Senco News

This little article focuses on dyscalculia – but it has implications for many special needs pupils and students. Even if dyscalculia is not an area of interest to you, I do hope you will press on with this, because I think we might be onto something here.

So… I have written before about the test my colleagues and I launched earlier this year for pupils and students who are potentially suffering from dyscalculia.

Obviously, before we launched the test we did quite a bit of experimenting and validating, but now having had a significant number of people take the test we are starting to see patterns emerge among the results which we had not expected.

One of these findings – and the one that I suspect might be generalisable beyond dyscalculia – is that a significant number of people taking our test have a much lower self-esteem in terms of their own maths ability than their academic ability in maths warrants.

In short, they can do more maths than they proclaim that they can do.

One of the many things we measure is how long it takes people to do our test – and what we find is that almost everyone who falls into this “not as bad as they think” category, takes quite a bit longer than the average person, to do the test.

This is interesting, because we know that some dyscalulic people, as well as some dyslexic people, actually rush at activities involving maths or English. They need training in slowing down.

These people that we are seeing have learned the art of slowing down, and can actually get their maths right if they slow down – but they retain a very low self-esteem.

Sadly I am not in a position to postulate a theory as to what we do to help these people – but it is an issue worth considering, I believe. What these people have is not an inability to do maths at all, but an inability to do maths AT THE SAME SPEED as others in their group. Those two findings are not the same thing at all.

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A complete list of all the nation’s schools with links to their websites now appears in the Schools Directory at www.schools.co.uk If your school’s website link is missing or is faulty, please let us know the correct entry and we’ll get it changed. Tens of thousands of parents use this site every year to check potential schools for their children. All listings are completely free.

Tony Attwood
Hamilton House Mailings Ltd

Hundreds of school support staff are to get degree-level and specialist training in helping children with special educational needs and/or disabilities under a new £500,000 programme.

The annual SEN support scholarship programme will provide up to £2,000 each to boost the skills of talented teaching assistants and school staff who work with children with SEND. The scholarship cash will fund staff through rigorous, specialist courses and qualifications.

Support and aspiration, the SEN green paper published in March last year, set out major reforms to develop the expertise and expert knowledge of the wider school workforce – so the most vulnerable children have their needs identified early and get the specialist help they need.

The green paper pointed to evidence that in many schools pupils with SEN were left to be supported ‘almost exclusively’ by teaching assistants – risking children becoming increasingly isolated from the rest of the class and classroom teachers.

It said the best schools proved that highly-skilled support staff could be crucial in raising standards – if they were trained, supported, deployed and managed effectively – and it proposed a national scholarship scheme to send a clear message that high-level professional development should the norm throughout a support staff career.

The scholarship programme will fund 50 per cent of the total course costs – up to a ceiling of £2,000 each.

There will be a competitive application process, open to support staff who hold A level or equivalent qualifications or hold higher level teaching assistant (HLTA) status. It will fund staff to take a wider range of degree-level equivalent qualifications and specialist diplomas in specific impairments such as in dyslexia or autism.

Applications will open on 30 April and close on 17 May, with the first scholarships awarded later this year.

This new fund for support staff scholarships is in addition to the national scholarship fund for teachers which opens its second round this month.

The minister also today confirmed funding in 2012/13 to train 1000 new special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs) through the master’s-level National Award for SEN Coordination – on top of almost 9000 training places funded to date since September 2009.

This year the scheme has also been extended to include qualified teachers working in pupil referral units, to support improved SEN provision, following the Government’s behaviour expert Charlie Taylor’s recent review into the quality of alternative provision.

SENCOs are teachers with specialist qualifications who play a lead role in a particular school on planning and delivering provision for pupils with additional needs.

SENCOs work with senior leaders and other teachers to:

identify pupils in need of more help;
advise on the most effective provision;
liaise with outside specialist agencies; and
oversee the delivery of targeted help for pupils with SEN.
More information about applying to the SEN support scholarship programme and national scholarship fund for teachers can be found in full in the funding for training section of the Department’s website.

The SEN green paper Support and aspiration: A new approach to special educational needs and disability was published last year. The Government will publish its response to the public consultation and next steps shortly.

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All today’s educational news stories appear on www.ukeducationnews.co.uk – the free news service for UK schools.

Tony Attwood
Hamilton House Mailings Ltd

I will always readily admit that I feel very ill at ease in the sphere of autism, never having had particular training in that area, and never being quite sure how to work with autistic people.

So all articles on autism in daily life are of interest to me, and I thought I would pass one short piece on – it is not specifically about the education of autistic people, but I found it of interest nonetheless…

The Metropolitan Police must be trained to recognise autism:

http://www.cypnow.co.uk/cn/andys-analysis-blog/1072649/the-metropolitan-police-trained-recognise-autism?utm_content=Andy%20Lusk%20on%20why%20it%27s%20crucial%20the%20police%20are%20trained%20to%20recognise%20autism&utm_campaign=CYP%20Now%20Daily%20Bulletin&utm_source=Children%20%26%20Young%20People%20Now&utm_medium=adestra_email&utm_term=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cypnow.co.uk%2Fcn%2Fandys-analysis-blog%2F1072649%2Fthe-metropolitan-police-trained-recognise-autism

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All today’s educational news stories appear on www.ukeducationnews.co.uk – the free news service for UK schools.

Tony Attwood
Hamilton House Mailings Ltd

In PSHE it is often a challenge to get up to date information on key issues to use in the classroom. Issues relating to Substance Abuse, Mental Health Issues, Depression, Eating Disorders, Self Harm. Loss, Separation and Bereavement are often discussed.

To help overcome this challenge the details of 43 of the most common and equally most often misunderstood special needs are given in 2 books:

A Guide to Syndromes and Conditions
A Guide to More Syndromes and Conditions.
In each case the condition is defined in terms of the characteristics and symptoms. Guidance is given on strategies and treatments followed by details of other useful resources.

These books are available from www.behaviourmatters.com/syndromesoffer

Cost of these resources:

£25 plus £2 postage and packaging (if one book purchased)
£40 plus £4 postage and packaging (if two books purchased)
To order please contact us at:

Behaviour Solutions Limited
15 St. Mary’s Close
Abbotskerswell
Newton Abbot
Devon
TQ12 5QF

Phone / Fax: 01626 366161
Email: dave@behaviourmatters.com

The need to ensure that staff have the skills to manage the increasing numbers of students with syndromes and conditions is a priority in schools. Research from Canterbury Christ Church University stated that ‘there is a sizeable proportion of teachers who do not consider they have a sufficiently wide range of strategies to manage the behaviour of pupils with SEN’.

A resource is now available for staff which would make an excellent addition to your Learning Resource area. These two books, A Guide to Syndromes and Conditions and A Guide to More Syndromes and Conditions will enable staff to update their knowledge and give them the skills to manage 43 of the most common and equally most often misunderstood special needs. In each case the condition is defined in terms of the characteristics and symptoms and then details of strategies and treatments followed by details of other useful resources.

These books are available from www.behaviourmatters.com/syndromesoffer

THese photocopiable books are priced at:

£25 plus £2 postage and packaging (if one book purchased)
£40 plus £4 postage and packaging (if both books purchased)
Behaviour Solutions Limited
15 St. Mary’s Close
Abbotskerswell
Newton Abbot
Devon
TQ12 5QF
Phone / Fax: 01626 366161
Email: dave@behaviourmatters.com

If you undertake a search on Google.co.uk using the phrase special needs, one of the top listings you get is the Direct Gov site “special educational needs”

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/Schoolslearninganddevelopment/SpecialEducationalNeeds/index.htm

At the top of the site is a heading:

Have your say on the special educational needs (SEN) system
Following an Ofsted report which found that the term ‘special educational needs’ is over-used, parents are being asked to give their opinions on the SEN system

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Sadly there is no link from this headline, and the reader is left hanging, and wondering.

And yet this is the prime special needs site of the government. On the Dept for Education website there is a sub-section on special needs (although it is rather hard to find) http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/pupilsupport/sen but it is not something to get too excited about. There is in fact only one article from 2012 on the site, as far as I can find, and that is on the topic of Independent Special Schools. There’s nothing new there – just an extract from section 146 of the Education and Skills Act 2008.

Top item is still the SEN green paper from just on a year ago – and we don’t seem to have gone beyond that.

Perhaps I am being too harsh when I say that I feel that this state of affairs reflects the government’s attitude towards special needs in schools – and if you think so, and most particularly if you have found any initiatives, new ideas, and other items that ought to be given an airing, please do let me know, because I can’t see them.

Meanwhile, there is always http://www.senteacher.org/ which always has some interesting items. And of course http://www.tes.co.uk/sen-teaching-resources/

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The School Procurement Site (www.top5.org.uk) is a free listing of hundreds of UK school products and suppliers, with details of numerous free resources, divided up by subject area. There are also links to their websites in each case.

Tony Attwood
Hamilton House Mailings Ltd

One of my particular interests within special needs is dyscalculia, and the question I am asked most is that of how people can be tested for dyscalculia. It is also a difficult question to answer.

The main reason for testing for dyscalculia would be to ensure that they are getting the right sort of maths education. However, it is my belief that the methods that can be used to help overcome maths problems in children – and indeed in adults – are the same whatever the cause of the inability to do maths.

A child might struggle with maths because he/she is dyscalculic. Or because the child missed a lot of education through illness. Or because the child misbehaved in class, or didn’t like the teacher. Maybe the child heard the parent say, “Don’t worry I was no good at maths either” and so thought it was ok not to be able to do maths, and so stopped trying. Maybe the maths teacher was off sick for a long time and the replacement wasn’t very good.

No matter what the cause – the solution is invariably the same. Teach the child step by step from the start, and use either computer technology or a multi-sensory approach, and the child will be able to get up to a level around GCSE. Because virtually every child can be helped through this method, there is no need to test. We would still teach the child in the same way, no matter what the test results said.

The simplest way to check if you think a child might be dyscalculia is to look at the very quick (and I fully admit, rough and ready) test that is published on the Dyscalculia Centre website.

This does not give a definitive view of dyscalculia, but any person experiencing a number of these problems is likely to benefit from a dyscalculia recovery programme. If you are testing a child you will need to remove those questions which relate to areas that the child has not covered at school. If you are not sure if a topic here is a problem you can test your child yourself. For example, point 1 says, “I sometimes see a number written down, but when I copy it, I write the numbers in the wrong order.” Try this and see what the result is.

The test, along with links to other organisations that can test for dyscalculia (at a cost), is within in the article at http://www.dyscalculia.me.uk/testing.html

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A complete list of all the nation’s schools with links to their websites now appears in the Schools Directory at www.schools.co.uk If your school’s website link is missing or is faulty, please let us know the correct entry and we’ll get it changed. Tens of thousands of parents use this site every year to check potential schools for their children. All listings are completely free.

Tony Attwood
Hamilton House Mailings Ltd

It is singularly disappointing how the government in England has failed to provide new information on its central website about special needs.

If one does a search on the government’s site there appear to be lots of pages about SEN, and yet almost everything one clicks turns out to be an article headed with the statement that this article may be out of date since the government has changed.

Quite why it takes this long to change articles I don’t really know, but there is one piece which dates from April this year, that doesn’t carry the warning message: http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/toolsandinitiatives/tripsresearchdigests/a0013259/themes-special-educational-needs-sen

It is a page of digests of research projects looking at aspects of special educational needs, including:

• social and emotional aspects of learning (SEAL)
• the effects of a movement programme
• engaging ADHD students with hand gestures.

It would be churlish to say that the articles are not of interest in themselves, but really one would hope for more. However there are four articles, and they are:

• Primary Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL): Evaluation of Small Group Work
• What are the effects of a movement programme on pupils with learning difficulties?
• Engaging ADHD students in tasks with hand gestures – a pedagogical possibility for teachers
• Can self-management interventions influence the academic achievement of students with emotional and behavioural difficulties?

If you can find any other interesting government statements on special needs do let me know.

Oh, and if by chance you find that the government appears to have got hold of your personal home (as opposed to work) email address without you giving it to them, you are not alone. Thousands are up in arms about this. There’s a full discussion of this, and details what you can do if you are concerned about the issue, at http://community.tes.co.uk/forums/t/536912.aspx

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If you have a press release relating to your school, or a piece of work by a pupil or student in your school that you think should reach a wider audience, it can become the featured item of the day on UK Education News (www.ukeducationnews.co.uk)   Please send it to chris@hamilton-house.com and we will do the rest.
Tony Attwood
Hamilton House Mailings Ltd 

I think it is commonly agreed that when children are struggling to grasp the basics of synthetic phonics they need not just additional support but also daily activities to help them to consolidate their understanding.

But, as we all know, creating worksheets, making simple card games appropriate to the needs of the child, and recording progress, all take a significant amount of time.

The key point, of course, is to ensure that each pupil gets daily activities focused upon the personalised areas where there are weaknesses.

Over the years I have looked at a range of software that targets this issue, and one of the most interesting is Booster Phonics which has been designed with exactly these pupils in mind.

What has brought them to my mind at the moment is that in the Summer term of 2010 five UK schools took part in a pilot to identify any improvements in reading when using Booster Phonics, with the software also being used by the majority of pupils at home. The results of this pilot showed just how much help Booster Phonics could be when used regularly, with significant gains in reading ages during the study. The findings can be found at www.wishtrac.co.uk/Booster_Phonics_Case_Study.pdf.

The program’s aim is to provide daily independent work for pupils to complete on a computer, along with precision-teaching probes to motivate pupils and monitor progress. One of the benefits is simplicity; the program is simple to administer and thus really does save a lot of preparation time. Not only can the activities be targeted at the specific needs of individual pupils, but the software can also be purchased for home use, so that pupils can supplement their work in school with work at home.

One other benefit is that Booster Phonics is available on 28 days’ free approval, so you can look at the software before committing to making a purchase. There’s also a video outlining the software which provides a helpful guide. There are details of both the video and the 28 days’ free approval at www.boosterphonics.co.uk

The news on the radio in the last couple of days has been about ADHD, and on those programmes that encourage listeners to text in there has been the inevitable range of opinions suggesting that no matter what research has been done by a team at Cardiff University, it’s all rubbish. Just another middle class excuse for bad parenting.

One of the interesting points that never comes out in such discussions however is the fact that many children with ADHD type problems can be helped through behaviour management. The point here is that this sort of behaviour management works whether the origin of the child’s behaviour issues are genetic (as in the work being done in Cardiff) or due to the child’s experiences and environment, or indeed specifically because of bad parenting.

In other words, in many cases, the origin of the problem doesn’t matter when it comes to looking at this approach.

Now I have to admit that behaviour management programmes work best when the same programme is used at school as at home – and there are programmes around in which there are not only guidance materials for use in the school, but also materials for use by parents. Of course where the home life is thoroughly chaotic the home side of the programme is not going to be of much help, but even then the behavioural management programme in the school can still do a lot for the pupil or student.

But I do firmly believe that large numbers of parents have difficulty with the behaviour of their children not because they are “bad parents”, but because they simply don’t know how best to handle the problems that can arise in a modern family. Throw in the pressures that most of us experience at one time or another, and it can all seem too much.

So my thought is that, whether ADHD has its origins in genetics or in bad parenting or in any other area, there are behavioural solutions that really can help many children that suffer the symptoms of ADHD.

Of course there is also the issue of using Ritalin, but I’m not qualified to speak on that, and a decision to use Ritalin or other chemicals is out of the hands of the education service. Ritalin might well help, but it is by no means the only solution.

And I’d throw in the thought that I believe that “bad parenting” is a bit too much of a catch-all phrase, including as it does many parents who would be able to handle the situation better, if only someone showed them how.

For me, with regards to ADHD children there is plenty we can all do, irrespective of the origins of the problem.