Monthly Archives: August 2019
Inclusion
Inclusion is an important part of daily life, especially in schools and in order to be a successful inclusive ppractioners, the term should firstly be defined.
“Inclusion is about the quality of children’s experience, how they are helped to learn, achieve and participate fully in the life of school.”
(DfES, 2004, cited in Evans, 2007)
Inclusion is focused upon all children having the ability to be able to learn and achieve in an environment that is best for them. To improve myself as an inclusive practioners it is important to look at the professional duties that are included within this. Within the Equality Act 2010, chapter 6 details the categories within Education about discrimination such as sexual orientation or gender. The Equality Act 2010 states that schools should not discriminate against a child in any way throughout the process of school. This could victimising, harassing and not fulfilling their duty to make adjustments according to suit the needs of a child. Allard (2015) discussed within their literature the Equality Act 2010 in regard to disabled children. Allard (2015) describes the act as the providing of a “legal framework that protects children from discrimination and promotes equality of opportunity”. This allows the child to be treated equally, regardless of their Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND). By following the Equality Act 2010, I am able as a practioners to fulfil the duties of an inclusive practioner within the school environment. The Equality Act 2010 details discrimination in a range of many over sectors such as transport, housing and other public and private sectors, in which it touches upon a range of categories which can be transferred between all sectors.
It is important to understand what an inclusive school and environment looks like; practitioners believe that inclusion cannot be involved where children are segregated into separate learning environments from their peers. Inclusive education is where children of all diversities, abilities and differences are included and are able to access all that other children are able to. Inclusive education involve the adaptation and changing to be able to meet the needs of all pupils within the classroom and in schools (Deppeler et al., 2010). Prior to my PGCE I have experienced education in state, private and in a special school. From experience within the special school, I believe that some of the pupils would have benefited from being with a state school that could cater and alter in order to meet their needs. It is important for pupils to be with their peers in an environment that was adapted to suit their needs.
Within school based training 1 (SBT1) I was in a school where they were not many children with SEND, however a child with my class suffered with autism. The Department of Education stated in the academic year of 2015/2016 there were over 100,000 children in mainstream and special schools with autism (Carpenter et al., 2019). The child fitted in very well to the class dynamics, they were able to take part in group tasks, they were able to work well with others as well as independently. However, if they were unable to vocalise what their problem was, they would start to become angry and take their shoes off and not want to participate anymore. They were a bright child, who loved being involved in classroom discussions as well a hard worker. Apart from moments when the child was unable to address their problem in a way that could be understand they were seen as just another child in the classroom. A theory proposed that children with autism spectrum conditions have a delayed development within their theory of mind, in which they are unable to imagine their thoughts and feelings or make sense of the behaviours they are relaying (Baron-Cohen, 2010). This was apparent in the child in question. They were unable to express themselves of what they were feeling and therefore the first reaction was to take their shoes off and not participate. In this instance it was appropriate to allow the child to calm down in a specially formed corner called the thrive area.
Thrive is in annotative that was brought in to my SBT 1 school, the Thrive approach looks upon what it takes to develop a healthy. Happy and confident child who is ready, whilst also being open to learning. The thrive approach draws upon ways to support children and young people to develop their social and emotional wellbeing. During a video detailing the Thrive approach, Dr Paula Holbrook (2018) details that with the Thrive approach they intend to help children become more resilient and to be able to deal with the ups and downs of life. The child in question used the Thrive area to calm themselves down which then allowed them to connect with their emotions and feelings. After using cue cards to describe how we were feeling we were able to find the problem and create a solution. Within SBT 1, we had changed and adapted the classroom to suit the needs of pupils, allowing an area for children to express their feelings.
By adapting and making changes for the participants within the classroom, the school and the teacher are allowing all students to follow a curriculum that is common to them all but at their own level. Within schools, the curriculum is already being adapted to suit and challenge different attaining learners (Wills, 2007). In conclusion should it not be important to include all learners and adapt our environments to suit the needs of all pupils including those with Special Education Needs and disabilities.
References
Allard, A. (2015). Dignity & inclusion: making it work for children with behaviour that
challenges. London: National Childrens Bureau.
Baron-Cohen, S. (2010). Autism and Asperger syndrome. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Carpenter, B., Happé, F. and Egerton, J. (2019). Girls and autism: educational, family and
personal perspectives. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Deppeler, J., Harvey, D. and Loreman, T. (2010). Inclusive education: a practical guide to
supporting diversity in the classroom. London: Routledge.
Evans, L. (2007). Inclusion. London: Routledge.
Home (2019). https://www.thriveapproach.com/. Accessed 10 August 2019.
Participation, E. Equality Act 2010(on-line).
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents. Accessed 10 August 2019.
Willis, J. (2007). Brain-friendly strategies for the inclusion classroom: insights from a neurologist
and classroom teacher. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development.
Pedagogy
Within this blog I shall be critically reviewing some of Goswami’s conclusions from their 2015 literature conclusions about child development, thinking and learning. Within this blog I will be focusing on two conclusions, the first being vocabulary development and the second being pretend play and imagination. I will be exploring these by looking at where I have seen these conclusions influence teachers pedagogical practice in schools, as well as assessments. I will also be looking at what the implications may be in regard to my own practice during my school based training 1 (SBT 1).
In order for us to understand pedagogy within education it should first be defined. Pedagogy can simply be defined as the method and practice that is used with teaching. Pedagogy involves all teaching styles, feedback and assessment as well as the theory the teacher will use. The use of pedagogy is also the way the educator also known as the teacher deliver the curriculum content to the class (TES, 2019). When educators plan their lesson, they will decide in which way they would like to deliver the curriculum content, the decision on how they will deliver the content is based upon their own preferences. Each teacher has their own way of teaching preferences which can be based upon the experiences they have had (TES, 2019).
The first conclusion that I will be looking at will be the development of vocabulary. Goswami (2015) details that the cognitive development of word and vocabulary is symbolic, this is due to words being symbolic because they all have a meaning. Parents and carers talk to babies before they have the ability to talk and talk back. They name objects they are holding or attending to as well as commenting on activities that they may be doing together. A study has shown that children in early years learn around 3,000 new words every year (Baker, 1995 citing in Mackay, 2007). This was apparent within SBT 1, being within a year one class room, where the children are aged five to six, the children are being exposed to a varied amount of new words in books and within their learning. They are also identifying new words they are learning through their phonics. This is allowing them to blend the new sounds they have discovered to sound out words. The importance of teaching children new and interesting words allows them to develop their knowledge and variety of words they use within their writing. One thing I noticed with my SBT 1 was the over use of simple adjectives, when completing a describing task as a class the same words would keep coming up from children. Children must want to engage with the learning process of new words; therefore, the encounters children have with words should be allowed to be playful, in order to provoke an interest and sense of curiosity in word study (Anderson and Nagy, 1993).
The second conclusion I will be looking at will be pretend play and imagination. Goswami (2015) details that pretend play is the earliest stage of a child ability to characterise in relation to their own knowledge. The use of pretending as an action is detaching themselves from the immediate situation. The use of pretending allows the child to see a representation of something different we associate the representation with. Pretend play allows children to develop their thematic interpretation as well as developing their social skills (Perry, 2001). Within SBT 1, within our teaching we used pretend play to allow the children to detach themselves from the real world and become characters in books for example. May of the children were able to develop their skills to change their tone of voices, to change the way they walked or acted. The use of pretend play allowed the children to separate from the world they knew and to step in to a world of the unknown, where there was not a certain way to do things and they could change the being they were. Many of the children interacted with each other, therefore aiding their social development. The use of pretend play and imagination during my SBT 1 allowed the children and the teachers to become more creative and allow a sense of the unknown which was then interpreted in to their writing.
References:
Anderson, R. and Nagy, W. (1993). The vocabulary conundrum. Technical report 570.
Goswami, U. (2015) Children’s cognitive development and learning. York: Cambridge Primary
Review Trust.
Available: http://ow.ly/K6Rh3027Oci(Accessed 10th August 2019)
Mackay, M. A. (2007). Vocabulary development: activities & games for early
learners.Huntington Beach, CA: Shell Education.
Perry, J. (2001). Outdoor play: teaching strategies with young children. New York: Teachers
College Press.
Tes (2019). Pedagogy Focus: What is pedagogy?(on-line).
https://www.tes.com/news/pedagogy-focus-what-is-pedagogy-definition. Accessed 10 August
2019.
Primary Computing
Technology has rapidly evolved over the last 10 years. They have changed in size and in speed so quickly that most of the computers from 10 years ago are now longer able to be used. Computers have evolved to become faster and to hold a lot more storage, therefore making it more accessible for the daily things we use computers for (Chro, 2017). Technology has changed our society to include computers and smart phones in our daily tasks.
Within this blog I will be detailing about a computer science element of the curriculum task that I carried out with a group of five year ones. During this blog I intend with literature to reflect upon the activity, reflect how the children responded to solving the problem in computing and the strategies used to support their learning.
The National Curriculum programme of study for Key Stage 1 details the requirements that should be met within computing “to understand what algorithms are and how they are implemented on digital devices; and that programs execute by following precise and unambiguous instructions” (DfE, 2013). The use of the terms algorithm and computational thinking are not new terms, and we should not be fooled by the words in regard to their difficulty in grasping the concept. The introduction of these concepts to young children can cause some anxieties however due to our every changing world we can link these terms and ideas to connects we already associate with (Bird et al., 2017). Being able to teach young children these skills with computing at an early age will allow them to learn to develop and adapt to our rapidly evolving world of computers and technologies.
The computing lesson
For the computing lesson, I had decided to use a computing game from an educational website called http://hourofcode.com/uk/learn. Due to the National curriculum detailing the requirement for children within Key Stage 1 to understand that programs are executed by following a set of instructions, I chose to focus on coding. The aim of the coding activity was to move the monster to the final destination following the instructions and ensuring that the monster is following a set of instructions that is in order to make it move. The task I used was age appropriate and a topic of interest therefore promoting their curiosity to all want to have a go. The original planning for the task was to allow the pupils to work in pairs on computers, however due to a lack of efficient computers the task was adapted to be performed by the group.
The children were able to positively work together in order to solve the intended problem with the correct coding. For the children to understand the concept of following instructions in the correct order we came away from the task and incorporated some real life examples of how we would need to follow instructions in order for the process to work correctly. Within this example the children were able to understand that in order for our monster to move we had to correctly code the monster to move in an order of instructions. This allowed the children to develop not only their skills within coding but showing how in real life we are using these skills. The theory behind teaching coding came from Rus (2015) who discussed that the use of algorithms help computers to function and solve problems, our problem was trying to get our monster to the pot of treasure. We discovered through trial and improvement that we had to have the correct algorithm for the monster to move and reach its final destination. The main strategy used to support the pupils learning was to implement it in to a real life situation for the children to understand, break down and then process in their own way. Within this task I also used the learning strategy of scaffolding, by scaffolding also known as guiding I was also giving the children a guided instruction to help them in the right direction due to this being a new concept to them (Fisher and Frey, 2010). The use of scaffolding initially allowed me to guide the children in the right direction while they first understood the concept and then use of trial and error allowed them to independently learn.
References:
Bird, J., Caldwell, H. and Mayne, P. (2017). Lessons in teaching computing in primary schools.
London: Learning Matters, an imprint of SAGE Publications Ltd.
Education, D. for (2014). National curriculum(on-line).
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum. Accessed 9 August 2019.
Fisher, D. and Frey, N. (2010). Guided Instruction: How to Develop Confident and Successful
Learners. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Hour of Code. http://hourofcode.com/uk/learn. Accessed 9 August 2019.
How did Technology Changed Society? (2017). https://www.chro.org/technology-changed-
society/. Accessed 9 August 2019.
Rus, T. (2015). Computer-based problem solving process. New Jersey: World Scientific.
Safeguarding
Safeguarding
Safeguarding is an important part of our roles as educators, when we come in to school for that day we are not only teachers, we are pastoral care, we are listeners, we are entertainers, we are friends, we are some who listens and cares as well as may more. As an educator we have the responsibility to look after the well-being and safety of the children who enter our care and the beginning of the day and when they leave at the end. However, it doesn’t just end when the child leaves the school ground, we must ensure that we are aware of issues and the wellbeing of the child outside of the school day to have their best interest. (Burrows, 2018) discusses the intended aims of safeguarding is to protect people’s health, wellbeing and human rights. It also includes protecting someone from something that may be harmful to their health or development. Safeguarding is an extremely important part of a school, in which they must meet the required safeguarding responsibilities in order to ensure they are providing a framework that meets the needs of all the pupils including those who are in vulnerable groups such as children with Special Education Needs and Disabilities (Raymond, 2010).
Within this blog I am going to discussing issues featured within safeguarding and wellbeing. I have chosen to focus on two safeguarding challenges, the first being online safety and the second safeguarding challenge children who are suffering with abuse. Within this issue I will be exploring the challenges teachers face as well as the strategies that can be used to as a teacher to address these.
Children in our society as young as four or five have access to a technological device, in which allows them to gain access to the internet. The internet over the years has become a wonderful tool in allowing us to engage in curricular content we could never have dreamed of before. With the positives the wide range of technology can bring, it can also have detrimental consequences. Our internet allows us to access many different sites of different natures where we can change our identity. A problem that young children face on the internet is cyber bully, this can be defined as “involves repeated use of technology to harass, humiliate or threaten” (Holladay, 2011 cited in Betts, 2016). Cyber bulling is just one of the threats young children face on the internet, there may be online predators messaging them, viruses and spyware as well as sexting (Sechler, 2012). As educators we must ensure that on computers with in schools there are sufficient filters whilst the pupils have access to them. We must also ensure that we are cooperating in a scheme called E-safety, in which we are teaching the children how deal with threats and what is the right thing to do. The children should be educated on the risks that come with using the internet and how they should deal with it.
Through research, the Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSiE) written in 2018 by the Department for Education, identifies clear guidelines on the responsibilities of schools and how they should be dealing with issues. The KCSiE have also provided courses and information packs for teachers and schools to use when educating children about the internet. It is important that as educators we are up to date and confident with the content, we are teaching in order to ensure the safety and wellbeing of pupils.
Whilst in class, there can many factors that can highlight and identify if there is a child that is being abused. The educator must ensure that they are always being vigilant within class, while watching in change of behaviour as well as emotional and social wellbeing and interactions. The teacher must ensure that they are looking out for differences in the child that can be factored by both home life and in school (Kyriacou, 2003) It is highly important that as the teacher they report anything that may be alarming or a concern to the safeguarding officer immediately regarding accidents that happen within school as well as outside of school. Schools must ensure that their staff members all receive the appropriate training and knowledge to deal with a concern. A book written by HM Government in 2006 on behalf of the Department for Education discussed the appropriate interventions and best care as well as the protocols that should be followed to ensure the wellbeing and safety of the child is not in harm.
References:
Betts, L. R. (2016). Cyberbullying: approaches, consequences and interventions. London:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Burrows, L. (2018). Safeguarding mindfulness in schools and higher education: a holistic and
inclusive approach. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Education, D. for (2019). Keeping children safe in education(on-line).
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/keeping-children-safe-in-education–2. Accessed
9 August 2019.
Education, D. for (2019). Working together to safeguard children(on-line).
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-safeguard-children–2.
Accessed 9 August 2019.
Kyriacou, C. 2003. Helping troubled pupils. Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes
Raymond, A. (2010). Safeguarding and protecting children. London, UK: Optimus.