Differentiated curriculum in mainsteam?

[LizK]

I hate this time of the year, seem to have to go into battle with the various agencies involved with DS in preparation for his annual review.

 

I want to ask a question about differentiated curriculums in mainstream. In brief DS1 is in year 2 at mainstream with fulltime 1-2-1 support. His LSA is fantastic. His reception and year 1 teacher was also the SENCO and he did very well with her. This year he has just had a 'normal' teacher. DS probably superficially comes over as a child with mild learning difficulties but in effect he has that typical autistic spiky profile, great at maths, ICT, has struggled somewhat with reading though catching up well, writing and spelling a real issue and anything at all creative or imaginary is over his head. The school curriculum is increasingly kinaesthetic, creative and imaginary based, experiential and self directed learning which doesn't really suit my fairly concrete little boy

 

We have been concerned for sometime that there are aspects fo the curriculum that are completely bypassing him. They have done about castles and he has picked up b*gger all, done about Robin Hood and medievel times again over his head. I have not been sure whether this has been due to him lacking the cognitive ability to understand or whether the information has needing presenting in a different way. He has been observed by two different professionals recently both of whom have commented that the way the curriculum is being delivered (auditory, imaginary) is playing to all his weakness and he is missing large chunks as a result. They felt he had the ability to learn if it was presented in a more ASD-appropriate way. Since found out this has been mentioned to school earlier this year but apparently seems to have not been acted upon.

 

I feel quite annoyed now about how much he is not able to access because of this. and how much he will struggle once he moves up to year 3. I don't think he has his own differentiated curriculum yet my SIL who is a SENCO herself said that in her opinion the teacher should be doing a differentiated curriculum for Adam when she plans the lessons and that this is fairly standard practice. We feel that DS will need more individual or small group teaching too rather than whole class teaching where he is distracted by the sensory environment or cannot the process the information given. Might be going back 15 years in terms of teaching practice but a more didactic rote way of teaching would suit him better. DS is part of a small phonics group where his reading has come on in leaps and bounds so we've seen the success of focused work.

 

I think school are going to be resistant to this though. His current teacher says he is keeping up when clearly he is not. It is very frustrating.

 

Lx

[cmuir]

Hi

 

My son is in P3 (he's 7) in a mainstream school with 1-2-1 full-time support (though, they've admitted it is shared between another 4 kids!). Obviously I cannot speak for everyone, but having given my son the chance to try mainstream, I believe he's showing signs of not coping. He's become aware that he's different, just as the other kids are aware he's different and it's becoming a problem. Academically, he's doing fine (he's in the bottom group), but my feeling is that as time goes on he'll get left behind. Academically and socially I believe R is really struggling and that the gap is only going to widen, that's even with support. With age comes maturity and with that comes more responsibility. This is something he's struggling with. He's in a class of 22 with one teacher and a shared learning assistant and I don't think it's enough anymore. R comes home and lets rip - can be very aggressive, abusive, etc and things have deteriorated massively over past year. So much so, that CAMHS are looking at prescribing medication for extreme anxiety and depression. I feel that mainstream can work for some, but there may come a point when it all gets too much. I don't think mainstream schools have the funding or resources to provide individualised help to the degree that some ASD kids need and that's why specialist schools can help massively (small class sizes, high staff:child ratio, etc).

 

Best wishes with things.

 

Caroline.

 

 

[Sally44]

You sound in a similar position to me around a year ago. However, as my son is suspected of having dyslexia and dyscalculia, he isn't on the national curriculum yet. However, same issues. He has central auditory processing difficulties, sensory integration disorder, problems with processing auditory information, his speech is about 50/50 his own and echolalia (phrases taken from TV or DVDs). And I could see that he was either going through the motions (because he has brilliant rote learnt memory), with no understanding behind it, or he just wasn't getting it. I used the Parent Partnership to help getting IEPs SMART so that we could prove that not only was he not learning, but was regressing.

I am going to be very honest here. My opinion is that you have to look at two things (a) is your son's cognitive ability such that with highly differentiated work he will grasp the concepts of the subjects being learnt?, and ( how willing is his current school to put the time and effort into doing that?

In my situation the school were not prepared to do it, and to a certain extent it wasn't all their fault because it takes years for staff to have experience and expertise in teaching children with ASDs. Outside agencies were not giving any written information to school. So they just got verbal advice, which I often found they misunderstood anyway!

And my son, although he is bright, is only motivated in his areas of interest and has some real conceptual problems.

So I moved him to a mixed mainstream school (in our area called Enhanced Resource), where it is a mainstream school with around 5 children per class on the spectrum. There is also an autism unit for more severely affected children.

He is doing well there. But I will have a similar issue at secondary level. It is a way off, but he may not cope at all in mainstream.

So I would advise you to look at other schools in your area that have experience of teaching children with ASDs.

It is very hard to get anyone to give you an honest opinion. Firstly his current school cannot refuse or say they cannot cope to the LEA, but they can make it impossible to work by not co-operating. And LEAs do seem to prefer to try to keep children mainstream. And outside agencies have a very limited amount of time they can come into a mainstream school to give advice.

As you say the style of learning in junior school is not ASD friendly. I could see that mine would not cope or learn in that environment, and from past experience I knew that it was not worth the time and effort of the continual fighting to try to get it into place at his previous school. It was at this stage that we applied for a SA, got a Statement and also a different Placement.

My son is now in a class of 18 pupils with 1 teacher and 2.5 TAs. All the children are on SAP or are statemented with a diagnosis of an ASD. So eventhought he is 'mainstream', he is in actual fact in a special needs type of environment. He always works in small groups with some 1:1. But there has been a huge difference in his independence abilities because the school has all the visual timetables and worksheets etc that he can work through on his own. Previously he had to listen and follow instructions and he was just copying the other children.

But I would ask everyone involved with your son what their opinion is. But again, they know if there any places available in the other schools, so they tend not to mention alternative placements if they know they aren't available.

But you can request a different placement, and if that is refused you can take it to tribunal.

[bid]

A teacher should differentiate every lesson into roughly three levels: upper, middley and those needing more support (usually from the TA, etc). If any children with Statements need any extra differentiation this should also be included, as would any G&T children with extension work, etc.

 

This should all be shown on the lesson plan.

 

Bid

 

(This is what DH does I think, but if I've got it wrong I'm sure one of our members who is also a teacher will be along soon )

Edited April 24, 2009 by bid

[Kazzen161]

The teacher I work for differentiates literacy into three or four levels, and numeracy into five levels. There may also be different work for one particular child.

 

Other lessons tend to be differentiated by output (eg: half a page vs a page of writing), rather than by input.

 

As an LSA, I would be finding pictures on the internet or books, to add a visual element to the teaching. Maybe some dressing up and some role play. Teachers do seem to go for the auditory input, and even I sometimes start to tune out.

[Sally44]

I think there are lots of things that can be done. And lots of things that should be done. But will they be done?

Parents have very mixed experiences of schools. Some schools go the extra mile. Some teachers/TAs are interested and will differentiate work appropriately. Other schools, teachers or TAS do not like outside professionals going into school and advising them on how best to present work.

I think you have to go with the knowledge you have of how your school has approached the whole subject regarding your own son. It is useful to know what the school 'should' do, and then weigh up - as best you can - whether that is possible in his current placement. Most parents have a good 'feel' of how their particular school is.

And you are also limited by timescales. If you want to move your child for year 3, then decisions have to be made sooner rather than later as all children moving from infant school will be taking up those junior school places and the SEN ones are usually oversubscriped anyway.

I live next door to two teachers. One works in primary, the other in ER secondary. Both said that the demands made on teachers makes it very difficult in the classroom. Out of 30 children you can have very different needs, and any extra help in class is only for the more severe needs. That leaves the teacher having to cover an awful lot of ground, and when they ask for outside help there are financial constraints on who they can call in and how often.

Then you also need to consider what benefit, if any, is there for your child to be in a mainstream environment. Is it something beneficial to him. Is he academically in their circle, does he have successful social interaction with them, or does it affect his self esteem because he knows he is different.

Does his current school have all the supports that a mixed or special education school may have eg. social skills groups, playtime support etc. Because although we are talking about academic stuff here, the difficulties are not all academic and the gap widens with social interaction/understanding as well as with academic stuff.

At his current school they have years of experience of using all different types of approaches and strategies and differentiating work for individual pupils. So it is relatively quick and easy for them to try lots of different things until they find something that works. At his previous school everything was such a hassle for them and took forever. If I give an example of one numeracy support ie. Numicon. His previous school did not have this system and would have taken god knows how long to get that system in, if they ever did. Numicon is just one of many extra supports with a proven track record for special needs children that his present school already have.

An example of the difference between my son's two schools is this. My son has difficulty following verbal instructions, even when given directly to him. His previous school had a TA who, when available, was responsible for organising him and getting him doing his work correctly. Without her he was totally lost, and when she wasn't there he drifted around the classroom and did not do any work and did not participate at all. In his new school they present work visually, larger tasks are broken down into smaller visual units. The TA checks that he knows exactly what he should be doing, and then he gets on with it independently following his visual cues, and uses a help card if he gets stuck. The second system is much better. But moving him was also a very hard decision because it meant separating him from other children he had known since nursery, separating him from kids in the neighbourhood and also separating him from his sibling. But it was the right choice.