Access to the Curriculum for Pupils with Physical Disabilities
If a child has physical disabilities, we aim to teach mobility skills in the classrooms and corridors. Each classroom has a ‘quiet room’ and other areas which can be used for physiotherapy and developing sensory perception and exploratory skills using specialist equipment and computers.
A whole school curriculum had to be established for the new school. Subject leaders produced policies and long-term plans and wrote units of work, producing the units of work in advance of each term that they were required. Curriculum development has required an enormous commitment of school funds both for non-contact time for subject leaders to minimise the burdens of their task and for providing appropriate educational resources. All units of work are being evaluated through a rolling programme. It is plain from this evaluation that a lot of work still has to be done to ensure that teachers have the guidance and resources that they require to ensure that all pupils can be meaningfully involved in all activities in their classroom. This is not an easy task when a teacher has to teach and meet the personal needs of 10 or 12 children with the whole range of special educational needs. We do want to see all children involved in classroom activities and none marginalised.
For this reason, a decision was taken that a member of the school’s senior management team should be a lead specialist in teaching pupils with PMLD. That person was Alison Harland who was an assistant head with a responsibility for supporting the staff throughout the school in developing best inclusive practice and using the specialist facilities and resources available.
In recognition of the difficulties faced by teachers in teaching children with a much wider range of special educational needs than they had experienced hitherto, another early decision was that there should be a specialist class for pupils with PMLD. We do have a system which allows us to identify objectively which children need access to the specialist class if they cannot cope with the ordinary classroom environment for any activities. The same system is used to identify which children need access to the ordinary classroom. Also, we have systems for auditing staff professional development needs to inform the school’s continuing professional development plan. Of course, it is an aim that eventually all classes will have sufficient staff with the necessary skills and the necessary physical resources to enable the specialist classroom to become a resource base offering teaching and assessment activities and physical and human resources that simply cannot be provided in the ordinary classrooms.
Alison Harland was also responsible for the implementation of the MOVE programme throughout the school and the school has invested heavily in a wide range of costly equipment to support it. MOVE stands for Mobility Opportunities via Education (for more details visit the MOVE Europe website at www.move-europe.org.uk). The programme combines therapy and education to most effectively teach functional activities and, therefore, MOVE gives the children the opportunity to take greater control of their lives. MOVE uses a top down approach that focuses on activities that people are motivated to achieve, rather than what they can not do. In an initial assessment with the individual’s family, goals are determined and a time frame to achieve these goals is set. These goals are then broken down into activities within which manageable and achievable targets and are set. Some specialised equipment is used on the programme as a tool for learning new skills.
The use of the MOVE programme has improved greatly the life chances and the education of children who have significant physical disabilities. It has given children the opportunity to sit, stand and walk and to explore actively their environment. These activities have stimulated their physical development since they help improve breathing, circulation and muscles and promote bone density and good posture. With the full cooperation of parents and a dedicated group of staff (teachers, teaching assistants, physiotherapists and occupational therapists), very good practice has become firmly established. Independently, the report on St. Luke’s Primary School from the Ofsted inspectors states that the MOVE programme is a great strength of the school curriculum and that the MOVE programme is very successful for pupils here.
A whole school curriculum had to be established for the new school. Subject leaders produced policies and long-term plans and wrote units of work, producing the units of work in advance of each term that they were required. Curriculum development has required an enormous commitment of school funds both for non-contact time for subject leaders to minimise the burdens of their task and for providing appropriate educational resources. All units of work are being evaluated through a rolling programme. It is plain from this evaluation that a lot of work still has to be done to ensure that teachers have the guidance and resources that they require to ensure that all pupils can be meaningfully involved in all activities in their classroom. This is not an easy task when a teacher has to teach and meet the personal needs of 10 or 12 children with the whole range of special educational needs. We do want to see all children involved in classroom activities and none marginalised.
For this reason, a decision was taken that a member of the school’s senior management team should be a lead specialist in teaching pupils with PMLD. That person was Alison Harland who was an assistant head with a responsibility for supporting the staff throughout the school in developing best inclusive practice and using the specialist facilities and resources available.
In recognition of the difficulties faced by teachers in teaching children with a much wider range of special educational needs than they had experienced hitherto, another early decision was that there should be a specialist class for pupils with PMLD. We do have a system which allows us to identify objectively which children need access to the specialist class if they cannot cope with the ordinary classroom environment for any activities. The same system is used to identify which children need access to the ordinary classroom. Also, we have systems for auditing staff professional development needs to inform the school’s continuing professional development plan. Of course, it is an aim that eventually all classes will have sufficient staff with the necessary skills and the necessary physical resources to enable the specialist classroom to become a resource base offering teaching and assessment activities and physical and human resources that simply cannot be provided in the ordinary classrooms.
Alison Harland was also responsible for the implementation of the MOVE programme throughout the school and the school has invested heavily in a wide range of costly equipment to support it. MOVE stands for Mobility Opportunities via Education (for more details visit the MOVE Europe website at www.move-europe.org.uk). The programme combines therapy and education to most effectively teach functional activities and, therefore, MOVE gives the children the opportunity to take greater control of their lives. MOVE uses a top down approach that focuses on activities that people are motivated to achieve, rather than what they can not do. In an initial assessment with the individual’s family, goals are determined and a time frame to achieve these goals is set. These goals are then broken down into activities within which manageable and achievable targets and are set. Some specialised equipment is used on the programme as a tool for learning new skills.
The use of the MOVE programme has improved greatly the life chances and the education of children who have significant physical disabilities. It has given children the opportunity to sit, stand and walk and to explore actively their environment. These activities have stimulated their physical development since they help improve breathing, circulation and muscles and promote bone density and good posture. With the full cooperation of parents and a dedicated group of staff (teachers, teaching assistants, physiotherapists and occupational therapists), very good practice has become firmly established. Independently, the report on St. Luke’s Primary School from the Ofsted inspectors states that the MOVE programme is a great strength of the school curriculum and that the MOVE programme is very successful for pupils here.
The mobility trail
The pupils need to learn new skills of walking up and down slopes and steps and of walking on uneven ground and different surfaces in preparation for moving around the wider community. However, the school was deliberately built on one level without any steps or ramps and all floors are smooth and hard to allow for ease of propulsion of wheelchairs and mobility aids.
We had long considered constructing a mobility rail but had a frustrating wait until we had moved into our new premises. Also, the money for the reorganisation project did not extend to building a mobility trail so we had to find the money. We were helped by donations from the local community and through the efforts of a school governor, Barbara Abbey, who secured a large grant from a charitable body called Enventure. Matched funding was also available through the LEA. Alison Harland worked closely with Peter Beschizza, the council’s landscape architect for the special schools project, and Mike Farnsworth, a contractor, to develop a design for the mobility trail that would incorporate a wide range of the different gradients and surfaces found in the local streets, shopping centres and parks. Peter and Mike had quite a struggle sourcing some of the materials and setting in concrete, literally, the various surfaces so that they did not present transitions of surface types and levels that were too extreme. Ramps, kerbstones and steps were incorporated into the trail along with bollards, a gate, gullies, gutters, grids, cobbles, wooden decking, stepping stones and a range of paved surfaces. Tarmac was used as infill between the different surface areas and to provide one continuous path that can be easily negotiated by beginners. One mistake was to incorporate gravel – it simply is such fun for children to kick or throw it around! The gravel was intended to provide a yielding surface so we are now looking to replace it with playground safety surfacing to give a similar yielding sensation underfoot.
The mobility trail offers pupils with sensory and perception difficulties time in which to gain confidence in walking on different surfaces and solving the problem of how to get from one area to another in a safe and calm manner. Those pupils on the MOVE programme can now meet these challenges in a safe and constructive way that will offer them the means to expand and build on newly acquired skills, be it independently, assisted by an adult or independently using a Rifton Pacer or a rollator. Those pupils who have to ride in a wheelchair will also have the opportunity to experience being pushed over different surfaces, around obstacles and up and down kerbs. The mobility trail will also benefit the wide range of pupils in the school who have coordination difficulties even though they may not have physical disabilities.
During this coming Autumn and Winter a range of shrubs, trees and herbaceous plants will be planted to enhance the mobility trail. They have been chosen for their attractiveness to local wildlife, their resistance to the predations of the local rabbits and for their sensory properties that give smells and textures for the children to explore. This will make the trail an exciting, inclusive learning environment for all of the pupils.
During this coming Autumn and Winter a range of shrubs, trees and herbaceous plants will be planted to enhance the mobility trail. They have been chosen for their attractiveness to local wildlife, their resistance to the predations of the local rabbits and for their sensory properties that give smells and textures for the children to explore. This will make the trail an exciting, inclusive learning environment for all of the pupils.
Staff professional development
Developing staff expertise throughout the school is essential if there is to be meaningful involvement of pupils with PMLD. In this context, it is worth noting that as part of the process of special school reorganisation, the council produced new job descriptions for teaching assistants (at several levels). The union representatives, personnel officers, head teachers and representative support staff from the special schools worked well together in arriving at job descriptions for support staff that accurately reflect what they do. Salary grades were independently determined once the job descriptions had been produced and for the majority of staff the new posts attracted a significantly higher salary. The job description for one of the senior levels of teaching assistant recognises that they alone may carry out activities requiring specialist knowledge and expertise (including physiotherapy and some types of invasive care activities). Therefore, it has always been critical that there has been sufficient of these relatively expensive teaching assistants so that they are available in all classes where there are pupils who require their particular skills and knowledge. Alison Harland developed a committed team of teaching assistants in her own class who have considerable knowledge and skills that enable them to meet the needs of the pupils and also to support the professional development of staff elsewhere in the school as regards training in the MOVE curriculum, moving and handling, and techniques to help with feeding, communication and curriculum access. Over time, the planned training opportunities for the whole this group of teaching assistants will support the goal of the wider inclusion of all pupils in the ordinary classrooms.
The school as a resource centre
There was a very special occasion at school on Friday 24th June to mark the launch of St. Luke’s Primary School as a MOVE Regional Centre. 80 invited guests and a number of children from both of North Lincolnshire’s special schools and adult learners with disabilities attended. The quality of the MOVE programme is such that the MOVE Europe organisation has officially recognised that the school is well-placed to provide a lead on the development of MOVE throughout North Lincolnshire and, eventually, other parts of the region.
North Lincolnshire LEA is also supporting the development of St. Luke’s Primary School so that it can act as resource centre to other schools and make regular contributions to mainstream schools that support the development of their own inclusive practice. The LEA agreed to fund a teacher to support outreach work. She and other staff in the school have a range of skills and knowledge which will benefit many schools and pupils. For instance there are staff who are trained to do risk assessments in relation to moving and handling of pupils with physical disabilities. Other staff have other skills in relation to the use of ICT and communication systems. So skills learned from working with children with PMLD are benefiting a larger group of children with physical disabilities in ordinary schools. Which is a nice note to finish on because it shows the importance of these children in our school community. In their various ways they have made us develop skills and knowledge that will be useful to many others in the wider community.
North Lincolnshire LEA is also supporting the development of St. Luke’s Primary School so that it can act as resource centre to other schools and make regular contributions to mainstream schools that support the development of their own inclusive practice. The LEA agreed to fund a teacher to support outreach work. She and other staff in the school have a range of skills and knowledge which will benefit many schools and pupils. For instance there are staff who are trained to do risk assessments in relation to moving and handling of pupils with physical disabilities. Other staff have other skills in relation to the use of ICT and communication systems. So skills learned from working with children with PMLD are benefiting a larger group of children with physical disabilities in ordinary schools. Which is a nice note to finish on because it shows the importance of these children in our school community. In their various ways they have made us develop skills and knowledge that will be useful to many others in the wider community.
