their age, and their motor development will improve slowly and steadily whether we’re talking about gross motor skills or fine motor skills for handwriting. It will improve with practice and being involved in all the activities in school.
17:41
While most children with Down syndrome will show this pattern of strengths and weaknesses to some degree, it’s very important to remember that they’re all individuals with their own pattern of abilities, likes and dislikes, so while taking account of this profile it’s very important to plan for each child as an individual.
18:00
Gillian Bird
It’s important to remember the children’s social learning strengths and, well, the children will gain from some quite focussed targeted practice and opportunities for lots of practice throughout the day. They will also gain from working in a small group, even though it may seem like they’re easily distracted. Many of the children will be easily distracted, but working with a group and seeing other children work will get them back on task and keep the activity going for longer, as well as giving them lots of opportunities to learn from their peers.
18:37
Then you can also have general advice for teaching literacy and for teaching number skills and for applying those skills across the curriculum. Then much of the advice after that will be individual because the children are all different and at different ages and at different stages.
The classroom team
19:02
Gillian Bird
For a particular child, I like to work with the class teacher, with the half-termly plan or the weekly plan for that actual class, and then with the knowledge that we will both have about the child, putting those two together. So we will know what the child likes to do, what motivates the child, what his or her strengths are, how much the child understands, how much the child can participate verbally or whether the child has to participate in other ways by handing pieces of paper or card or using other resources.
19:47
Julia Knowles
As we’ve grown to know the children, just as with any other child, you know what things will motivate them, what things that they will find difficult, and they will perhaps need a slightly different approach. And also, you know, the children are just children and they can be cheeky and they can drag their feet and that sort of thing and it’s when to be appropriate in giving them the appropriate push, you know and demanding from them something.
20:09
Julia Knowles
I think it has been developing an understanding of just what she’s actually capable of and I think it’s also about remembering at all times about the visual nature that is needed. It’s about looking at what the other children are going to be doing and then making sure that that can be made accessible and that she will actually make progress with that. But she takes a full part in everything that we do.
20:31
Beth Tressider, “So how much have we got?”
Bronwen Parkin, “Five” (indistinct)
Beth Tressider, “Five. Can you write five down there?”
20:38
Georgina Tuzemen
The curriculum has to be differentiated incredibly, but at the same time, it was really important, and this was following on from the work from the previous teacher, that Bronwen at all times did feel included, and that whilst tasks need to be differentiated for her, it wasn’t necessarily so obvious. And, as you’ve seen, Bronwen is very much integrated into class life in that she might work quite a lot with myself or her LSA, but equally, she will work with groups or in a pair, and the children are very keen to have that interaction.
21:08
Georgina Tuzemen, “What have you got Bronwen?”
Beth Tressider, “What have you got?”
Bronwen Parkin (whispers) “Five”
Georgina Tuzemen, “Didn’t hear that.”
Bronwen (louder) “Five”
Georgina Tuzemen, “Five…”
21:17
Beth Tressider
If there’s something that Bronwen’s not actually grasped in the lesson, then we’ll go away, we’ll think, well OK, we didn’t get it this way, is there another way, maybe a visual way we could get Bronwen to learn, is there something on the computer that would help her, is there another resource maybe we could borrow from somewhere?
21:41
Ian Lapworth
I mean the most, the most difficult, the most difficult issue is knowing what he understands and what he doesn’t, with the communication difficulties. And once, once I’d got an idea, and it took me quite a while to get an idea of exactly how much he can do and how many, how many problems he has, and once I’d got that, once I’d got that in my head what he could do, that made life quite a lot easier because I could get down to differentiating work, right to a very basic level…
22:14
Ian Lapworth
And I think as long as it’s visual or physical, it helps, it helps for Joe. If, if there’s any sort of abstractness about it, it loses, it loses its value. So anything, anything physical, pictorial or physical as well, that he can actually do. Science is a good example of that one, he can access that really well and enjoy it because he can actually physically do it
22:46
Zoe Lamb
We have meetings every Wednesday because we get given lesson plans and me and sort of either the class teacher or other LSAs, we have a meeting to discuss what sort of things we can do, you know, to sort of…so he can access the curriculum but obviously at a lower level, and they’re really helpful because you can sort of bounce ideas off each other.
23:06
Ian Lapworth
Giving the LSAs time to plan and to have the, have the lesson plans well in advance, which isn’t always easy, but to, but to get them to have all that work in advance and then to have some time to sit down and plan it and for me to, for me as well to sit down and think how I can take it down to that level. So it’s, it’s really you know, the difficulty was getting the time to put all that into place.
23:38
Gillian Bird
The model would be that the teacher is responsible for the child’s learning in the classroom, as she or he is for every other child in the classroom. And the planning and the thinking is the teacher’s responsibility with support from the SENCo. Now the parents and of course the assistant know the child really well and the assistant will make his or her own discoveries about what motivates the child and how things work best, so it will become more of a two way process.
24:10
Gillian Bird
The assistant will have the responsibility usually of making or finding resources to support the planning, and the activities and what the child likes to do and how things work best.
24:20
Liz McDonald-Woods
Each, each week I’ve met with the LSAs that work with Conor and each week I’ve talked about what is on the plan for the curriculum the next week and with their knowledge, which is far superior to mine in terms of his needs, we’ve been able to say, OK, Conor can access that part of it, but not this bit, so we’ve had to adjust, make resources perhaps, use other resources from around the school, and by meeting weekly we’ve been able to give the LSAs the time that they need in order to build that bank of resources up.
24:50
Sue Richardson
Well, the planning session, as I’ve already said, are really useful, because that means if I know, for example, like this morning’s activity we discussed in advance, we already knew what he could do, and what he can’t do. It also means because it’s a Year 6 class and they’ve been doing SATS, that if there are things he can’t do, there are opportunities for me then for me to do speech therapy and the other things that need to be done, so we tend to block those in then.
25:17
Liz McDonald-Woods
By Year 6 we’ve got children who are working at Level 5, and possibly into Level 6, so there’s a huge spread academically within a class, and Conor’s needs being as they are, it meant that we had a much wider range and resources for example wouldn’t be available for Conor. Thankfully in a primary school, we can delve into resources from younger age groups which are perfectly suitable for Conor.
25:41
Sue Richardson
We’ve got the picture clues that we use first so he knows what lessons we’ve got. We just adapt everything, I mean, lots of visual stuff is the main thing, and lots of visual clues and lots of talking and not a lot of writing.
25:52
Conor Hayes, “…chimney”
Sue Richardson “It’s got a chimney.”
Liz McDonald-Woods, “What have you seen?”
Conor, “Chimney”
Liz McDonald-Woods, “Chimney, you’ve seen a house with a chimney?”
26:00
Liz McDonald-Woods
So it’s been quite an informal strategy but it does seem to have worked. You know, it’s taking each day, each week as it comes and from my part, not getting too anxious about it, just to say, you know, each child has different needs and just with any child, we try and tackle their needs in the best way possible.
26:16
Tony Murray
I think you’re learning all the time really, we know Conor extremely well now obviously. I think the more you get to know Conor, the more you realise his needs and your skills do develop and you start to identify things that you don’t know and you need a bit of training with or you need some help with from outreach centres and so on.
Support, planning and communication
26:36
Ken Bowen
I think as the placement goes on, what schools need is ongoing support from people with expertise in that area. It’s having that support available on a regular, planned basis but also available perhaps just at the end of a telephone for consultancy. We’re running into this difficulty, we’ve run into this problem – a quick bit of advice to nip things in the bud is sometimes what’s needed
26:57
Gillian Bird
The planning can be done through the formal IEP meeting with parents, and the SENCo, teacher and the assistant, or it can be done informally, going into school and meeting with people. But the parents should be involved somewhere as they always have something really useful to say. They’ve been observing and interacting with their child for much longer than teachers or assistants, and their involvement is really important for the progress of the children. Similarly, the teacher sharing what’s been happening in the curriculum at school with the parents, so the parents can make meaningful activities, or just out and about doing things, drawing in some of the ideas the child’s been using.
27:50
Karen Young
We’ve built up a real trust with parents, that’s not always been easy but I think it is really important that even at times when you think, this is going nowhere, that you persevere with that and I think that’s made them being in school so much easier. We can, we often phone them and if things need doing we will re-jig things, they give permission for the children to go out and do something completely different. We need to do that, if we haven’t got that relationship with the parents then we don’t really feel that we’re making any progress ourselves, I think that’s been hugely important, something that we hadn’t anticipated when they arrived with us, we thought it was just our job in a way to educate and to pull all the services together, but actually, the parents have become almost one of those services and we need them desperately to be involved.
28:30
Liz McDonald-Woods
Each day even though Conor may insist on walking down the stairs on his own and being ready to greet his parents at the end of the day, each day an LSA will be there on hand to pass on any messages, to say there are messages in his book bag for example to take home, for example to ask for his wheelchair to be brought in because we’re going on a trip the next day, whatever, so, day to day communication between school and home goes on. 28:52
Max Walker
Well there are two lots of communication, obviously the first one is that sort of day to day passage of information about what’s going on with Joe, and then above and beyond that, it’s meetings with the teacher and the head to discuss what we’re going to do in terms of his development plan or to discuss his progress when we have a gathering with people from, you know, speech therapists and the like, it’s not just within the school.
Section 5 – Progressing number and maths
Time [min:sec]
Narration/soundtrack
29:38
Gillian Bird
Generally speaking, learning about number is quite difficult, or can be quite difficult, but some children are very motivated by numbers and do quite well in learning about numbers and enjoy maths.
29:51
Jan Pereira, “How many do you think we need there?”
Ewan Butterworth, “One…Two…Three…Four”
Jan Pereira “How many all together?”
Ewan, “OK… One…Two…Three…Four…Five…Six…Seven…Eight.”
Jan Pereira “Can you write that in there for me?”
Ewan, “I can…”
30:10
Gillian Bird
Basically, the children are going through the same stages as other children, but will need much more practice at each stage. And so the children who find numbers motivating and who have families that play number games and talk about numbers and classrooms where the number experience is as big as the language and literacy experience through wall displays and discussion and practical activities, will do well, they’ll do better.
30:41
Ewan Butterworth, “…Three…Four…Five…”
30:46
Gillian Bird
The children are helped by having images and pictures and signs that tie in with concepts, new ideas that they’re learning as they will do in other aspects of the curriculum. And there are some structured number teaching systems which really match their learning strengths and weaknesses.
31:11
Gillian Bird
One in particular is the Numicon system, which is very structured and uses the children’s good visual memories and applying of visual images linked with their understanding of the number system. And that’s popular and effective in helping the children to learn alongside participating in the curriculum and learning about number with everybody else.
31:43
Sue Richardson
On the numeracy side, I really thought by Year 2 he was never going to be able to count or do anything. I’d almost given up because we’d spent 3 years working really hard on number work and it was going nowhere, but he can now count to 89. I mean, I just go, ‘wow’ when I see that because I just think that’s incredible.
32:04
Sue Richardson
I think the Numicon programme with the numeracy has been really valuable, because that’s helped Conor access numeracy, which is something he found really difficult and he’s made good progress with that. He still has problems with numeracy that I think he always will, but, he’s made huge progress.
32:23
Bronwen Parkin, “…Four”
32:28
Julia Knowles
We were involved in the Numicon project and that made us realise very soon, early on that it had to be a visual approach, that it had to be a concrete approach for the children. And it was about differentiating the curriculum with that in mind, making sure that we were making it visual, and we were making it accessible to, to the children.
32:48
Bronwen Parkin, “…equals six”
Beth Tressider, “Equals six. Ten takeaway four equals…?”
Bronwen, “…equals six.”
Beth Tressider “Fantastic.”
Bronwen (turns spinner), “Five”
33:02
Beth Tressider
We’ve been working on fractions and found a website where you can actually put the numerator and denominator in and she’s loved it, and she’s been, we just sort of said, ‘how many pieces are coloured?’ and she’s counted the pieces up, and ‘how many pieces altogether?’ and that’s given her the fraction. And because she’s actually doing it herself and it’s not just looking at a piece of paper, she’s really enjoyed it and she’s actually grasped what she was supposed to be doing.
33:31
Beth Tressider, “…it’s not may sweets is it?”
Bronwen Parkin, “No.”
Beth Tressider, “It’s only one.”
Bronwen “One”
Beth Tressider, “Are there many sweets here?”
Bronwen, “Yes.”
Beth Tressider, “How many?”
Bronwen, “Erm, 10p…?”
Beth Tressider, “How many?”
Bronwen, “5p”
Beth Tressider, “5…It’s not many. What about here?”
Bronwen, “10.”
Beth Tressider, “10. Is there lots there?”
Beth Tressider, “What number are we starting with?”
Bronwen, “20”
Beth Tressider, “20…You find 20 on the number line? Good girl…Brilliant. So what have we got to add on next?”
Bronwen, “10p.”
Beth Tressider, “10p, good girl. So from here, we’re going to count 10. One…two…”
Beth Tressider, “Which coin did we add next?”
(Bronwen taps 10p coin)
Beth Tressider, “10, good girl. And what did that give us?”
Bronwen, “30”
Beth Tressider, “And then what did we add?”
(Bronwen selects 5p coin)
Beth Tressider, “And what did that give us? Bronwen. What did that give us?”
Bronwen, “35”
Beth Tressider, “And then what did we add on?”
Bronwen, “The one”
Beth Tressider, “Which gave us?”
Bronwen, “36”
Beth Tressider, “well done…Look, you’ve just done all of this. You’ve added all of those coins together – isn’t that fantastic.”
Section 6 – Developing literacy and language
Time [min:sec]
Narration/soundtrack
Introduction
35:06
Nicky Skinner
From Finlay’s learning point of view, he’s done really, really well, because he came into school babbling and he’s in end of Year 1 now and he can talk quite coherently, makes himself very well understood and I think that’s thanks to being included in a school where he’s been treated like other members of the class and he hears the children talking, and adults are talking to him.
35:27
Rachel Canavan
I think he has a lot of innate ability. He can read very, very well.
35:34
Teacher, ‘”Please do not hurt me, Mr Lion”, the little mouse said, “One day I may be able to help you.” The lion laughed and laughed but he let the mouse go.’
35:46
Rachel Canavan
Not just for his age group, but amongst his peers in the class he is one of the top readers. That has helped him immensely. Sometimes you think he’s not really listening on the carpet, but when you ask him, you find that he does understand”
36:05
Finlay Gray, “…I can help you”
Rachel Canavan, “He does say ‘I can help you’. Who says it?”
Finlay, “The mouse”
Rachel Canavan, “The mouse. What’s the mouse doing?”
Finlay, “Eating the rope”
Rachel Canavan, “Eating the rope…”
36:16
Rachel Canavan
Because basically he does the same work as everybody else, we don’t really differentiate a lot between what he does and what the other children do, except in the very beginning where when he was learning to read and write we would do a lot of word matching, and that helped him enormously, that really was very efficient way of teaching him to read.
36:41
Rachel Canavan
Because he wasn’t speaking in sentences, I felt that reading was showing him, you know, that sentences exist if you know what I mean, that words have a relationship with each other, Because, I’m not sure that he actually understood that putting letters together to make words, you know, what that process was, whether he actually saw them as words or individual letters just standing next to each other. So I think reading helped him to see, you know, sentence construction and also, matching sentences, making the words go together, that was very helpful.
37:17
Finlay Gray, “‘You are too small to help me’ said the lion.”
Literacy skills
37:33
Gillian Bird
The children need a really comprehensive package for developing their literacy skills in all areas, and tying those in with their language learning.
37:45
Jan Pereira, “Put your hand up.”
(Ewan Butterworth puts hand up)
Jan Pereira “So what’s your goat going to wear?”
Teacher, “Ewan, have you thought of one?”
Ewan, “Coat”
Jan Pereira, “Your goat is wearing a coat.”
Ewan (signs and says), “Goat…coat”
Teacher, “Once there was a goat who was wearing a coat. That’s a good one isn’t it? That’s quite funny because goats don’t normally wear coats do they? Which one do you think we should write down for our fist line?”
Classmate, “Ewan’s”
38:12
Gillian Bird
If you think of a young child starting school, it would be to emphasise the importance of being a part of all of the teaching that all of the children are experiencing. Definitely being included in phonic teaching activities. We need the children’s phonological awareness to improve and develop and that will be helped through all phonic activities. From learning about letter sounds, saying the letters, hearing themselves say the letters, seeing how letters and sounds work in phonically regular words, and so on, following through the same programme of activities as other children, OK, but some of the children will find that more difficult to do, but it is important to do.
39:05
Teacher, “…and then write something about what he is doing. Have you got another idea Ewan?”
Jan Pereira, “What did you say happened to the goat?”
Ewan Butterworth, “The goat…in the boat…and he fell down and splash in the water…and, and swim.”
Teacher, “He was swimming in the water was he?”
39:26
Gillian Bird
Similarly, they’ll learn to spell and you’ll want spelling with word families that use the structure of the letters in the words as well as learning to spell useful words or function words, and learning to spell the words that they can read independently through their reading books.
39:50
Gillian Bird
Another consideration is how to get them started, and that would be with whole word reading, just for the reading part, to realise that words, whole words, have meanings. That would be done by word matching games, using word cards and the variety of games and activities around that, a variety of books and schemes and materials that the children can succeed with and to continue to develop their phonic skills so that they will become able to read words they’ve never seen before and to spell words and to write independently.
40:34
Gillian Bird
Another area is reading comprehension which we would tie with language comprehension and you could be building these two together with an advantage for language that’s in print because it doesn’t disappear, whereas the children are more likely to forget what’s said to them. So you’ve actually got a slight advantage for literacy understanding compare with spoken language – doesn’t disappear and you have time to explain what it means through discussion through using pictures and other resources.
41:09
Gillian Bird
At the sentence level, when the reading activities can be tied with their sentence comprehension and you can use advice from the speech and language therapist to go with that and target some sentences. You know, for example, if you’re working on understanding past tenses you can look out for those in your reading books. Or pronouns, and put a bit of extra discussion around those, so that you know the child understands.
41:40
Gillian Bird
That will go along quite nicely and then, for, as children become more skilled they’ll be working at text level comprehension, which is lot more difficult, where you know, you have to extract meanings from the sentences and remember it and understand. Now that’s…the teachers are of course more familiar with that because they’re doing that for all children and the techniques will be the same as those you’d use for all children, where you need to think carefully about what they’ve read, have strategies for remembering and building on what they’ve read…
Writing skills
42:26
Gillian Bird
Often the children are delayed in their motor, fine motor development and, so handwriting is a bit later to develop. I say that not to sound negative but for people not to worry if it doesn’t come easily during the infant years. Some children it will, some children will really take off with their handwriting at seven or eight, or nine, and you just keep going. It’s practice, the more practice they have, the faster they’ll go. And you want motivating practice, you want them to enjoy what they’re doing and to do lots of practice at home and at school and in unstructured ways as well as in formal handwriting practice.
43:12
Gillian Bird
So that will develop, and then there are other ways that you…for helping the children to write using words and using their language skills. And that can be done with pieces of paper or card with whole words that can be rearranged for real, or using computer programs such as Clicker 4 or 5.
Language skills
43:44
Sue Richardson
Conor could only say ‘dad’ and ‘mum’ when he came to school, so the progress he made was very, very quick.
45:53
Sue Richardson, “Describe the trees.”
Conor Hayes, “The trees”
Sue Richardson, “What are they like?”
Conor, “Erm…trees is apple.”
Sue Richardson, “Apples trees.”
Classmate, “Are they apple trees?”
44:05
Sue Richardson
Socially, that happened within the first term of being at school. He started speaking to the other children because he wanted to play with them and they were talking to him and they were talking back.
44:15
Classmate, “Dirty brown smoke billowing out of the chimney tops. Do you like it or shall we change it?”
Conor Hayes, “Change it.”
Classmate, “Change it? OK…Shall we change the colour of the smoke? What colour smoke shall we have?”
Conor, “Red.”
44:27
Sue Richardson
His speech has improved immensely, he now speaks quite clearly in sentences and can make himself understood.
44:35
Classmate, “Dirty red smoke billowing out of the chimney tops.”
Sue Richardson, “What do you think? Good, bad?”
Conor Hayes, “Good.”
44:45
Tracey Parkin
Getting other people to understand her speech has always been a big challenge. By the end of the school year, the teacher has got tuned into most of her speech, and the class have. Bits and pieces, they still struggle, conversation is still an issue but clear statements of fact are OK. And one of the things we worked with to deal with that was to get her into small groups for her reading, especially infant school, and get the best readers to sit with Bronwen to realise that actually, one she could read, and two, when she was reading they could actually understand what she was saying, so they could tune into the way that she said her words
45:22
Beth Tressider
I think a lot of staff found it hard to understand what she was saying ‘cos she wasn’t very clear, she would speak very fast but we’ve sort of taught her, “slow down, if we can’t understand, tell us again, sign to us, until we can grasp what it is you’re actually saying’’
45:44
Georgina Tuzemen
Well I wanted Bronwen to be able to articulate what it is she wanted to say, wanted to be able to do. And I think I found that quite frustrating, not always being able to understand, but I’m sure it’s far more frustrating for Bronwen. So that was certainly a challenge, but I’m pleased to say that after a year of being with Bronwen, her speech has improved incredibly. And it was a case of working at other ways that Bronwen could communicate and learning from modelling by myself or by looking at other pupils, how it is appropriate to gain my attention, and how to ask for help and that sort of thing
46:16
Ian Lapworth
With Joe in particular, his communication problems have been difficult, but in the time that I’ve had him, whether I’ve just tuned into his way of speaking, I think he’s come on in leaps and bounds and I hear him saying clear sentences and it’s been a real revelation for me and a great experience.
46:39
Joe Walker, “Mrs Lamb…the same.”
46:41
Zoe Lamb
Every Friday Joe has to go around and collect all the merit slips. He has to ask in an appropriate manner, you know, not being silly, he’s got a sentence strip from a PECS board which says ‘I want the merit slips’, and he has to present that and say the sentence as well.
46:57
Ian Lapworth
We’ve given him certain jobs around the school which, which sort of ensures that he has to go to other members of staff and talk to them. He…erm…we get him to go around and collect the merit awards at the end of the week so he goes to each class and he has to say, he has to ask for those cards in as clear a voice as he can
47:25
Joe Walker, “Mrs Lamb?”
Zoe Lamb, “Yes?”
(Joe makes ‘rubber’ gesture)
Zoe Lamb, “Oh, what do we need?”
Joe “Rubber.”
47:30
Zoe Lamb
They’ve been told, you know, just talk to him like they would talk to anyone else, you know, ‘morning Joe, how are you today?’. You know, so it’s getting him used to people talking to him and, you know, then he does actually now go up to people and approach them and say ‘good morning’ or ‘what are you doing?’ most of the time because he’s nosey!
Section 7 – Valuing friendships
Time [min:sec]
Narration/soundtrack
48:00
Gillian Bird
Children will develop friendships by participating, by doing things with other children. So, to help them to do so, you need to plan for and set up experiences where they’re interacting with other children. That doesn’t just mean playtimes or lunchtimes or play situations, it means throughout the day. Most of the children’s time is spent in the classroom, so how the child is sat, arrangements in groups really matter. A lot of the talking will be about the work, or the equipment they need for the work, or passing things, or sharing things. You can put that into the activities in the classroom. You need to find ways the children can participate together with the skills that the child with Down syndrome has. You can’t make the child have skills that he or she hasn’t got, so you have to make it achievable.
49:04
Gillian Bird
And then there’s a little bit of planning, or you might want to do more planning, or you might want systems for peer support or buddy systems. Or at the most planned level will be a circle of friends, but I think that’s quite unusual because mostly the children do have friendships of different, you know, of all sorts of types and they just need a bit of help.
49:28
Karen Young
Before the children arrived, we made sure that we had a weekly circle time and within our weekly circle time we discussed that we were having some children, and we explained that they had something called Down syndrome. They already knew the sister and brother of the children anyway. We explained who they were and we said that they may look slightly different but they weren’t actually different and we made a point of, sort of, looking around the class and picking other differences, you know, red haired children and things like that, and saying how we didn’t think they were different, they were just another child in our class
50:00
Tracey Parkin
I was a bit concerned as to how the other children would respond to her, whether she would have friends, whether she would be completely isolated, because I am aware that they lose out on special friends as they go through schooling, and that’s one thing they get from special needs school, but potentially don’t get from mainstream schooling. So, I was a little concerned about that but actually it turned out to be completely unfounded.
50:21
Karen Young
The other children have grown up with them, in essence. They’ve known these children since they were four or five. They don’t see them as different. You know, children grow up and they don’t see differences in the same way.
50:32
Tracey Parkin
What’s nice about that is she’s acknowledged – she’s not ignored. And if she does walk around the school, you can hear this, ‘oh hi Bronwen, hi Bronwen. What are you doing?’ And to me that’s really, really lovely to see her acknowledged. They may not understand her, they may not want to be her best friend, but she’s not ignored and that’s really, really powerful.
50:50
Karen Young
Our big concern, I know the parents’ concern was they would be babied because actually they’re quite cute. That hasn’t happened and I think because the children in their classes don’t allow that to happen, you know, if they’re naughty, then there will always be one of their class telling you that they’re misbehaving. Equally, they’ll always have people to play with and I think that’s really important, to try and keep them with children who don’t see them as different is really important.
51:13
Ian Lapworth
He’s well and truly accepted by all the other children in the class. His inclusion in the class benefits them enormously in all sorts of ways. But it also helps him, they’re very good with him, they understand his problems. They’ve been with him for some time and they know him very well, and they know what his needs are, that’s helped him to adapt socially to the situation. I don’t think he’s had any problems at all.
52:46
Max Walker
From our point of view the most positive experience from schooling is the interaction with the children and he, understanding what social skills should be like and how he should be in school. And that was our main concern, that he went to a school, was that he was going into a mainstream school and he’s very much learning from others how his peer group behaves and how they operate, and we’ve been very lucky that, you know, they’ve accepted him and he’s then been very much included in everything that goes on.
52:22
Ian Lapworth
He’s got also all sorts of good social interaction from them, by meeting them outside school, he’s been to their parties and all those sorts of things, so the inclusion has been complete.
52:36
Max Walker
So, that’s really the great positive benefit, is that he doesn’t disappear in a mini bus to go to some specialist school and then come back again – in the evening, he was actually at school with all the local children. When he went to Sainsbury’s or wherever, they would all come up and say, ‘hello Joe,’ and ‘how are you?’
52:52
Debbie Hayes
Conor, from day one I think, had a really good class of children there who initially noticed his differences but accepted him. And I think that’s been one of the most positive things. And the focus that we wanted from day one and that was for him to be accepted like any other child.
53:21
Liz McDonald-Woods
He’s grown up with these children. He is very much part of their lives. They treat him in the same way as they do with all of their friends. He goes for sleepovers, he goes to parties so he’s very much part of the class team. And I think the younger children, you know having just seen perhaps him from this year, the younger children accept Conor very much as part of school life.
53:44
Debbie Hayes
All the children have grew up with him from the age of 4, they know him. If we’re out locally, shopping, and they bump into him, they always say hello to him. You know, he’s had a really positive schooling in his primary school because of that and he’s got quite a few friends, a variety of different friends as well that live locally, you know, that we catch up with, which is really good for Conor.
54:11
Liz McDonald-Woods
For example, earlier in the year we instituted a new situation of house teams in the school. Conor was voted as a house captain by his friends and he’s now St Catherine’s house captain and he’s loving that challenge, he goes up and he accepts the cup, he cheers on his team at sports day.
54:31
Liz McDonald-Woods
He’s playing the major role, the part of Jacob in the school play, and the class decided, along with Conor, that was the role he should play.
Soundtrack of children singing from ‘Jacob and sons’ from ‘Joseph and the amazing Technicolor dream coat’
54:42
Liz McDonald-Woods
He’s the father of a family of twelve boys and he’s loving it, he’s absolutely loving it, he’s up on stage, singing and clapping and dancing along with the rest of them. Very much included.
Soundtrack of children singing from ‘Jacob and sons’ from ‘Joseph and the amazing Technicolor dream coat’
55:01
Sue Richardson
It’s absolutely fantastic to see him on the stage, and you know how from when we first started at school, I had to take him onto the stage for the first production and stand him there and practically sit with him, to now he’s on the stage, on his own, getting on and off, up and down three or four steps and I’m just there, I’m just a spare part really!
Soundtrack of children singing from ‘Jacob and sons’ from ‘Joseph and the amazing Technicolor dream coat’
55:22
Tony Murray
If you look at what’s now our Year 6 class who’ve been with Conor since he was here right from the beginning, they have incredible skills. They don’t patronise him at all, but they include him in everything. They’re quite happy to have a moan at him like they would with any other child, but he’s just one of the class, it’s as simple as that, he’s one of the class and that’s been great, and that’s their skills having developed over time.
Soundtrack of children singing from ‘One more angel in heaven’ from ‘Joseph and the amazing Technicolor dream coat’
55:48
Ken Bowen
And children have shown us that by including children with additional needs in their class, they themselves develop all kinds of skills around tolerance, social skills, Perhaps develop their own language skills, because they are helping a youngster who perhaps doesn’t find it as easy to express themselves, and they’ll help them with their language development so in turn, their own language development matures and improves, so we’ve seen all kinds of benefits and spin offs in that way.
56:11
Jan Knowles
I think this is such a positive thing for children, I think it’s understanding that all children are different, not just children with Down syndrome, and it’s accepting those differences. It’s about children understanding how they have to play with each other, and how to include other children.
56:29
Karen Young
The impact has been that our children don’t see them as anything but children at Solent Junior School. And I think that’s the biggest impact, that we don’t notice them and the other children don’t notice them, and I think that’s really important, they’re just children like any other children.
54:40
Ken Bowen
People with disabilities, people with different and additional needs are a part of our community. And children who grow up with children with additional needs as their classmates accept that naturally. You don’t get that fear and anxiety that you can sometimes see if children meet a disabled person for the first time, it just becomes a natural part of their life…little Michael here is a member of my class.
57:03
Suzanne Drummond
But Ewan now has a place in this community and that will never, ever disappear. And as a teenager and as an adult, he will keep meeting people who have been to school with him and know him and have known him before, and I think that is hugely important. But also, I think it’s important because I think they will meet other people with Down syndrome and they will not be frightened, or worried, or concerned.
Section 8 – Supporting behaviour
Time [min:sec]
Narration/soundtrack
57:40
Gillian Bird
Mostly, you want the child to learn by watching, by copying, by having good role models. Whether they’re real role models, you know, pointing out, letting them see what other children are doing and how they’re doing it. Or whether they’re picture guides with pictures, with text as well for what the expectations are, what we’re supposed to do in this situation or that situation. Or social books, where you would have photographs acted out, or videos you could have, but photographs with the child doing what you want them to do in a situation. Now you wouldn’t need to do that for all children, you’d only do something extra or different if you felt the child needed it or you wanted to change behaviour.
58:33
Gillian Bird
So that would be the first thing, to give them lots of opportunities for understanding what it is they’re supposed to do and seeing other children doing it. And seeing the consequences for other children behaving well or how you want them to be. And to experience the consequences of behaving appropriately for the child him or herself. That’s really important. OK, so generally speaking it would be the use of positive behaviour management systems, strategies, reinforcements, finding out what they like, what the child likes, what motivates him or her, and using that to teach and practise the behaviours that you want.
59:19
Liz McDonald-Woods
I think the one thing that I’ve tried to keep and I do it for all the children, is that I have very high expectations of what they are going to achieve, and I think that’s no different for Conor, as for any other children. In term of high expectations in terms of the work they’re going to achieve, and high expectations in terms of their behaviour and their attitudes.
59:35
Liz McDonald-Woods
And Conor is treated in exactly the same way in the classroom, if children are asked to line up quietly, Conor will be expected to do the same. He may need some help in the movement to the line, and some encouragement maybe on days when he is feeling a little bit grumpy, to do so, but the expectations are there, and I feel if we have high expectations, then you know the social inclusion, the social skills, the movement, all happens along at the same time.
01:00:01
Tracey Parkin
And the age appropriate behaviour was a really big issue, so if that’s what they did with their 4 year olds, that’s what they did with Bronwen, until they found out she really couldn’t cope and then obviously they would modify things down.
01:00:11
Georgina Tuzemen
I responded to Bronwen in the way that I would respond to any pupil in my class, in that it’s a case of obviously trying to always catch the good behaviour and trying to be positive rather than focusing on the negative by praising those children who are pulling their chairs and letting people pass. So she’s responded quite well to that, but I think often it does need to be black and white for Bronwen.
01:32:00
Georgina Tuzemen
I’ve designed a sticker chart, and each week she works with her LSA and she decides three targets. At the beginning we steered it towards things that we know needed to be worked on, for example tucking my chair in.
But she can choose one or two of her own targets and the chart is set up into each lesson and each break-time because we were having a couple of difficulties at break-times, not wanting to come in from the playground, not wanting to wear her coat when it was cold, that sort of thing. And if she meets those targets, at the end of each session she chooses a stamp or sticker to put in those boxes and I prepare the same chart to be used at home and that’s been used with great success as well
01:01:16
Beth Tressider
Mainly towards the end of the day when she gets tired there’s been sort of a few problems. We sit in rows, so every now and then she’ll decide to maybe fly a chair out. But when we realised these sort of problems were starting, we started up a…we got mum and dad in, we spoke to them, we set up a behaviour diary that would work at home as well, so it was consistent both at home and at school, to challenge the behaviours.
And after every lesson, she would get a stamp or a sticker and she would put that on the chart herself, and at the end of the day, if she’d had a complete success of the day, she would have a reward, some golden time, the computer
01:02:02
Jan Pereira
Ewan plays a little roughly at times and the children have been asked to say to him, that if they don’t quite like what he’s actually doing, to say, ‘Ewan, I don’t like that, you know, you’re being a little rough’, or ‘you’re hurting me’ or whatever and most of the time it’s just exuberance because he doesn’t really know when to back off and he will stop and everything’s fine again.
01:02:28
Rachel Canavan
Because you know we have a split year group, so a lot of the younger ones, the Year R children hadn’t met Finlay before, whereas all the Year R children had known Finlay from when he was in ‘Sunflowers’, so they were used to Finlay.
But when the Year R children came in, I think we had to again explain to them that Finlay doesn’t speak a great deal, so sometimes it’s not because he’s angry with them or he wants to hurt them specifically, or…but that he wants to communicate and he doesn’t really have any other way to do it.
01:03:04
Rachel Canavan
The deterioration in behaviour tends to relate to tiredness, the end of term, if he’s feeling unwell. That can often be an indication that he’s in fact coming down with something, if he’s, because he’s normally quite good, and then all of a sudden it goes, that’s like a warning signal that he may not be well.
01:03:26
Rachel Canavan
As you work with a child over a long period of time, you pick up the little nuances, and that’s certainly one thing that we’ve all learnt.
01:03:35
Gillian Bird
I usually say first of all do what you’d do for any child, which people will do, of course they will. But then if they come back with a concern about behaviour you already know that hasn’t worked and now it’s time to do something a little bit different.
If you like, stage two in behaviour management, which would be using behaviour management principles and doing an observation and looking at the antecedents, behaviours and consequences, and using all of those to prevent behaviours, to teach new skills, to reinforce and practise the skills you want and to no longer reinforce or you know have the child practise the skills you don’t want. That needs change on everybody’s part, not just on the children’s part.
Section 9 – Encouraging independence
Time [min:sec]
Narration/soundtrack
01:04:44
Gillian Bird
You’re always looking for ways that the children can be more independent, can rely less on your support or guidance of others and certainly do more things with children rather than with adult supervision. But you have to remember the skills the child has, you can’t push that too far forward. I could say by, you could look at it by age, but the children are all different so it’s really looking at the individual child and where his or her social skills are and moving forward from there.
01:05:22
Jan Pereira
Again that’s down to Ewan because he’s watched the other children quite carefully and takes a lot of his cues from them. We have a routine during the school day which he’s fitted into really, really well. He knows what he’s expected to do in the mornings, and does it very, very well. And then any cues he may need, he will…he won’t look to the adults, he will look to his peers.
01:05:50
Ian Lapworth
We’ve encouraged his mum to stay outside the school and just send him in, letting him let go of his parents outside and then making his own way into the classroom and setting himself up in the morning. We’ve sort of encouraged him to do that as well, you know just find his own way to different classrooms and that sort of thing. So he goes to out to meet her outside, as all the other children do.
01:06:15
Georgina Tuzemen
At the beginning of the year, for example, she might have gone on an errand to the office with somebody so she didn’t get distracted on the way, she can now go to anybody’s class in the school, or the office, with a very clear message, which I would ask of any child in the school, but enabling her to participate also.
01:06:33
Beth Tressider
If there’s group work, she’ll go into a group, I’ll maybe sort of shadow sort of behind and walk around the class and just keep coming back. How are things going, sort of maybe prompt Bronwen every now and then to give her, get her a little bit of input into what’s going on.
01:06:49
Tracey Parkin
And the same when she went to Calshott recently, they had three days away, and they were doing skiing and archery and trawling, and I’m like, ‘she’s not going…’, and abseiling, ‘she won’t do any of that’, and she did, she had a go at all of them, so she surprised me and she surprised them, and everyone again, was really keen that she went. And when she got back, everyone was saying, ‘Bronwen did this and Bronwen did that’, so when she does achieve the rest of the class are really pleased for her.
01:07:15
Gillian Bird
Junior school in particular is where you’d expect to see usually great strides forward in independence and the children would have more responsibilities within school and you’d be wanting them to happen at home as well and become more independent. And you’d be looking for activities that are socially valued and age appropriate.
01:07:40
Liz McDonald-Woods
I think we’ve taken it very much from what Conor wants. Up until recently, he’s been in a downstairs classroom, it’s only in the last couple of years he’s had to move up and down the stairs and initially, that’s been quite a challenge to him, in terms of independent movement around the school. He now actually tells us, ‘don’t come with me, go, I’m going to do it myself’, and we can quite happily send him on messages around the school and we can quite happily send him out to lunch or playtime.
01:08:06
Sue Richardson
As he’s got older now, he is for example a Year 6 monitor, he will sit at the projector in the hall and be responsible for that. He’s a wet play monitor, he’s responsible for children in Year 2, he goes in there and makes sure they’re behaving themselves. He does things like that, and also in the classroom, it’s things like making, making him get his own equipment, so, ‘can you go and get your book from your drawer?’
01:08:32
Sue Richardson, “Conor, can you give that to Mrs Woods please”
01:08:35
Liz McDonald-Woods
But within the classroom, he’s just the same as the other children. He has his tray, he knows where resources are kept, he’s sent to take things back to where they should be put, and he’ll do it on his own, so his independence skills, I think, are growing the whole time.
01:08:48
Dinner lady, “Conor, lasagne, sausage or fish?”
Conor Hayes, “Sausage”
Dinner lady, “Two?”
Conor, “Two.”
01:08:55
Debbie Hayes
He definitely knows where he’s at and I think his peers around him doing things of their own accord and just moving on, as you do, in normal development, and Conor observing that and being with them and watching them, has helped promote his independence, definitely.
01:09:16
Tony Murray
At the end of Year 5, towards the end of Year 5, the children go on a residential visit to a farm in Devon, which is a nine day trip away from home, which is interesting for all children obviously. It’s a working farm and Conor came with us last year and joined in as much as he possibly could, had a great time, I think he’ll tell you himself how much he enjoyed himself down there. I don’t think he wanted to come back, like most of the other children. He got his hands dirty and had a thoroughly good time and again, although obviously he’s got particular needs, he was just part of the gang and just joined in with the other children and just enjoyed the social side of being away from home.
Section 10 – A positive impact
Time [min:sec]
Narration/soundtrack
01:10:09
Sue Buckley
We do believe that inclusion for children with Down syndrome is for all children. We are not just talking about the most able. In our experience locally we include all children with Down syndrome unless their parents choose otherwise. We have seen success for children with a wide range of abilities and disabilities, and our experience suggests that the key issue is staff attitudes. If staff believe the child has a right to be there and it’s the best place for them to be, then the child will succeed.
01:10:38
Karen Young
I think we sort of took it on with a bit of trepidation, you know, the comments were the usual comments when it first started, you know, ‘I didn’t expect this sort of inclusion’, you know, ‘these children weren’t the sorts of children that I expected I’d be teaching’. And suddenly, they’re here and I’ve just been in the office you know, and one of them’s been in the office chatting away, and generally it’s changed all our outlook…because very often our expectations of children are to make big leaps and it puts it all into perspective that some children make small leaps but you feel good about it and I think that’s important.
01:11:09
Suzanne Drummond
I think the experience of having Ewan has actually alleviated a lot of those fears, you know. And I think, not just for Ewan and other children with Down syndrome, but other children with special needs who may now, you know, they think they have less concerns about including than they might have had previously.
01:11:30
Sue Buckley
Over time, I’ve realised that many of the adaptations we are asking teachers to make in order to include a child with Down syndrome actually help many other children in the classroom. There are always two or three children in a mainstream classroom who are perhaps falling behind on the curriculum, and the methods that we use to help a youngster with Down syndrome work for them as well. The teachers constantly tell us that this is the case.
01:11:56
Jan Knowles
It’s been a huge professional development thing for me, to understand that these children can cope very well in mainstream schooling, can make terrific progress and can have huge benefits from working in a mainstream setting. And I think that must be the same for all staff who’ve worked with children, certainly the staff who have worked with them this year, again, it’s been a huge professional development thing for them that I’m sure will impact on all of their teaching, about recognising individual needs and how to deal with those.
01:12:27
Tony Murray
I think it’s probably reinforced positive values that I hope we all had about inclusion. I think one thing it has done is made inclusion a reality and proven to us that despite challenges, and I mean you get challenges with any children obviously, but despite the challenges it’s been a fantastic experience for us really.
01:12:44
Ken Bowen
What I would say to other local authorities is give it a go. There are all kinds of anxieties about including children with different profiles of need in a mainstream school, but as I said earlier, sometimes our greatest ambassadors for inclusive education are those schools that have said, ‘yes, we’ll give it a try’, that we’ve been able to provide them with some support and that they have seen the benefits for themselves and realised it is possible and not only beneficial for the child themselves, but for the school community as a whole.
Transcript: Inclusion in practice – Educating children with Down syndrome at primary school © 2006, The Down Syndrome Educational Trust
