The teacher aide focus group consisted of five teacher aides who all worked with individual children in the special needs unit of the school. They also accompanied disabled students into the mainstream for some curriculum areas. The focus group interview explored teacher aides’ perceptions of: inclusive education; the barriers and enablers to inclusive education; the role of teacher knowledge and confidence in facilitating inclusive education; and specific contextual issues identified by parents as acting to exclude their children from or within school. It also explored the role of the teacher aides within the school.
Participants were asked to talk about their beliefs regarding inclusive education. All five teacher aides who responded to this question were doubtful that inclusive education could work. Reasons given were that disabled children needed a lot of resources and services that they believed could not be provided for in mainstream classes; the students would not be able to cope, both with the work and the environment; that mainstream teachers would not be able to cope with disabled children; and that parents of non- disabled students would complain. One teacher aide pointed out that disabled children would not get the quality of education in the mainstream that they received in the special unit.
They wouldn’t be able to do the work and the changing facilities. And a lot of our students need changing and their walking frames and their standing frames, things like that. (Teacher aide focus group)
All agreed that every child had a right to attend school, but there was general agreement that this was not necessarily in a mainstream class. It was thought that including disabled children in mainstream classes would depend on the ability of the child. If they had the intellectual capacity, it would be appropriate. A view was expressed that if inclusive education was going to be a reality, there would need to be changes to the classroom.
I think it depends on the child, what the child is actually like. If the child is a bright child then it would probably be okay to be in a mainstream class. But if a child is fairly disabled that would make it very, very hard. (Teacher aide focus group)
Participants in the focus group talked about their role. All five teacher aides worked with a number of different students from the special needs unit, not just one. This was done deliberately so that the student and the teacher aide did not get too attached to each other. Teacher aides worked with students in the unit on their individual programmes (devised by the special needs teacher), or accompanied them into the mainstream and worked with the student. Again, their programmes were devised by the special needs teacher who is in charge of the special education unit. One teacher talked of trying to ensure that the child she accompanied into the mainstream does what all the other students are doing:
If the other students are doing something like sitting on the mat and doing a morning discussion or anything like that, we also do that. We do what all the other students are doing except when they go to do their language work, we go to do ours but still sitting at the same table. So we try and do everything that the others do except the work. (Teacher aide focus group)
There was agreement amongst the group that teacher aides needed to be valued more by classroom teachers and school principals.
We are only teacher aides…I don’t think we are valued. I don’t think we get the proper recognition and the support from mainstream teachers that we should get for the work that we do. (Teacher aide focus group)
In phase one of the research, parents raised three issues associated with teacher aides. These were that a lack of teacher aide time was used as a justification to deny disabled students access to learning experiences; that the teacher aide was used in such a way
that they excluded disabled students from the mainstream; and that classroom teachers saw disabled students as the responsibility of the teacher aide. The teacher aides in the focus group explained that students who were not funded on the Ongoing Reviewable Resourcing Scheme (ORRS) were not permitted to enrol in the unit. They also reported that if a disabled child did not get ORRS funding, they could only come to the mainstream school with teacher aide funding.
Because the schools won’t take them on if they are not ORRS funded. [Name of school principal] won’t have children that aren’t ORRS funded.
So what happens if a child came to this school, perhaps had special needs, or was disabled in some way but didn’t get ORRS funding, could they still come to this school? [interviewer]
Only if they had teacher aide. If they were in the mainstream class but not in the Unit.
So you have to have ORRS funding to go into the Unit?
Yes we do don’t we? [name of school principal] won’t let any children in there without ORRS funding.
None of the teacher aides expressed a view that they might act in such a way, or they might be required to work in such a way that excluded disabled students from the mainstream and their non-disabled peers.
That classroom teachers may see disabled students as the responsibility of the teacher aide, was only mentioned by one teacher aide. She pointed out that when teachers viewed the responsibility for disabled students to rest with the teacher aide, this was a barrier to inclusion. However, very closely related to this is classroom teachers not believing that they were responsible for disabled students. Many of the teacher aides made comments about teacher responsibility. For example, if a mainstream teacher said ‘hello’ to a student from the unit, or interacted with them in other ways, this was noticed and considered exceptional by the teacher aides, not something that was an accepted part of their role.
The teacher that we’ve got is really good, she is very good, she interacts with the child and speaks to him when we go into class and says hello. (Teacher aide focus group)
Some teacher aides believed that classroom teachers would be shocked if they were asked to have disabled students in their class full time, and others spoke of teachers not coping with disabled students as one of the reasons that inclusive education was not possible. One teacher aide reported that teachers did not enjoy having disabled students, indicating that this was another valid reason why inclusive education could not be possible. When choosing mainstream classes for disabled students to work in, only those that had teachers who were interested were considered.
And there are only certain teachers in this school that he [teacher in the special needs unit] probably approaches for mainstreaming because the others aren’t interested. (Teacher aide focus group)
I don’t think it’s that they are not interested, it’s just that they can’t be bothered. (Teacher aide focus group)
Many of the teacher aides in the focus group talked of other issues associated with classroom teachers. The lack of teacher training and teacher understanding was seen as a barrier to successful inclusive education.
I think all teachers nowadays should be trained when they go to university, and it should be part of their training, learning how to cope with special needs children. Because there is a lot more of special needs children out there now than what there ever used to be…a lot of parents are choosing that their child doesn’t go into a special needs class, they want their child to be normal and the teachers aren’t trained for that. (Teacher aide focus group)
Teachers not coping, teachers being scared of disabled students, and teachers not being interested in meeting the needs of disabled students were also identified as barriers to inclusion.
5.7.1 Phase Three: Teacher Aide Focus Group Summary
Data from the teacher aide focus group reinforce some of the themes that emerged from the previous two phases of the research. The teacher aides believed that students’ entitlement to an inclusive education was based on the severity of the needs of the students. If students’ needs were too severe, the services and equipment they needed could not be provided in the mainstream. If services and equipment could not be provided in the mainstream, students could not expect an inclusive education. All agreed that disabled students did have an entitlement to education in general, but not necessarily to mainstream education.
All teacher aides seemed aware of the important role that teacher knowledge and attitude played in relation to successful inclusive education. They believed that some teachers were not trained to meet the needs of disabled students, that they did not have adequate knowledge, and they were fearful of disabled students. There was a general agreement that most teachers would not be able to cope with disabled students in their classrooms fulltime.
Closely associated with teacher knowledge and attitude were issues associated with teacher responsibility. Teacher aides indicated that it was not generally considered the responsibility of the mainstream classroom teacher to meet the needs of disabled students. Only those teachers who were positive about mainstreaming were approached to include disabled students in their class. When teachers treated disabled stduents well, this was considered a bonus. When disabled students from the unit were involved in the mainstream class, they had programmes designed by the teacher in charge of the special needs unit.
Teacher aides spoke of the practice of excluding disabled students from enrolment if they did not have funding allocated to support the employment of teacher aides. Students who were not ORRS funded were denied enrolment in the special needs unit, and if they did not have teacher aide allocation, the teacher aides in the focus group reported a belief that they would also be denied enrolment in the mainstream school.
When discussing their role, all teacher aides spoke of working with students on individual curriculum programmes. No-one spoke of aspects associated with the social and emotional development of the student, or working to have the student part of the school community. The teacher aides did not report that they excluded disabled students from presence and participation in the mainstream, as raised by some parents in phase one of the study.