Discussion 1 - Welcome and hello

hello
My name is Annie. I am a New qualified teacher. I am working in a special school in East Finchley. I have a class with ASC pupils. I would like to work about using ICT to develop Literacy and numeracy in my class. When i am not working I like to go to the theatre and traveling...

Hi Annie, I'm glad that you have managed to join and introduce yourself. Other students will be joining you in the next few days. Sorry that I missed you when I came into your school the other day. I need you to email me on r.x.green@mdx.ac.uk
soon please as we need to catch up.
Thanks, Ruth

Hi my name is Gemma Hughes. I am a class teacher at Lark Hall Primary's Centre for Autism in Clapham. I have just started here as an autism specialist teacher, but have spent the last two years teaching in a Resourced Provision for Learning Difficulties in Farnborough, Hampshire.

Hi gemma, Ignore my comment on the first page as I can see that you are already ahead of the game and have introduced yourself and your school! Thanks, Ruth

Hello
my name is Julia, I am an MFL teacher in South London, who is interested in Special Needs. I sometimes go and help at a Special School near me as well. I have been a teacher for five years.

Hi,
My name is Anastasia. I am from Greece and I am currently working as an EFL teacher in a primary school, teaching children from 8 to 12 years old. I am not sure yet for the exact focus of my action research project, but I am more into reading, handwriting and spelling difficulties along with strategies to overcome them. I am interested in investigating difficulties on these fields as a chance to prepare my students properly to sit exams for a language certificate.

A student emailed me with a question about where to begin, did she need to identify her own research area.
I felt that you may all be trying to get your heads round what needs to be done so here is my reply to her.

 Hi, hope you aren't feeling too overwhelmed and unsure - it will all become clear as you go along so don't worry.
You are quite right - it is up to you to identify an area of research by looking at your own personal needs and that of the school. In addition to that, at this early stage you need to start a literature search to get some background context and that will also help you to narrow down the area you want to explore further.
The word count is indicated in the module handbook but it is very flexible and is there just as a guide to help you.
Your role is as a practitioner researcher, investigating an aspect of your school that interests you but that perhaps could be improved upon. e.g. one student last year looked at inclusive practice in her setting for pupils with dyslexia. How friendly were the classrooms for pupils with these needs? How knowledgeable were the staff about dyslexia friendly classrooms, what had their initial training covered, what more did they feel they needed to know. How did that match with what the student observed was happening in class? How well equipped were the TAs to deliver interventions and how did parents and pupils feel about the support they were receiving. She also conducted an audit of resources.
The most revealing aspect of her study was the pupil voice section and through really listening to what the children said she was able to draw out some suggested changes to practice which she delivered in part through staff training. There was of course still much left to do which she identified in her final 'Ways Forward ' section.

What you want to do of course is something worthwhile, that may hopefully make a difference and improve some aspect of school life that will impact positively on pupils. All very exciting!
Have a good look around and start thinking and talking to colleagues.
Hope that this helps.

Ruth

Hello, my name is Steph Betts and although qualified as a teacher years ago, I did not work as a teacher for very long. I have been involved in a programme, based at Middlesex University, called Aimhigher for quite a few years now. One of the projects in the programme is to work with secondary school pupils who have SEN/disabilities. University undergraduates "student ambassadors", themselves with disabilities, work with younger pupils to increase aspirations, awareness and knowledge of further and higher education and to look at progression and transition issues to FE and HE. We also bring them into University on 3-day 'transition schools'. I don't know the area of focus for my action research yet but I'm looking forward to getting involved with the programme.
Steph

Hello,
My name is Barbara Ofori-Kyereh. I'm a qualified teacher in a special School.I've decided to pursue a course in SEN inorder to get deeper understanding of SEN pupils and the strategies to raise achivements.

Hello,
My name is Barbara Ofori-Kyereh. I'm a qualified teacher in a special School.I've decided to pursue a course in SEN inorder to get deeper understanding of SEN pupils and the strategies to raise achivements. I hope the programme will be very useful.

Barbara

Welcome to MA Inclusive Ed. I'm glad that you are finding your way around the web site and we looik forward to hearing about your experiences in raising achievement in Special Schools.
Its very interesting for those students working in mainstream.
Enjoy your studies.
All best,
Ruth

Hi Steph, That all sounds fascinating and I would love to hear more about the project you have been working on. It sounds like a topic for a hot seat discussion all of its own. Certainly possible material for your study? Looik frward to hearing more about the programme and hope you enjoy combining work with further study.
Best wishes, Ruth

Hello
I am trying to do a needs analysis and justification statement, one element of which seems to be the professional autobiography. How many words should it be and are there any examples?
many thanks

Dear Julia, The autobiography is part of an approximate 1000 word section but we are very flexible on words.
I will need to ask some students permission to share their work with you. If there is anyone here who completed this module last year you might like to help Julia out.
I'm on holiday next week but will try to come on line while I'm away. If not I'll be back on the 2nd November
Ruth

Dear Julia,

I completed this module last year - waiting for results! I presented my autobiography through 'audio' and then put it on a CD to include in my portfolio. I don't know if it was affective but it was fun to do. I know I gabbled on about how I got to the place I was currently at within my own education development and views towards SEN and inclusion. However as part of my dissertation I have to do another one but more focused they give you some guidance like being 'reflective of your professional life, the issues and concerns that have faced you and your interests' (Action Research guidance Unit 3). It is worth looking at action research unit 3 guidance just to guide your thinking.
Marion

Dear Marion
thank you for your help. I am going to do it as a narrative, but I really like your idea of doing audio.
Julia

Hi my name is Donna and I am the SENCo at the American International School of Lusaka Zambia. After a late start due to some technical difficulties I am just finding my way around the site and very excited to part of the course. Thanks

Hi Donna, I'm glad that you managed to overcome the tchnical difficulties and have found your way here. That is great news. Well done for persevering.
Ruth

Hello everyone,

I have been the Inclusion Manager at Broadfields Primary School in Edgware (L.B.Barnet)since January and am still experiencing the steep learning curve of this challenging job. I am also MFL Coordinator (I did the first year of my MA with this as my focus) and I over see the school finances as in my past life (ten years ago) I work in accounting.

Broadfields is a two-form entry school with an ASC Provision with its own Inclusion Manager. We have lots of exciting things happening at our school to tackle underachievement. My area of interest is helping those children, who display SpLD but don't quite make it to getting a statement, to cope in the classroom.

Loretta

Hello all,

It is fascinating to see your different profiles building up. I am going to ber tutor to a few of you; you know who you are! I'm really looking forward to facilitating learning and sharing of experiences from all over the world.

Sarah Rosen-Webb

Hi Loretta, Its always such a challenge to meet the needs of pupils with SpLD without additional resources. Are you planning to introduce a Dyslexia Friendly classrooms approach? Is the Inclusion Development Plan in place?
Regards Ruth

Hi Ruth

Both your suggestions are not yet in place but they are in my action plan as a joint venture with our new Reading Recovery teacher. I thought this would be a good way of disseminating good practice as the Reading Recovery teacher has been employed full-time and .4 of her time is to work with children displaying SpLD at KS2.

Loretta

Hi everyone,
My name is Katrina Lehman and I have just started on this course today. I am currently working in a special needs school in a year 1/2 class and teach Autistic children. I am looking forward to developing a greater understanding of how to help children with special needs reach their full potential. I look forward to chatting with you as the weeks go on.
Katrina

Hi and welcome. Have a look on the SpLD discussion board as well because a student there is very keen to find out more about Autism.
Ruth

Hi, My name is Verity and I am a teacher at the Rainbow School for children with autism in Earlsfield, South West London. Although early days for this course I am really interested in literacy and pre-phonics strategy and use at my school.
Just a thought... Gemma, Julia and anyone elso close to South London, maybe we could meet at various points through this year to share ideas and thoughts?

Great idea, perhaps in Central London after work one evening would be good. Where is a good place for us to meet up? I have lots of questions, not least, how to access electronic journals!

Hi,
I know I too have found this hard. Do you think that it would be best to meet somewhere with internet access so we can try to access journals etc? I am flexible, my school is one stop from clapham junction so we could meet here otherwise Waterloo, London bridge or Vauxhall are best for me. After school is good, any day but friday!
Verity

I'm very happy to meet up near Clapham junction, am sure there would be an internet cafe there.

Yes that sounds good, I could get there four half past 4. Shall we do it in early January? things are a little hetic at school at the moment, christmas and all!
Verity

Hi Verity, I'm sure that many other students would be interested in this area. Do you find that most of your children learn to read through whole words and bi pass the phonics to some degree?
Ruth

It is really child specific but there is a real ease for some chn in learning the whole word which I seem to find makes these chn weaker at spelling, in the early stages at least! I really hope to find cross curricular ways of developing the chn's visual patterning and recognition skills but also phonics and wider listening activities to help develop the skills in the chn that find this hard, but also to help children before they read to have more acute skills in thesee araes in the hope that they then aquire word recognition/phonics skills sooner.So much further reading to do yet!
Verity

Hi, My name is Jasnara and I work at Ramridge Primary School in Luton. I feel a little lost because I am not sure how this all works...I am meant to start the MA Inclusive Education in Jan 2010 but would really appreciate it if someone can share some words of wisdom or guidance as to what my next steps should be...looking forward to hearing from people...(the same message has been copied on the induction part of the web)

Dear All

I have lived in China for the last four and a half years and work as a secondary teacher of Mathematics at an International school in Shanghai. The school wish to have a mathematics teacher that can specialise with S.E.N students. I am looking forward to the course very much.

Many thanks Martin

Just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Troy Joseph and I work as part of the smt in a special school in London. I think I would like to focus my work on PLTS and how they can help pupils. I have just started.

My name is Joanne. I am working in a Reception class at a British School in Beijing. Starting to work more in SEN and interested to learn more. Looking forward to getting started with the course.

Dear Joanne

Hello from Martin in Shanghai!

Hi, I'm Alice a teacher in a special needs school. I head a unit of ASD secondary students. I have 11 students ranging from 13 to 16 all with varying spectrum disorders.Wanted to learn more and do a better job so here I am enrolled on this course! Hope to have some amazing discussions.

Hi,

I'm Ruth and I have taught in a Special School for nearly seven years. For six years I taught and ran the Primary department of a centre for students with SEBD, This year I have been teaching a Year 7 Inclusion Group who access app 75% of their timetable in the mainstream setting with a group of mainstream peers, I am also the Literacy Co-ordinator for the Special school. Inclusive education is meant to be at the heart of our educational setting but is not clearly evident in the entire staff base in SEN or mainstream staff bases. I''d like to evaluate how succsessful our current practice is and further develop policy and practice.

That's a brief overview of my professional status, in my personal life, I'm the mother of two beautiful girls one aged just two years (I hate leaving her at nursery to work full yime) and a twelve year old Gifted and Talented girl who has revently completed a year an a half in Billy Elliot the Musical London. Life is extremely busy but it keeps me young!

I can't wait to get going with my studies!

Hi Ruth,

i'm still trying to negotiate the site - I'm a little behind schedule in terms of hand in dates but I was hoping someone would answer my previous post. Just to reiterate:
my focus for the study is to examine the level of confidence of teachers in relation to Inclusive teaching. I aim to question the attitudes towards inclusive teaching within the Special School (and so avoiding teaching discrete Autism or SLD classes) and also within the mainstream. I suspect many are not entirely in agreement with the SMT and their Inclusive Vision. Is this a viable study?