As is clear from section 8.2.2, the majority of the teachers we interviewed felt that their pre-service training did not prepare them sufficiently to work with pupils with SEN. However, this finding needs to be interpreted cautiously in view of the range of dates at which teachers had trained. Of more interest is the fact that a few teachers did talk very positively about the SEN component of their training. One common factor in these cases seemed to be a placement in a special educational setting such as a special school which was regarded as very helpful. This may indicate that the opportunity to acquire practical experience of working with children with SEN during training is particularly important. Interestingly, this appears to be the view taken by the Teacher Development Agency (TDA) in England which recently commissioned the development of a task for Post- graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) students in England to undertake with a pupil with SEN (Nash and Norwich 2010).
Some teachers (though not all) also reported that they found it difficult to access relevant information when a child with a particular type of SEN was placed in their class. Some teachers felt strongly that it would be particularly useful to have easy access to relevant information and professional development in this situation (see below). Being able to access information as and when required is, to some extent, a skill which can be taught.
Recommendation 2
Consideration should be given to ensuring that initial teacher education courses include both theoretical input on teaching pupils with SEN in mainstream classrooms and practical classroom experience of working with one or more pupils with SEN. Topics covered should include recent research on ways in which pupils with SEN can be supported, such as co-teaching and the principles of universal design and of differentiation and should demonstrate how these can be applied to facilitate the inclusion of the diversity of pupils. Consideration might also be given to teaching skills for accessing information as required.
The international literature suggests that the majority of children with SEN require teaching approaches that are based on careful assessment and additional opportunities for practice and transfer (Daniels and Porter, 2007). Thus, for pupils with SEN, teachers may need to provide much more extensive and varied practice to enable mastery of a concept than for children without such needs. Provision to ensure that skills, knowledge and concepts learned in one situation can be more generally applied may also need to be explicit and carefully structured. The use of carefully targeted interventions is also important, and these are likely to be most effective when teachers have appropriate specialist knowledge and skills and the ability to use these flexibly, taking account of individual needs (Ofsted 2006; Alexander, 2009; Rose; 2009). Teachers also need to be able to share their knowledge with other adults who might be providing additional
support to children. These findings imply that, in addition to appropriate content in initial training, teachers also need access to SEN-related CPD, appropriate to their role. As mentioned earlier, there is a range of accredited and non-accredited SEN-related CPD available in Ireland, funded by the teacher education section of the DES. These range from whole-school seminars run by the SESS and a ten-hour introductory course in SEN contact open to all teachers (run on an outreach basis by St Angela’s College Sligo), to year-long accredited and combined post-graduate diploma courses, for which only teachers in specific SEN posts can apply. There are also SEN/inclusive education courses run by a number of colleges and commercial providers for which teachers are responsible for their own fees. These include both traditional part-time masters courses and online provision.
Staff from five of the eleven case study schools had attended seminars run by the SESS, but although teachers reported accessing CPD (such as summer courses or online courses) in a range of areas, a number of them had not participated in any SEN-related CPD. Four teachers who discussed the sort of CPD they would find useful were clear that they wanted access to CPD which was directly relevant to their current teaching situation, i.e. focused on particular categories of SEN at a time when they were teaching, or about to teach such a pupil. Such CPD would offer both teachers and schools the opportunity to build the specialist knowledge and skills which the international literature suggests children with SEN need in order to make good progress.
Some CPD of this type is available within Ireland, both in the form of short courses, for example in relation to children with ASD and those with severe/profound GLD, and through online and summer courses. It is not clear why so few of the teachers in our sample had taken such courses, and there may be issues with the way in which courses are publicised to teachers as well as with availability. It is also likely that the timing, location and funding of some courses influence the extent to which teachers see them as accessible. The literature suggests that the factors which influence teachers’ participation in CPD courses are complex (e.g. Day, 1997; Hustler et al, 2003). However, our findings are similar to those of a recent OECD (2009) survey of post-primary
teachers, which found that Irish post-primary teachers had averaged fewer days of CPD than teachers in any other OECD country, and that the majority would have liked more. The same survey also found that there was an unmet need for CPD in SEN in Ireland. It should also be noted that for mainstream classroom teachers, SEN has to compete with other topics when they are selecting a summer course.
• Research is needed into how relevant SEN-related CPD can be made accessible to mainstream classroom teachers. Such research should cover issues such as the format, timing, cost and publicising of courses, and other factors likely to make them more or less attractive to teachers.
Recommendation 3
All teachers, including class teachers in mainstream schools, should have access to CPD on SEN, including ready access to information about the availability of such CPD. Online and modular courses enabling teachers to access CPD when relevant to their
own teaching should be widely available. As finances allow, such CPD should be funded by the state.
This recommendation echoes that made by Marschark (2009) who, reporting on the needs of deaf and hearing impaired children suggests that training needs to be made available for classroom teachers to equip them to meet these children’s needs. He further suggests that teachers may need incentives to participate in such training.