Contributions from: Heather Yaxley
Abstract
In this presentation Sonia Burnard explains how children at a school for emotional and behavioural difficulties learn behaviours that help them to learn and to be valued and to value inclusion. The policy of reward over exclusion has been transferred to a main stream school and is described by Heather Yaxley. The principles behind inclusion throughout the world are those that few contest although operational difficulties include human resources and time. For most schools, inclusion for children with special needs has been well organised and positive. However, for many children with emotional and behavioural difficulties the process to exclusion is a well-trodden path. Any inclusion has been managed through the use of special units, support staff, exclusion from events and from the classroom. During this time, the children who need consistent and regular response and teaching, normally receive the opposite. They tend to 'end up' in the EBD school. But is this so bad? Not at Wells Park School in Essex: the school has an environment that includes the children in all activities. It is consistent and structured. The children have to complete work to be sent from the room for rewards. They are never sent from the room because they are not managing. Children walking along the corridors are those who do well not who do not as they were previously taught. The positive behaviour policy that celebrates a process of exclusion is one that has become a blue print for most main stream schools. We turn this policy around and look at the results.
 |
 |