Paces

More press comment on Lamb Inquiry

The Guardian, 16 December 2009:

"Special needs system requires 'radical overhaul' 

Government report reveals scale of struggle some parents face, and advocates a reform of the statementing system to prioritise the needs of the child over the availability of resources

The Observer, 20 December 2010

'I came to see the school as a little corner of paradise' 

Fighting for special needs support becomes even more difficult when you have to battle a local authority

SEN & Parent Confidence: Lamb Inquiry reports

Lamb Inquiry, SEN & Parent Confidence, final report published today. Download: http://bit.ly/XCSlw

Tasty morsels from the Foreword:

"The education system is living with a legacy of a time when children with SEN where (sic) seen as uneducable."

"There needs to be a radical recasting of the relationship between parents, schools and local authorities to ensure a clearer focus on the outcomes and life chances for children with SEN and disability."

"The assessment process drives much of the controversy and dissatisfaction in the system."

"We found far too many examples of vagueness and a lack of specificity in the writing of statements and a reluctance to keep statements under review."

.... and so on.

After a quick reading of the Foreword, I shall now have to read the whole report more carefully myself.

When Cameron came to Ecclesfield in S. Yorkshire ...

When Tory leader David Cameron came to Ecclesfield in South Yorkshire ("Cameron Direct"), Karen Hague of Paces got to ask him a question about special educational needs, the 'statementing' process, and the problem of local authorities undertaking the assessment as well as holding the purse strings.

Hear Karen's question and Cameron's answer at about 30 mins into the recording.

23rd annual Bridge School benefit Concert

Something I just wanted to share with you ....

Surprising as it seems to me - but maybe no more surprising than that time passes and my youngest daughter Sarah is now 27 years old - 2009 was the 23rd annual Bridge School benefit concert. You can check out video clips from past concerts on The Bridge School YouTube Channel or read about the concert on the L.A. Times Music Blog, Pop & Hiss

The Bridge School is not a conductive education school. It does say of itself that it is:

 "An innovative organization educating children with severe speech and physical impairments through the use of:

• creative approaches to education and communication
• augmentative and alternative communication systems and assistive technology
• extensive involvement of families and community

And having dipped in and out of the School's website over many years, I'm prepared to believe that. The Bridge School manages four programmes: Education, Transition, Outreach and Research, which makes me feel it is a bit like Paces.  I admire the evident energy. 

The Bridge School Benefit concerts have been organized by Neil Young and his wife, Pegi, every year since 1986 (excpet 1987) as non-profit charitable events for The Bridge School. Mostly the guest musicians use acoustic instruments and Neil Young himself performs every year.

Now that would be something to emulate for Paces School. Anyone know a musician who would be our champion?

"Enterprise, Community and Complexity"

I've not met Mike Chitty. I hope to. I know him mostly through his Tweets on Twitter (@mikechitty), where his 'bio' lists his interests as "enterprise, management, entrepreneurship, family, community development, breadmaking and fishkeeping". He has, as he says on his blog "a different perspective on enterprise".

Some measure of Mike Chitty's different perspective is his posting "Enterprise, Community and Complexity" on 23rd November. Having opened with the proposition that these are three "slippery words" on which nothing more can perhaps usefully be written; having embraced innovation and experimentation; having asked his readers first to "First, empty your mind of all those misconceptions that I must be talking about ‘business starts', ‘cash flow forecasts’, ‘profits’ and ‘Dragons’, he then writes this:

I am talking about enterprise as a measure of ‘agency’ in one’s own life.  The extent to which an individual is able to recognise what ‘progress’ (another slippery word) means and to take action in its pursuit.  This is what I mean by enterprise.  It is the product of clear self-interest (I know what I want) and power (I have the confidence, skills and knowledge to take organised action in its pursuit).  An enterprising person is one who is clear on what they want from their life and actively pursues it. 

Two things strike me about this remarkable statement:

1. It forcibly reminds me of something I read of Dr Hari's, though you will need to check her actual words for yourself (in "Conductive Education. Occasional Papers 2. Orthofunction - A conceptual analysis."): "Conductive education is about enhancing the quality of intention to achieve." 

2. It also reminds me of our own definition of "being enterprising" that we developed and still hope to take further in our conductive education work with young adults at Paces: that, to borrow Mike Chitty's words, they should have a measure of agency in their own lives, can articulate their intentions and dreams, and gain confidence, skills and knowledge to take organised action. 

How interesting that we who champion conductive education should find a kindred spirit in, I'm tempted to write, a wholly different field.  Except that - quite remarkably - Mike does not see himself as being in a wholly different field. When developing 'enterprise', he says "We are in the realms of person centred facilitation and education."  Almost conductive, don't you agree?

Actually, a third thing struck me. Mike Chitty ends the paragraph I quoted above with the following sentence: "An enterprising community is one which has many such people – because they are valued and supported."

I wonder how we could better apply that last sentence to being enterprising in our community of conductive education practitioners and, in my own case, in our community at Paces Campus .... valuing and supporting each other.

On education and therapy being the same thing

Prompted by a posting Oh dear Oh dear Oh dear by Andrew Sutton, I visited the blog of Karen Johnson, whom he mentions in the posting, particularly her posting Plasticity of the brain.  

There, Karen Johnson and I have engaged in a short exchange (and necessarily unsatisfactory for there is so much one might say) through Comments. In the course of the conversation, Karen Johnson has asserted her belief that "education and therapy are the same thing" - not a position I have heard before expressed so directly.

You might like to take a look and add your own thoughts.

"All children are born artists ..." Picasso

Coming up with titles for blogs, mostly finds me short of words and inspiration.

This title quote from Picasso is lifted from the Intro Video on Sir Ken Robinson's new web site.

Actually, all I wanted to do was point your way there.

Oh - and if your internet connection will handle it, don't skip the Intro Video.

"Cerebral palsy in the classroom"

At a private gathering yesterday, while waiting for the main guest and speaker, I was inevitably asked what I did, then about the education of children with cerebral palsy and then, of course, what was conductive education.

Generally, I try to shift the last question and come at the answer from a different direction, rather than directly. A remarkable number of people asked, for instance, how they would advise a young relative who wished to train to be a teacher of children with cerebral palsy are astonished to discover that not only is such teacher training not an option in the UK, their young relative cannot train specifically and specially as a teacher of disabled children: thus making the stark contrast with the training of conductors in CE that teachers entering upon a classroom where there are children with cerebral palsy haven't necessarily a clue about CP or how to teach a child with CP. Alternatively, I might ask when the questioner last heard of a national conference on the education of children with cerebral palsy, in order to point out that - unlike with the education of children with other educational disabilities, the mainstream educational world did not find this a subject worthy of time and debate. OR I might suggest to them that if they were to google "cerebral palsy" and "education", they would find little of informative value (other than conductive education) as compared with googling "cerebral palsy" and "therapy" which would produce many 'hits', but with little value to an enquiry about teacher-training, pedagogy and curriculum.

So I was intrigued, a moment ago, whilst checking on the stats for this blog (number of views; source of referrers etc), to notice that some one person on the planet had done a search on bing for "cerebral polcy in the classroom". Wondering what bing had found them, I went to take a look, as you can if you click on the link just above.

The most promising-sounding search results bing offered the searcher were:

How children with cerebral palsy are educated in the regular classroom

and

How to help students with cerebral palsy: teaching kids with limited mobility in the regular classroom

Both offer standard medical explanations of CP. 

The first then reduces the role of the educator to not much more than an arranger of furniture: "Teaching children with cerebral palsy is often an unfamiliar circumstance for a regular education instructor, but with assistance from therapeutic programs and access to modifications in the classroom, students with CP can thrive in a general setting alongside their non-disabled peers."

The second then has a 14-point plan for the teacher, which puts preparing the other pupils as its first three points (think - this only works if the incoming alien with CP is the very first into this classroom) as the priority ahead of being an arranger of furniture (which comes in at only the 4th point) but helpfully proposes as 5th and 6th points that the teacher should "keep the floor clean" and "use antibacterial cleaners". 

I wonder what my bing searcher made of this? Did they find the pages helpful? Did they learn something of the subject they were researching? Was the searcher a trainee teacher and the need for antibacterial wipes when including pupils with CP in the regular classroom end up in a coursework essay - and what grade was it awarded? Or was the searcher a Mum or Dad, seeking re-assurance about a school placement recommended by their child's local education authority?

How depressingly little it all has, as I said earlier, to do with teacher-training, pedagogy and curriculum. Or, how little to do with the notion that I mentioned in a previous posting, that education is a transformational process and purpose that might inspire the minds of teacher and pupil alike, together. Even those with cerebral palsy.

Winning the case for conductive education

Here's an interesting essay about education in the UK today - agree or disagree with its conclusion as you will. The author is Charles Moore, who argues that "For all the time and money put in, the education system is fundamentally flawed". Moore is a former editor of the Daily Telegraph and educated at Eton. So what does he know about education, some might ask. 

Actually, what arrested my attention was this single sentence:  "We have despaired of the transformation which education can bring about."  This, I take it, is the fundamental flaw Moore identifies.

Now, conductive education is a transformational education or it is nothing. So if Moore is right and all around us those in the mainstream of education have despaired of transformation as an educational purpose, then is it any wonder that we find it so hard to argue and win the case for conductive education?

Sarah Brown meets autism organisations.

Today, on Twitter, Prime Minister Gordon brown's wife Sarah Brown tweeted: "at meeting today with 40 autism sector representatives exploring ways to work collaboratively - I learned a lot just listening - thank you".

You can, as she a moment later tweeted, find a short report of the reception, which was held at No 10, on the Prime Minister's Office website.

It makes for an interesting little read.

"Sarah Brown brought together guests from Autism charities at Downing Street to pool ideas and resources to help their sector.

The Prime Minister’s wife hosted a reception to celebrate the work of the various charities and to look at ways that the sector can work together even more effectively to achieve it’s common aims."

I wonder what one would have to do to interest Sarah Brown in hosting a reception at No 10 for organisations working for the conductive education of children with cerebral palsy, so that we might work together even more effectively to achieve our common aims."?

I replied to her tweet to ask her. I wonder if she will respond?