Introduction

Each institution was expected to have mechanisms in place to monitor the achievement of the above outcomes and evaluate the programme at the end of years1 & 2. In addition, the project is expected to:

• Undertake a baseline exercise of student teachers’ views on their capacity to support pupils identified as having a range of additional needs;

• Shed light on the extent to which the Project benefits student teachers in the longer-term (through induction and EPD), in terms of their career prospects, and in terms of strengthening their capacity to support pupils identified as having a range of additional needs;

• Investigate the extent to which the Project embeds a Pedagogy that is Inclusive of all Learners across each ITE Department.

On the 30th November 2009, following a fundamental review of the current special educational needs framework in Northern Ireland (NI), the public consultation on draft proposals for a comprehensive new way forward for Special Educational Needs (SEN) was brought to a close. The proposals set out to introduce a new and robust inclusive framework for meeting the additional support needs of children and young people in Northern Ireland’s schools. Amongst the plethora of recommendations were some relating specifically to the need for a skilled and reflective workforce and the need for Initial Teacher Education (ITE) to better prepare all teachers for inclusive schooling. The report recognised that, like educational systems elsewhere, the educational system in NI was now being challenged to address some fundamental questions about teaching- learning related to the accommodation of difference.

In 2010, as a result of such debates and recommendations, the Department of Education in Northern Ireland funded the Queen’s University, Belfast (QUB) and the University of Ulster (UU) to undertake a two-year Research and Development Programme aimed at enhancing student teachers’ knowledge, understanding and skills in relation to teaching pupils identified as having a wide range of additional needs.

Development Work was facilitated by allowing each institution to recruit an additional 10 students in order to take a Double Main Programme i.e. a main subject allied to the N.I. curriculum, as well as an additional 30 hours of study related to inclusive classroom pedagogies. The Universities were required to collaborate in order to develop an approach to Initial Teacher Education that enabled student teachers to:

• Develop a range of practical teaching strategies with an emphasis on the development of literacy;• Develop their assessment for learning skills e.g. make an assessment of what learners do best, what they find

difficult, and then plan a programme of learning and teaching to meet these needs within a whole-class situation;• Develop their language of learning;• Develop their understanding of the importance of pupil meta-learning, i.e. pupil self-awareness and learning about

learning;• Study case studies and samples of work from pupils identified as having learning difficulties;• Come together as one cohort (i.e. UU & QUB students), either face-to-face or on-line.

Drawing extensively on Watkins (2006) and Elwood(2008), figure 2 below sets out a framework of three different versions of what could be meant by personalised learning in order to tailor learning-teaching to the diverse learning needs of children and young people in the mainstream classroom? Each version represents different answers to key questions about human social action, for example, what “view of the person” does this represent (what is the “nature” of the person) and what is the view of learning? By moving from left to right, the framework indicates how contemporary understanding now positions human learning as an inherently social process involving a process of participation in cultural activity and the transformation of identity. Implicit here is the idea that contemporary understandings, particularly social constructivist and sociocultural theories, and their associated pedagogies, are much more attuned to inclusive values and principles.

When exploring how special needs education could play its part helping to bring about an inclusive society in Northern Ireland - a society emerging from thirty years of violent social conflict, Barr and Smith (2009, p 224) argued forcefully that the dominant perspective of teaching-learning in schools needed to be supplemented with alternative perspectives such as, “learning equals individual sense-making” (developing a community of learners) and, more especially, “learning equals creating knowledge as part of doing things with others” (developing a learning community). Barr and Smith argued that the “ideology of the individual” that was intrinsic to dominant perspectives of teaching - learning was just not an appropriate worldview for advancing the sorts of transformations in the wider social and political environment that was required by societies such as Northern Ireland – nor for living in the 21st Century.

PGCE IN MAIN SUBJECT with SPECIAL NEEDS EDUCATION and INCLUSIONRon Smith, Queen’s University Belfast

Poster Presentation at the Future Directions for Teacher Education for Inclusion Global Round Table 14 December 2010The Hong Kong Institute of Education

A Continuum of Pedagogical Approaches

Programme of Research

Learning –Teaching The Need to Supplement Dominant Perspectives

The 3 Apprenticeships (Shulman, 2004) Both institutions agreed that, if student teachers left their courses having achieved the following learning outcomes, everyone could be very well pleased:

Apprenticeship of the Head• Conceptualise learning difficulties as dilemmas for teaching, not as deficits to be identified, categorised and

labelled;• Understand the limit imposed upon teaching by the practice of ability-based teaching involving deterministic beliefs

about ability;• Understand that it is the process of adaptation, not specialised knowledge, that defines the special education

knowledge that teachers need;• Understand inclusion as a never - ending search to find better ways of responding to diversity - a good for all pupils,

not just those identified as having special educational needs.

Apprenticeship of the Hand• Be able to plan, teach and evaluate lessons in their main subjects that include pupils identified as having a range of

additional needs;• Develop strategies that can be used to support students having literacy difficulties;• Demonstrate a responsiveness, or attunement, to individual differences within the context of whole-class teaching;• Lesson plan for inclusion using the NI Curriculum - avoiding bolt-on provision and the stigmatisation of pupils;• Demonstrate competence in engaging pupil voice and competence in partnership work with parents;• Demonstrate competence in cooperating with other adults in order to teach diverse groups of students.

Apprenticeship of the Heart• Believe in accommodating difference rather than emphasising student problems;• Believe that inclusion is the responsibility of all teachers;• Believe that all children’s capacity to learn can change and be changed for the better as a result of what people do

in the present (see, Hart, Dixon, Drummond & McIntyre, 2004, p 166).

Pedagogy that is Inclusive of All (Personalised Classroom Learning)

Dismantle Deficit Thinking

During the past quarter of a century, thinking and research on the nature of children’s learning and learning difficulties has undergone something of a paradigm shift. It is now recognised that there is a need to challenge “deficit” models of special educational needs causation, i.e. where the causes of the difficulties ascribed to children and young people are located within the psychology of individual young people and/ or their families. In other words, when trying to make sense of barriers to learning, it is essential to account for, and make sense of … the learning context. Creating learning environments that provide robust education for students regardless of ability, ethnicity, gender, language and socio-economic status, also demands a deep understanding of how teachers’ own biographies inform their practice.

Primary PreventionPlanning Whole -

Class Adjustments & Adaptations

Planning a Continuum of Learning Experiences All set within the Context of the NI Curriculum

The consensus from the UK research is that that there are common pedagogic principles that are relevant to all students. Most children identified as having special educational needs do not require qualitatively different teaching strategies. This position is somewhat qualified by the recognition that some students need more intense and focused teaching, adaptations greater than the normal adaptations teachers would use in working with all children. However, “these would be adaptations to common teaching approaches.(Lewis and Norwich ,2005, p59).

Rather than identifying sub-groups of special needs, Lewis and Norwich( p 59) argued that learning needs should be thought of in terms of a continuum of teaching or pedagogical approaches (not a continuum of provision), to match a continuum of special educational needs. As opposed to assuming something different or special was required, they argued for the desirability of extending what was generally available through a graduated process of intensification running from “low density” (intense; focused) to “high density” approaches. This is known as the Waves of Support Model.

When Learning Puzzles, Surprises or Concerns?Reflecting On Experience Using The Framework for Innovative Thinking (Hart, 2010, p10)

The 5 Moves that make up the Framework:

1. Make Connections: This move involves exploring how the specific characteristics of the learner’s response might be connected to features of the immediate and wider learning environment.

2. Contradict: This move involves questioning the assumptions underlying a given interpretation by searching out a plausible alternative interpretation which casts the meaning of the situation in a contrasting light.

3. Take a Child’s Eye View: This move involves trying to enter the child’s frame of reference.4. Note the Impact of Feelings: This move involves examining the part that our own feelings play in the meaning

that we bestow on the situation and in leading to a particular interpretation.5. Postpone judgement in order to find out more: This move recognises that we may lack information or expertise

needed to have confidence in our judgements. It involves holding back from further analysis and the attempt to arrive at judgements about a child’s needs while we take steps to acquire further information.

For further information on this Research and Development Project please contact Dr Ron Smith at: ron.smith@qub.ac.uk

The NI Curriculum& Statutory FrameworksKnowledge, Understanding & Skills

Curriculum Objectives & Key

Elements

High Density

Waves of support e.g. Improvingclassroom behaviour

Waves of Support for Literacy

Low Density

Learning Outcomes

Cross-Curricular Skills/ Thinking

Skills & Personal Capabilities

Figure 1: Inclusive Practice for Student Teachers: A Work in Progress

Figure 2: Three versions of Personalised Learning

Pedagogythat is

Inclusive

of All

Stop thinking about deficits

within children

Develop Culturally Responsive Classrooms

Develop the

Personalised Enquiry

Classroom

Develop the Personalised Community Classroom

Use the flexible Statutory

Curriculum -

no bolt-on

provisionExtend what is

generally available-

Develop the 3 Wave Model

Develop the 3 A's of Motivation

Develop Assessment for

Learning

Use the

Innovative Thinking

Framework

Develop creative Partnerships with

others

Apply the Statutory Duties