INTRODUCTION
This project is part of the international research "The Role of the Special Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) in an International Context", led by the University of Southern Queensland (Australia), and in which the University from Newcastle-upon-Tyne (United Kingdom), the University from Murcia (Spain) and the University of Goeningen (Netherlands) are involved.
The aim of this project is that of analysing the ways in which support teachers carry out their work, as well as exploring whether their role, duties and tasks are the most appropriate to cater for diversity.
The interest in carrying out this analysis stems from the challenge educating for and in diversity means. (Arnaiz, 2000). Since the Integration Movement began in Spain in 1985 until now, a tendency has been checked in that the role of the support teacher has been associated with direct interaction with students with special educational needs (s.e.n.). In this way, the support teacher's task has usually been that of supporting that student - individually or in the class group- with those subjects where s/he had more difficulties. In 1990, a new educational bill was passed -known as the Organization of the Educational System- (L.O.G.S.E), by which a comprehensive model of education was fostered, a model that took into account diversity. Nevertheless, a very slight change has occurred as to how the support teachers develop their role. Support is still characterised by its highly individual focus, instead of being conceived as a global responsibility to be shared by the whole school.
We consider the outcomes we may obtain from this research will be of great help to promote a change in the support teacher role, thus linking it to a curricular model.
METHODS
A total of 136 support teachers responded to a postal questionnaire sent to the school together with a letter from the teacher who co-ordinated the research and the representative of the educational administration. The questionnaire is an adapted version of the one devised by Crowther, Dyson, Lin and Millward in 1997, "The Role of the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators In Schools". The Spanish version was called 'Provision for students with special educational needs in primary schools in Murcia', and included some changes on terminology to adopt to the reality and the practice of local schools in Murcia.
The aim of passing the questionnaire was that of gathering information about the role of the support teacher in his/her task of catering to students with special education needs. We sought information regarding the politics of the school in identifying and assessing students with s.e.n., early intervention programs and the support received by external institutions.
Of the 42 districts in the county of Murcia, the schools to which the 136 teachers belonged to were located in 39 districts.
GENERAL INFORMATION OF THE SUPPORT TEACHERS
The support teachers that took part in the research belonged to primary education schools (N=105), and in some of those (N=31), the first level of secondary education was already implemented. 132 support teachers (97%) belonged to state schools and 4 (3%) to schools funded by private organizations. The student population ranged from 56 to 960 students per school.
The distance between the schools relative and nearest district offices ranged from:
a) within 5 km (47%)
b) 6 to 25 km (44%)
c) 25 to 50 km (8%)
A vast majority of support teachers (N=105) is dedicated full time to cater for students with s.e.n. This means 77% of the total group. Only 31 teachers (23%) have a part time schedule with other activities. A very reduced number carried out functions as head teacher (1.5%); 4.4% as deputy head; 7.5% as subject co-ordinator; none of them was subject/class teacher, and 25 % had other functions.
QUALIFICATIONS AND TRAINING OF SUPPORT TEACHERS
The major part of the support teachers (92%) had joined special courses and seminars on s.e.n. to complete their training as teachers. This high percentage indicates the interest on the part of the support teachers to improve their training.
In total, 36 % of the support teachers had a university degree on special education, and 25 % were primary teachers that had promoted to support teacher by means of a Specialist Course on Special Education.
Only 2.3% (3 support teachers) had a MEd (Special Education), and 3% of them had less specific masters on education.
40% reported having carried out 'other' additional studies.
IDENTIFICATION AND ASESSMENT
Schools employ a variety of methods to identify students with special education needs (See figure 1).
1=Prevention Programs; 2=Information from previous schools; 3=Information from external agencies; 4= Asessment team area; 5=Teacher referral; 6=Parent referral; 7=Others
97% of the support teachers utilised information from external support services- psychologist teams on each area.
The second source of information is regular teachers referral, on which 93% of the support teacher relied.
82% of the teachers also refer to information from previous schools, and 65% also utilise parental referral.
Information provided by other external social and sanitary services is also valued by 62% of the teachers.
Screening tests are taken into account by 48% of the teachers as a source for identification, and only 7% refer to other sources of information.
As long as the procedures utilised by the schools for the identification and assessment of s.e.n., 96% of the teachers refer to the assessment of curricular competence. 89% teachers also refer to learning style, 85% value the socio-familiar context and 80% the school context assessment. Other procedures are also referred to by 14 % of the teachers.
STUDENTS WITH SPECIAL EDUCATION NEEDS
2.657 students with s.e.n. were reported to be supported by the 136 support teachers interviewed. 14% belonged to early education; 70% to primary education and 16% to the first level of secondary compulsory education. The typology of students with s.e.n. is varied and rich, the following categorization made according to the number of students per category:
1. Intellectual impairment
2. Learning difficulties
3. Ethnic
minorities
4. Physical impairment
5. Sociocultural Deprivation.
6.
Visual/Hearing impairments.
7. Speech pathologists
8. Academic problems
9. Behavioural problems
10. Autistic spectrum disorder
11. Gifted
and talented
POLICY ISSUES
Among the committees of educational co-ordination to cater for students with special needs in the school, these are the ones perceived by the support teachers as the most valuable: The committee of pedagogical co-ordination (78%), the Level Team (68%); the Support Team (50%); The School Council (18%) and other committees (12%).
90% of the teachers considered the School Educational Policy Document and the School Educational Curricular Policy Document as the documents that best reflect the school's planning to cater for the students with special needs. Only 10% of the teachers thought the school's agenda on special needs was better shown in other documents.
In the past 12 months, 38% of the support teachers have carried out teacher training activities organised by their schools.
ALLOCATION OF TIME FOR SUPPORT TEACHERS
77% of the support teachers is full-time involved with students with special needs, whereas 23% is on a part-time schedule.
Of the full-time teachers, the allocation of their time is as follows: 19 hours per week devoted to direct support to the students with special needs, 5 hours per week to the adaptation of curricular materials, 4 hours to the co-ordination with other professionals and 2 hours to other activities.
As long as the part-time teachers are concerned, 15 hours of their time are devoted to special needs teaching and 15 hours to other tasks such as curricular material adaptation and co-ordination with other professionals.
INTERVENTION PROGRAMS
The preferred modality of intervention of the support teachers is the individual teaching of the students by withdrawing them from mainstream classes into support classes (95%). In-class support was reported by 67% support teachers.
Provision in the classes is organised in various different ways. 82% teachers report a preference for an individualised teaching method. 71% teachers prefer teaching in small groups. 56% of the support teachers report that they carry out ability grouping for specialised activities. Co-operative learning is only reported by 27% of the teachers. Other methods are reported by 7% of all support teachers.
SCHOOL ACTIVITIES FOR THE SUPPORT TEACHERS
A wide range of activities is undertaken by support teachers. Below is a chart with the percentage of teachers that report carrying out the following activities:
a) Assessment and monitoring of students' needs: 94%.
b) Maintenance
of reports of special needs/individual students: 77%.
c) Devising of the
Individual Educational Plan: 93%.
d) Co-ordinating support provision
(speech therapists): 73%.
e) Full time teaching in a support classroom: 6%.
f) Small groups or individual teaching outside the mainstream classroom:
98%.
g) In-class support to student with special needs: 73%.
h)
Responding to requests for advice from other teachers: 96%.
i) Support
Teacher Team co-ordination: 32%.
j) Liasing with external services: 87%.
k) Co-ordination in specific peer teacher training: 23%.
EXTERNAL SERVICE PROVIDERS
Support teachers receive support from various external professionals on a part-time schedule shared with other centres. Chart 1 shows the estimated input received from various services, and the degree of satisfaction with the service.
Chart 1. Average of weekly hours devoted by external services and assement of the gree os satisfaction of those services
| Services/Hours | Non Imput | <1 hour per week | 1-5 hours per week | +5 hours per week | Hours Mean | Satisfaction Mean |
| Guidance Officers | 15 | 15 | 66 | 4 | 2.59 | 1.54 |
| Speech Language Pathologist | 60 | 0 | 7 | 34 | 2.15 | 1.58 |
| Physiotherapist | 74 | 0 | 14 | 12 | 1.63 | 1.90 |
| Specific Services | 82 | 9 | 5 | 3 | 1.27 | 1.62 |
| Others | 87 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 1.23 | 1.95 |
N=136. The four first columns show the percentage of support teachers that answered to each of the question. The following column represents the number of hours provided by each of the services per week. The last columns shows the report of satisfaction for these services, by using a 4-point Likert Scale (1= Not satisfied, 2=satisfied, 3=Very satisfied, 4=Extremely satisfied).
As we can see from chart 1, the most common forms of service were provided by guidance officers (2.59 hours per week), followed by speech pathologists (2.15 hours per week), physiotherapists (1.63 hours per week), Specific services professionals (1.27 hours per week) and other professionals from external services (1.23 hours per week).
As long as the level of input received by these external services, it is importent to highlight that support teachers reported a remarkable level of satisfaction. They were especially unsatisfied by the input they receive from the guidance officers, who should in principle be the most reliable source of input for support teachers.
CONCLUSIONS
From the analysis carried out, we may drawn the following conclusions as to the existing role of the Support Teacher (ST). The ST:
The Support Teachers proposed the following changes to their role:
To conclude, we would like to highlight that many support teachers considered this research as highly valuable since it meant a possibility to redefine their role.
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