Marie Greenhalgh knew she needed to make a change. Her students, who all had an Education, Health andCare Plan (EHCP), were being forced to take – and pass – functional skills in three subjects: maths, English and ICT. For the majority, she believed it simply wasn’t achievable – high anxiety and mental health issues impact on attendance, and many struggled to keep up with the work. Any small milestones that were reached by the students had no official recognition within the curriculum they were studying. It was demoralizing for all involved.
“We worked with study programmes because that was funding related, but the outcomes didn’t match our learners,” Greenhalgh says. “They would come out with something that was classed as a fail when, actually, they might have made loads of progress. The standardised measures don’t fit our learners and it was in danger of making them look like they weren’t progressing when actually they were.”
But what else could she offer them?
Usually, colleges tend to opt for evolution over revolution – small changes are easier to roll out and track. There were a few options in that category that Greenhalgh could have chosen. But she did something different: she ripped up the rule book completely.
Greenhalgh is head of post-16 and lead for special educational needs and disability (SEND) at Inclusion Hampshire, a specialist education provider for those with EHCPs. Whether they’ve been referred by a mainstream school, Hampshire council SEND, or have attended a pre-16 alternative provision, these teenagers have one thing in common: they’re all too vulnerable to attend mainstream college.
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Denne historien er fra October 03, 2019-utgaven av TES.
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Try not to get hung up on linguistic convention, chic@s
Languages are like water – they take the easiest route. And, like gender, they are fluid. That is why, as world languages evolve to reflect cultural change, a revolution is under way in the use of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ terms, writes Heather Martin
Three simple psychology tips for better behaviour
When a pupil is acting up, their motivations are often hidden from view. It’s possible that teachers themselves are partially at fault for setting the wrong tone in their interaction with others, writes Lekha Sharma, who suggests ways to remodel a school culture
This research could be music to your ears…
Schools should resist putting additional time and resources into yet more English and maths lessons and instead give children’s learning a research-evidenced boost by encouraging them to join a band or an orchestra, says Martin Leigh
Minority (school) report
Predictive technology – powered by increasingly complex algorithms – is finding its way into schools, promising to pre-empt misbehaviour, violence or mental health issues before they happen. But does it work, and is its use ethical, asks Simon Creasey
Giving school a spin again
In a bid to improve parental engagement, one Edinburgh school is putting parents in their children’s shoes to experience a typical modern school day – and the results are breathtaking, finds Emma Seith
Averting Pupils' Social Stigma By ‘Poverty Proofing'
Do your school policies unintentionally ‘out’ children from disadvantaged backgrounds? One charity says such occurrences are all too common and have proposed ‘poverty proofing’ as the solution. Lucy Edkins investigates
A Plant-Based Diet Of Learning
Aware of the mental health benefits of green-fingered working, Nigel Cox helped to set up an outreach course at his college to support people recovering from substance abuse and other personal challenges
Social And Emotional Skills In The Early Years
Children who are able to focus their attention, manage their behaviour and interact positively with others from a young age experience better learning outcomes later in life, finds Irena Barker
How Centralised Detentions Get Pupils' Attention
By adopting a consistent whole-school approach to rewards and sanctions, we achieved a marked improvement in attitudes to learning – and reduced teachers’ workload, says Calvin Robinson
Homework Truths
With some studies claiming that homework has little or no impact on pupil achievement, schools have been tempted to cut back on it or ban it altogether. But we shouldn’t write homework off, warn two gurus of UK education research. Steve Higgins and Lee Elliot Major argue that the evidence on homework has been misrepresented – and out-of-school study can, in fact, have a major impact on learning outcomes
