Abstract
Moves towards the greater inclusion of pupils with special educational needs in mainstream schools and away from existing segregated provision inevitably brings apprehension to the minds of many teachers. Teachers who already feel that the demands made upon them as a result of dramatic changes within the education system, express concerns that the arrival of children into their schools who bring with them new challenges may be the cause of yet more stresses. However, the perceptions of teachers are often built upon a lack of understanding of the needs of specific groups of pupils and of those approaches which may be successfully developed in order to ensure effective learning.
This paper will describe research into teacher perceptions of the conditions necessary to enable pupils transferring from special schools to be successfully included in mainstream primary education. The research, conducted through semi-structured interviews with primary school teachers and head teachers, and through non-participant observation in an inclusive school, investigated both teacher opinions and those strategies which have been successfully deployed to promote inclusion. The findings of the research have provided some indicators of the strategies which might assist with the promotion of inclusion at school and local authority level.
Provision for the education of pupils described as having special educational needs in the UK can be seen to be in a period of transition. The Government Green Paper, Excellence for All Children (DfEE 1997) reaffirmed the intention to provide an education for as many pupils as possible within a mainstream school setting. Whilst recognising that some pupils will continue to require specialist provision and approaches which have not traditionally been available in mainstream schools, it is likely that increased numbers of pupils who would formerly have been educated in special schools will become the responsibility of mainstream teachers. Whilst many writers have campaigned vigorously for the transition of all pupils from special to mainstream schools (Booth 1997, Barton 1998), others have expressed concerns that such inclusion will only succeed when we gain a greater understanding of what works in the classroom (Hornby 1999, Lunt and Norwich 1999, Croll and Moses 2000). Similar concerns have been expressed that some of the procedures adopted within the UK education system, such as an increased focus on measuring success only in terms of academic performance, has had an inhibiting effect on moves towards increased inclusive practice (Booth, Ainscow and Dyson 1997, Rose 1998).
It is evident that whereas much has been written about inclusion from a socio-political or human rights perspective, less attention has been afforded to developing a greater understanding of what works in inclusive classrooms. Dyson (1999) has described inclusion in terms of an issue of two discourses, the first of these a discourse of ethics and rights, concerned to gain an understanding of pupils' rights and how they may best be addressed within the education system, is one which has received considerable attention within the inclusion debate. Dyson's second category, the discourse of efficacy, with a focus upon gaining a greater understanding of what might work in an inclusive school, has received less attention. Teachers faced with an overload of work resulting from a plethora of educational legislation express apprehension with regards to their ability to adequately meet the needs of an increasingly complex school population. It was with a concern to support teachers by providing some understanding of the pragmatics of inclusion in the primary years of schooling that the small scale research described in this paper was undertaken. A project based in a single UK Local Education Authority (LEA) located in the East Midlands region was established to examine the conditions which might necessarily need to be created in order to promote effective inclusion. The purpose of this research can be described in the following terms:
In addressing these issues it was anticipated that information could be obtained which might enable planning for inclusion to be placed upon firmer foundations. It was also hoped that the data obtained might provide some insights into the conditions established within an inclusive school situation, which would enable a more informed debate about inclusion in primary schools than that currently being undertaken to take place.
An early stage the research was concerned to ascertain the perceptions of teachers with regards to the likely challenges which would be presented by the introduction of greater numbers of pupils, including those with complex needs into mainstream primary schools. In particular I was interested to see whether the perceptions of the challenges of including these pupils held by teachers in primary schools with an average population, matched those of teachers working within an inclusive school. In using the term inclusive school it is necessary to remember that the majority of pupils with special educational needs already receive their education in mainstream schools. The concern of this particular research was to examine those pupils whose needs have traditionally been addressed in special schools, but who may find themselves attending mainstream schools if the current trend towards inclusion continues. It was therefore necessary to find a school which may be regarded as atypical of the majority in the UK in having a large population of pupils with complex special educational needs normally associated with special schools. There are, of course, many dangers in conducting comparative research which focuses upon pupil performance, but in this instance the research, being concerned with perceptions of teachers allowed for many of the variables associated with such comparative research to be taken in to consideration.
In order to conduct the research two contrasting samples were established.
Sample 1: Teachers and head teachers working with pupils at key stage 2 in primary schools where the numbers of pupils with special educational needs fell at or beneath national levels of expectation, and where the complexity of needs did not exceed those described as typical of Northants LEA primary schools.
Sample 2: Teachers and head teacher working in a junior school with an exceptionally high proportion of pupils with special educational needs, many of these being complex. This school having been commended by Ofsted and the LEA for its outstanding inclusive practice.
The first of these samples comprised twenty teachers working in primary schools with pupils between the ages of seven and eleven years of age (key stage two). The schools selected had populations of pupils with special educational needs which were at or beneath the average for schools within the Local Education Authority. In addition to these twenty teachers a further seven head teachers were included in the sample.
The second sample was drawn from teachers in a school which had an exceptionally high number of pupils with special educational needs resulting from the closure of two special schools in the town in which the school was situated, during the early 1990s. This sample comprised ten teachers and the head teacher of the school. This particular school was held in high regard for its inclusive practices having been acknowledged as successful in this area through both local and national inspection procedures.
Various conditions for entry into the sample were considered. No teachers with less than three years teaching experience were considered for interview or to take part in any other aspect of the research. The reason for this decision was based upon ensuring that all teachers interviewed would have had some experience of managing pupils with special educational needs, (the chances of not encountering such a pupil within three years teaching in a state primary school are very remote), and that they would have sufficient experience to be able to discuss the possible implications for their classroom practice of an increase of complexity in the special needs population. A gender balance of teachers in the non-inclusive schools was sought to represent national norms for primary schools, a similarly balanced distribution of teaching experience was also seen as important. Teachers in both the non-inclusive schools and the inclusive school samples had teaching experience ranging from 3 years to 28 years. The mean experience for teachers in the non-inclusive schools was 12.5 years, whereas in the inclusive school it was slightly less at 10.2 years. The head teacher of the inclusive school had 32 years teaching experience and 19 as head, whereas the head teachers of the non-inclusive schools had a mean length of teaching service of 21 years, and 9 years in headship. In order to ensure that the two samples under scrutiny were fair and compatible a t-test was conducted, the results of which revealed no significant difference between samples at the 5% level.
Figure 1:
t -test on two independent samples of teachers addressed in the reasearch
| Label | N | Mean | S.D. | S.E. |
| Non inclusive taechers | 20 | 12.50 | 8.5500 | 1.9615 |
| Inclusive teachers | 10 | 10.25 | 8.7760 | 2.9253 |
(Where M= years teaching service) |
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| T for equal variances: | 0.6887 | P<|T| 0.4967 | ||
| T for unequal variances | 0.6887 | P<|T| 0.5037 | ||
There is no significant difference between both samples at the 5% level
Teachers and head teachers from both samples were interviewed using a semi-structured interview schedule conducted by myself as the researcher. The questions asked sought information regarding the challenges presented by pupils with special educational needs, the implications of managing pupils with more complex difficulties and the likely impact of greater inclusion within classrooms and the school as a whole. During the interview two 'sample pupils' with special educational needs were presented and teachers questioned specifically about these. The sample pupils were both based upon profiles of pupils included in mainstream primary classes in a different area of the country. The first, a boy with emotional and behavioural difficulties and some learning problems, the second was a girl with cerebral palsy and communication difficulties.
The questions asked were designed to obtain information related to three areas, these being:
The resultf of the interviews produced some inetresting areas of commonality and some contrasts of views expressed by the two teacher samples. Severals areas of inetrest arose and two of these will be discussed within this paper, these being:
The majority of teachers and head teachers in the non-inclusive schools held a common view that if pupils with special needs who would previously have been taught in special schools were to be transferred to their primary school it would be essential that they were accompanied by additional classroom support. Comments such as these were typical of those obtained from teachers in the non-inclusive school sample.
"I think you've got to have staff support. You'd have to be careful that you could give the child all the support needed and I think it would be very hard on teachers if they didn't have that support. Last year I had a child who was statemented and he had actually been kept back two years, but he again had a lot of problems. I think having him in an ordinary school where he could relate to children, the sort of normal child, actually helped him because I think he would have levelled down rather than levelling up. It helped him because he had a lot of support, he had a lot of ancillary time. But if he didn't have that level of help, I don't know if it would have been successful."
Non inclusive school teacher 7
"Greater input of support staff. These children for various reasons are very demanding, and in fairness to them, if they are going to be properly supported in mainstream situations they do need somebody there."
Non inclusive school teacher 18
"If it's a small class with good levels of support, classroom support and teaching support, then its possible that it could be beneficial to the child. I also have a concern for all the other children in the class as well, because if a teacher is having to spend so much time with one child, it can be at the expense of other children. So I think the support has to be thought out very carefully before the child is offered a place."
Non-inclusive school head teacher 3
The language within these quotations are one interesting aspect of the perceptions which these teachers have of the challenges presented by pupils with special needs. In particular comparison to the "normal sort of child" and notions of "levelling" up or down. Similarly the assumption about the demanding nature of pupils with special educational needs, and the likely pressures which such pupils place upon teachers' time.
By contrast, only one teacher from the inclusive school emphasised classroom support as a priority, though all recognised the valuable role which these professional colleagues play in their schools. Some caution needs to be exercised here in interpreting the response of the teachers in the inclusive school. The number of support staff within this school is very high, though as I will demonstrate later in this paper, the focus upon the use of these colleagues within the inclusive school may well have surprised many teachers.
A point of particular interest which emerged from the interviews relates to teacher perceptions of how classroom support may be used to enable pupils with special needs to be included. When asked about how they would deploy additional classrooms support, teachers in the non-inclusive schools tended to mention individual pupil support, keeping the pupil on task and in some instances withdrawal of the pupil from some aspects of lessons. By contrast teachers in the inclusive school sample were more precise in describing their use of classroom support. They spoke of supporting groups of pupils, checking work, encouraging effective starts and ends to sessions and monitoring a number of pupils within the class. Here again we need to reflect upon the fact that these teachers have been conducting their work within an inclusive classroom over a number of years.
The initial interviews provided details of teacher perceptions and it was clear that there was a contrast between the views of teachers from the two samples, but within the research I was concerned to see how these matched to the reality of the classroom situation. A weakness of interviews is that often teachers will present a view of their situation which may be more of a reflection of what they believe happens than an accurate description of actual classroom processes. In order to achieve this a series of non-participant interviews was conducted with a focus upon six pupils. These pupils were selected because of their clearly recorded special educational needs, defined through a statutory process known in the UK as statementing. Each of the pupils observed was regarded as likely to have received their education within a special school had such a facility remained within the town. The documentation for these six pupils described them as having the following needs.
Having taken full account of all ethical considerations observations of these pupils were conducted during a three week period. All observations were conducted by myself and followed a period of a month during which I spent a lot of time in school enabling the pupils to become familiar with my presence. Field notes were maintained and these were made available to all interested parties, including teachers and pupils. The primary purpose of the observations was to investigate the procedures used by teachers to enable these pupils to be included in lessons and to ascertain whether these matched the information provided by the teachers themselves. The mean time of observation of each pupil was 312 minutes, and a total of 1,876 minutes observation time was conducted overall.
An observation schedule designed for the purpose of this research concentrated upon gaining information with regards to procedures adopted by teachers for the management of the specific pupils under observation. The schedule format was intended to provide a consistent approach to maintaining field notes, and to enable the focus of the work to be clearly defined. Teacher lesson plans and schemes of work were scrutinised for evidence of planned differentiation, grouping of pupils and for the means by which classroom support was planned to be deployed. This enabled me to define those approaches to supporting pupils with special educational needs which I might expect to see in any observed lesson.
Figure 2. Example of observation schedule used for the research
| Time | Code | Target pupils behaviour | Other pupil's behaviour | Teacher behaviour | Other Adult's behaviour |
| 11.00 | G |
Seated as part of a small group listening to teacher introducing the lesson | Group with P1. Seated listening to teacher. Others working on writing tasks | Introducing activity to class | No other adults present |
| 11.05 | Attentive, listening to story | Listening to story | Telling story 'Burglar Bill' | LSA arrives in class But leaves again with pupil who feels unwell Returns with pupil |
|
| 11.07 | Seated at desk preparing for work |
All Retun to desks Working on excercises on board |
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| 11.20 | Introducing work on tenses from white board
Walking around suporting pupils |
Supporting individual pupil Helps P1 with
spelling (2 minutes) |
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| 11.30 | PW1 | Writing sentences in 3 tenses | |||
| 11.34 | CS | Asks LSA for help with spelling |
The observations revealed a number of significant details which may provide us with some clues as to why this school has been successful in including pupils with special educational needs. The first of these concerns the daily structure of the timetable and the ways in which pupils are grouped for some lessons. A significant amount of time is spent by pupils in ability groups. All pupils in the school are placed in ability sets for English and mathematics and this is also standard practice in some other subjects. Sets comprising pupils of the least ability within a subject tend to receive higher staffing ratios and make greater use of classroom support staff. In the spirit of inclusion such a practice may be considered to be exclusionary and to deny pupils access to their more able peers. However, this practice applies to all pupils in the school and it was noticeable that the six pupils observed were not necessarily in the lower ability sets for all subjects. For example, pupil 5, who is described as having autism was in a high ability set for mathematics and was performing as well as the majority of pupils within this group.
When discussing the issue of setting with teachers in the inclusive school they all saw this as a critical factor in enabling inclusion. They expressed a view that in groups where there was too great a spread of abilities, differentiation to meet the full range of needs was particularly difficult to manage. They therefore regarded setting as a means of ensuring that the needs of all pupils could be met. I mentioned the issue of problems of time being a key issue which arose from this research. Teachers in the non-inclusive schools predicted that increased numbers of pupils with special educational needs in mainstream schools would place greater demands upon their time in respect of both planning and management. An examination of planning and classroom management documentation from the inclusive school certainly indicates that considerable time is devoted to ensuring that lessons are tailored to a wide range of needs. The detail within this school's planning in relation to addressing special educational needs is considerable, however, we should not assume on the basis of this study alone that this is typical of schools with such a high number of pupils with special educational needs within its population. The comments from teachers in the inclusive school would endorse this belief, and setting is seen as one strategy which supports teachers in addressing this problem.
Figure 3. Observation Times
| Total Time Observed | Time in Ability Groups | % Time Ability Grouped | |
| Pupil 1 | 300 mins | 174 mins | 58% |
| Pupil 2 | 293 mins | 163 mins | 55.63% |
| Pupil 3 | 305 mins | 123 mins | 40.32% |
| Pupil 4 | 345 mins | 63 mins | 18.26% |
| Pupil 5 | 308 mins | 133 mins | 43.18% |
| Pupil 6 | 325 mins | 70 mins | 21.53% |
| Sum Total Observed | Sum Time Ability Grouped | Mean % Time in Ability Groups | |
| 1,786 mins | 726 mins | 33.84% |
A more surprising finding from the observations related to use of classroom support. Teachers and head teachers in the non-inclusive schools had been adamant in their expectation that increased numbers of pupils in mainstream schools would demand a higher level of one to one attention from classroom support assistants. It is true to say that the inclusive school was very well supported by classroom support staff. However, the observations of six pupils reveal some interesting detail about the ways in which these colleagues are used. The expectation of teachers in the non-inclusive school was that pupils with special educational needs would require high levels of individual support was not supported by the findings of this research.
Figure 3. Percentage of time sample pupils wre afforded individual support
This table indicates that during the time observed no pupil received more than 17.5% individual support from a support assistant. The pupil receiving the highest level of support was a boy described as having emotional and behavioural difficulties, and when these figures were shared with staff at the school they were not surprised that he needed a higher degree of support than others. However, overall the mean percentage of individual support time provided to the six pupils in the sample was 8.9% much lower than might have been expected, and certainly much lower than that anticipated as necessary by teachers working in non-inclusive schools.
Discussion with teachers in the inclusive school revealed that they saw the management of classroom support as a critical factor. They believed that well managed classroom support staff were best deployed in maintaining an overview of groups of pupils, and that the danger of allocating staff to individuals was that there was a risk of creating dependency and denial of independence. Critical times when pupils might need additional support were seen as being the beginning of lessons, enabling pupils to get a good start to their work, when pupils moved away from whole class to small group situations, and when they were observed to be going off task, when a brief intervention was seen as necessary to enable pupils to recommence work. These comments from the teachers in the inclusive schools were certainly reinforced by the practice seen during observation. All of the teachers in the inclusive school did see the provision of well trained classroom support as an essential feature of inclusion. They talked about the necessity for involving these colleagues in planning processes and of the need to have clear paths of communication to ensure that both teacher and classroom support were using consistent strategies and had similar expectations. These findings reinforce the views expressed by other researchers with regards to the effective use of classroom support (Giangreco 1996, 1997, Wood 1998) who recognise that developing the skills of teachers and classroom support in tandem may be an essential condition for affording more effective access to learning for pupils with special educational needs.
The relatively low percentage of time given to individual attention for pupils with special educational needs is a reflection of the team work which exists between the teachers and classroom support assistants in the inclusive school. Ainscow (2000) emphasises the need for a shared commitment to working practices in teams aiming to achieve greater inclusion. Such teamwork is undoubtedly a feature of the inclusive school in this research. Such low figures for individual support may not be typical of other schools and this is certainly an area which warrants further investigation.
Several other important issues emerged from this small scale research. This included the need to reconsider training issues at both initial and post qualification stages for both teachers and classroom staff. The importance of communicating about special needs issues and school priorities to both parents and other pupils and of receiving support from Local Education Authorities and other professional agencies was seen as critical. A recognition that schools may not be able to address the whole range of special needs and may need to become 'specialist schools' and to work closely with existing special schools was also an issue which emerged from the inclusive school.
A paper of this brevity cannot hope to address all of these issues, but as a postscript to the issues here discussed we may make the following observations.
References
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