Paces

Training teachers of children with cerebral palsy - what you don't need to know

First, let me say it again: it is not possible in the UK to train to be a teacher of children with cerebral palsy.

Second, let me give you an instance of a description of cerebral palsy:

Cerebral palsy is caused by injury or developmental disturbances to the immature brain and leads to substantial motor, cognitive, and learning deficits. In addition to developmental disruption associated with the initial insult to the immature brain, injury processes can persist for many months or years. We suggest that these tertiary mechanisms of damage might include persistent inflammation and epigenetic changes. We propose that these processes are implicit in prevention of endogenous repair and regeneration and predispose patients to development of future cognitive dysfunction and sensitisation to further injury. (Source: Lancet Neurology) - my italics

Just let me run that past you again: leads to substantial motor, cognitive, and learning deficits ... developmental disruption .... predispose patients to development of future cognitive dysfunction ..

The word "patients", of course, is a giveaway that the origin of the description (Lancet Neurology) is rather a medical than an educational one. How much more interesting then is it to find in the description  cognitive, and learning deficits ... developmental disruption ... future cognitive dysfunction.

In other words, for the child with cerebral plasy, their 'motor deficit' is intrinsic to who they are and how they see themselves, as learning, developing individuals.

So now what does the DfE have to offer by way of training of teachers of these children? In "SEN and disability skills: Core skills in special educational needs and disability" the official view is expressed this way:

All teachers will have pupils with special educational needs (SEN) and/or disabilities in their classes and it's essential that they know how to help these pupils fulfill their potential.

Trainee teachers should have the opportunity to develop the core skills that enable them to teach all learners.

And what are these core skills?

• planning and teaching for inclusion and access to the curriculum
• behaviour management, and an awareness of the emotional and mental health needs of pupils (to build their self-esteem as learners)
• assessment for learning (learning skills)
• an understanding of when professional advice is needed and where to find it.

No mention whatever of an understanding of the nature of the disability. Clearly, what trainee teachers (and qualified teachers for that matter) do not need to know is anything useful about the condition that is so integral to the child's personality, sense of selfhood and development as a learner.

What don't teachers of children with cerebral palsy need to know? Anything whatsoever about cerebral palsy.

What, of course, every parent should know about - even if they choose something else for their child - is the system of schooling and upbringing known as conductive education, whose qualified professionals have spent 3, sometimes 4 years in training, gaining an understanding of all that is necessary to the teaching and upbringing of a child with cerebral palsy.

 

£500,000 scholarship scheme for SEN support staff ..(2) the courses

My previous posting drew attention to the DfE's new £500,000 scholarship scheme for SEN support staff. Now I can add that the Scheme's  SEN support scholarship: Round 1 handbook - April 2012 lists 31 eligible non-accredited courses in Appendix 2.

These include 5 offerings from Scope:

1. Cerebral palsy in the classroom: An introduction to the causes and effects of cerebral palsy on the child and adolescent, common learning difficulties and strategies to support classroom learning
2. Neurologically based behaviours: An introduction to the way that behaviours are compelled within the brain and strategies to support behaviour managements based on environmental changes
3. Working with families of disabled children: An introduction to the journey families undertake with their disabled child and ways to support them and work together 
4. Multi-sensory learning: Ideas for working with children operating within P Scales 1-3 
5. AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) in the classroom: Practical ideas to teach and include children who use alternative methods of communication

£500,000 scholarship scheme launched for SEN support staff

But who is putting on the courses? And are there courses for those working with children with motor dysfunctions? What of Conductive education? Who decided? Does anyone know? Can anyone tell me?

£500,000 scholarship scheme launched for SEN support staff

Hundreds of school support staff are to get degree-level and specialist training in helping children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), under a new £500,000 programme set out today by Children's Minister Sarah Teather.

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 SEND 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.

Read more ... (DfE - 18 April)

There's more on this at SEN Support Scholarship including a downloadable SEN support scholarship: Round 1 handbook - April 2012 and a link to an SEN support scholarship application form

Wolf review of vocational education

With the uncatchy title "Review of Vocational - The Wolf Report", DfE has announced the publication of the review of vocational education by Professor Alison Wolf.

The report "considers how vocational education for 14- to 19-year-olds can be improved in order to promote successful progression into the labour market and into higher level education and training routes, and provides practical recommendations to help inform future policy direction, taking into account current financial constraints."

Secretary of State, Michael Gove's widely reported take on the report, in a parliamentary written answer is that "too many existing vocational qualifications are of poor quality or are offered inappropriately to young people. Too many young people are studying courses that do not enable them to progress." 

Of general interest, the report is a challenging contribution to an important debate, and worth reading carefully on that count. But my first, admittedly quick, reading suggests there is not much here in curriculum terms for those of us engaged in creating innovative new opportunities in conductive education classrooms for this age group.

There is, however, this:

"… this country has many young people who are classified as having ‘special educational needs’, without being severely disabled, and/or are highly disengaged, persistently truant, and, at the extreme, excluded from school. This is an international phenomenon; but England is towards the top end in its proportion of young people who are failing to achieve basic academic competencies by the age of 16 The performance of both other countries, and of the best schools in this one, make it clear that our current levels of low attainment are in no way inevitable.

"Although Foundation Learning was and is a genuine attempt to develop a curriculum suited to these young people, in practice there is a risk that it will simply legitimise failure with a significant proportion of this low-attaining group. A detailed examination of educational programmes designed for the most low-achieving was beyond the remit of this Review. They are not necessarily or even predominantly vocational in any real sense of the word; and concrete recommendations here would also pre-empt the Department’s ongoing review of SEN provision."

We must wait, therefore, until the publication on Tuesday next of the DfE's Green Paper on Special Educational Needs for further insights. (The link is to a post on Conductive World blog).

What does catch my eye is ".... educational programmes designed for the most low-achieving ... are not necessarily or even predominantly vocational in any real sense of the word".  So what might a curriculum look like that is in any sense at all vocational for this group?

May I be allowed to end on a small quibble? It's with the perspective in the phrase "most low-achieving". Of course we know what Professor Wolf means. But it rather belittles the amazing achievements of some, perhaps many, in this group - despite all the odds. And, perhaps, adds then to the wrong expectations and solutions.  Something of the same perspective, which I dare say is pervasive, is also found in the earlier "young people who are failing to achieve". Again, one understands what is meant and undoubtedly there are young people who are not achieving what they might; but the failure is on the part of the system and the teachers, not the pupils. Let us not "blame the victim". It is we who are failing them; not they who are failing us. The perspective is important. It is a perspective I first learned from conductive education.

 

Being enterprising ... Talking Enterprise

I've mentioned Mike Chitty on this blog a number of times.

His approach to community development is one that for me resonates with conductive education work with adults or rather how such programmes might be developed, as we have some way to go. Located in "assets" not "needs", focusing firmly on the individual rather than "community" or "business skills", with an emphasis on "being enterprising" and "becoming", Mike's take on development is about people having "active agency in their own lives".

Drop in on this talk and listen to Mike himself: "Talking enterprise, community and entrepreneurship" ... and stay to the end, when Mike shares his thoughts about schools and education.

 

  

 

ILF shut down by 2015. Today 5 Right-to-Control Trailblazers started.

News today from the BBC: the Independent Living Fund which which supports more than 21,000 people with severe disabilities is to be shut down by 2015. The £359m Independent Living Fund pays out an average of £300 a week, to help people pay for carers so they can live at home and not in a care home.

Further reading:

26 July 2010 Statement about the ILF -  Minister for Disabled People, Maria Miller MP

13 Dec 2010 – Disabled people get right to control services - Minister for Disabled People, Maria Miller MP

"Right to Control" is about increasing personalisation and is "a radical shake-up of the way disabled people use state funding, allowing them to buy their own support services or equipment" says the Minister. The Office for Disability Issues (ODI) has led the development of this policy.  Today 5 "Right to Control" Trailblazers started - with Sheffield and Barnsley to be added on 1 March 2011.

13 Dec 2010 Consultation? The Community Care website reports the Minister as saying that "councils would be expected to provide for people who would otherwise have received ILF funding" and that "it was the government's priority to safeguard the position of existing ILF users and that it would consult next year on how their needs would be met in future, following the report of the government's Commission on the Funding of Care and Support. 

12 Nov 2010 Better off in Work?  Report of the Disability Alliance conference addressed by the Minister, including her speeech and Q&As.

 

Taking training out of universities #CondEd

Andrew responded to my posting about Robin Murray’s review for Cooperatives UK, “Cooperation in the age of Google”, by taking the thinking in an unexpected but interesting and highly relevant direction: that of the training of conductors.

If one wished to train 'a conductor' at no more than the cost of the actual training, and to hell with any formal requirements for recognised qualifications etc. that are not central to the task in hand (but easily a lot of effort and money), then how cheaply could one do it?

One would of course have to define and operationalise what 'it' actually is. The students would learn their craft as apprentices, under a 'master' (mistress more like!) and would be earning their keep from Day 1.

Two articles seen in today’s papers relate:

Mary Dejevsky, writing in today’s Independent argues that “Everything else is being cut, so why not student numbers?” Her case is that “much of the recent expansion reflects a dubious 'academicisation of skills'”, citing entry to nursing, accountancy and even journalism as now requiring a degree.  Reading this, I am reminded that Michael Gove is intent on restricting entry to teaching to those with the highest degrees and, at the same time, devolving much greater responsibility to schools – maybe to groups of schools, acting cooperatively – to train graduates as teachers.  

One might wonder, why, “in the age of Google”, Michael Gove does not go the whole hog, follow his non-centralising instincts and devolve the degree-level responsibility as well?

Adrian Hon, founder of online games company Six to Start, writing yesterday in a Daily Telegraph blog sees a future in which “free online lectures will destroy universities” as a result of “an exodus of students away to cheaper, better alternatives”.  The Comments that follow Adrian Hon’s blog post also in some cases make lively reading.  I was especially interested in the contribution (timed as “Yesterday 2.03” from MrBishi, if you care to check it out) which reminded me of the unfilled potential of LearnDirect. I might, myself have added, of the current work of UKOnline.

Now put together Robin Murray with Mary Dejevsky and with Adrian Hon. One result could be something very close to Andrew’s proposal. At that point, we only need a conductive education centre and a group of conductors brave enough to try it.  

Strategic thinking in Conductive Education #CondEd

Thanks to Andrew Sutton for posting the link to the Address by Andria Spindel (President & CEO March of Dimes, Canada) to the ACENA Conference in August this year.

And what a most interesting address it is to read. With local variation, it is all very familiar. I found myself repeatedly thinking, Yes. Yes. I admire and agree with Andria's strongly positive concluding remarks.

Only in one area do I firmly want to present an alternative case. Andria says "Parents of children with severe physical or mental challenges are often too busy or worn out to take on the tasks required to support and develop either a non profit charity framework or a private company to offer CE."  I believe at Paces we have shown how parents can develop an effective model. Interestingly, we seem to have followed a parallel with March of Dimes, locating CE in a setting larger than itself: in March of Dimes case, alongside a therapy provision; in the Paces' model, a local community setting. Paces, as I often enough have said, is a "Campus Model". There is no doubt in my mind that this is delivering a business model that is viable and potentiually sustainable long term. Likewise, in goverance and management terms, it offers opportunities and a supportive structure within which we "too busy" and "worn-out" parents(I smile, Andria) can take effective roles. Indeed, the challenge is to build a model that does not marginalise parents at all levels. There is more to be said on this, I am sure.

In reflecting on Andria's address, Andrew proposes a typically radical different future:

• Look outwards, away from the precariously established CE programs and CE centers
• Step back, not just from the therapies but also from education, even from pedagogy, ignore for the moment rehabilitation
• Stop the ears to the Sirens of plasticity
• Forget Hungary.

Instead, like many conductors, adults, parents and carers are beginning to do, start thinking around the service implications of conductive upbringing and conductive lifestyle in an advanced Western democracy -– about 'family Conductive Education'.

One obvious response is to ask where the funding will come from. But that is perhaps an unimaginative response to a challenge for new thinking in an area which is neglected. I have myself wondered whether 'family conductive education' rather than an institutionalised form merely extending 'conductive schooling' might be an altogether better model for an adult service. There is much more that might be said here too.

Another easy response to Andrew is not "either ... or" but "both ... and". Of course that still means pursuing both Andria's 'four objectives' and Andrew's 'family conductive education' - as well as the business models to achieve both.

As for training, I am very greatly looking forward to learning more about the SAHK model at the World Congress.

So much still to be said. So much still to be done. We are just at the beginning. I find that thought very encouraging.

Sarah's carers will be here in a moment - at 6.45am. She is agitated that they are not here yet. She's been awake since 4.45am. This evening she's going out for a meal with friends. She so wants to get on with her life. I blame conductive education!

Have a good day wherever you are.

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FYI

#CondEd is a twitter hashtag, the subject line of this blog post being automatically copied to twitter

 

Are Conductors "learning mentors"

I have been puzzling, without coming to any specific conclusion, a sentence I read in a supplement included with Wednesday's Guardian newspaper. It was one of these "teasers" (I do not know the journalists' term), set in the banner at the top of the page:

"I believe that all forward-thinking, 21st century schools should have access to learning mentors to support the whole needs of a child."

Swallowed whole, one moves on quite quickly from the sentence, much as one does the copy in local authority newsletters that come through the letterbox. 

It was that phrase "support the whole needs of the child" that pulled me up and sent me back to re-reading the sentence several times. Even now, I am not sure what it means, constructed as it is of a string of 'fuzzy' words of uncertain meaning: "believe", "forward-thinking" "should" "access" "support" "whole" "needs" and the later taken together as a fuzzy phrase "whole needs".

Mostly, though, I have puzzled about this:  if learning mentors are there to "support the whole needs of the child", what are teachers for? Or, what are parents for? And then what are conductors are for? The writer seems to assume a "division of labour" that is structured in a way that is not evident to me. More, the writer seems to assume a shared understanding of "education" and "upbringing" that does not seem to me incontrovertible.

The supplement "Shaping the Future" which was produced "in association with the Children's Workforce Development Council" is indistinguishable from "advertorial" the space having been paid for by the CWDC. There is much of interest in the 6 page supplement - but there is much to question, too.

The author of the teaser quote, a learning mentor at a primary school in Nelson, Lancashire says:

"As a learning mentor, I get children from reception up to year 6 referred to me - they might be struggling with areas of the curriculum, have learning difficulties or behavioural, emotional or social issues. I support them as individuals or in small groups and liaise with their teachers and parents. We have a holistic approach and I also work with other school professionals such as the nurse, educational psychologist and the special needs co-ordinator.

My responsibility is to work with each pupil and identify their barriers to learning and find out why they are not making progress. I try to build strategies to help each child such as referring them to an after-school club if they need to build up social skills and setting targets that are achievable."

The article in which this profile of a learning mentor is set begins:

"There are many jobs that come under the umbrella of learning development and support services (LDSS) for children and young people. These include educational welfare officers, attendance officers, Connexions personal advisers, and learning mentors."

How many differently titles professionals can you identify in the two quotations from the Guardian?

And Conductors? Are they learning mentors?

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I have been unable to locate an online version of the supplement or the article.

A post "Not multi-disciplinary ... " by Andew Sutton on his blog is maybe relevant.

"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.