How Equal Opportunities Can Affect the Learning Experiences of Pupils in English - Assignment Example

Through your reading and room observations evaluate the ways in which one aspect of Equal Opportunities can affect the learning experiences of pupils in English. Aim “Education is the door to success”. (Carter, 2007) Proceeding from the above statement, education is clearly the door to every success; (Carter, 2007). Though the government reforms in the field of education are not always supported by educators, many changes were introduced and implemented in the education system with an intention to make the experience of a child’s learning more meaningful and progressive. Fundamentally, it is important for those having Special Education Needs like dyslexia, or any other learning difficulties or disabilities, to be equally given the chance for a positive and productive learning experience. This paper will reflect on the issue of Special Education Needs (SEN) which have already received a great amount of attention, yet concern. I shall deal with the role of Equal Opportunities in line with SEN, and how it can affect the learning experiences for pupils in English. In order to evaluate and contrast different views on the subjects I have chosen six sources to be examined in the literature review. Clearly, the area of SEN in schools focuses on upgrading and advancing resources and information to encourage pupils to achieve their best and perform as well as possible. Based on my reading and observation I will evaluate how SEN affects the learning experience for pupils in English as a core subject, I will consider the major and minor implications which they undergo. Based on my reading and observation I will evaluate how SEN affects the learning experience for pupils in English as a core subject, I will consider the major and minor implications which they undergo. Furthermore, I will take into account the National Curriculum key opportunities and skills which should be given i.e. ‘speaking and listening’, ‘reading’ and ‘writing’ to those having special education needs. In addition, I will evaluate how SEN can affect pupils’ study of English. The major implication, if any, of teaching English to SEN pupils will be studied and evaluated, as well as ways of dealing with challenged will be proposed. In addition, SEN’s effect on studying English will be analyzed in order to potentially find ways for improving pupils’ experience of learning the subject. Furthermore, this essay will be based on a small scale research which was carried out in a mainstream secondary mixed school; this will give me sufficient evidence to base my argument upon. I shall evaluate how individual learning styles have been put forward for those with SEN to help make their learning experience more meaningful. I will consider differentiation as an effective method used in teaching, and will evaluate how it strengthens the learning experience. Additionally, a positive emphasis has been put forward on the fact that by providing equal opportunities enables pupils to realize their full potential and this encourages a pleasant environment to work within. The curriculum includes the processes of differentiation which are used for those with special education needs. They are: problem solving skills, awareness, attention, response, engagement, participation, involvement, and gaining skills (Barber, 2005). (Barber, 2005). For example, developing problem solving skills would require students to analyze the text read, make analogies with real life, propose alternatives, etc. Engagement, in its turn would require them to know why the text was written, what were the major social or historical preconditions that influenced the author. Therefore, it is fundamental that pupils should be given the opportunity and enough time to learn and achieve the standard performance specified in the Curriculum; furthermore to be given all the needed learning resources and; an assessment that acknowledges their disabilities and provides them feedback when necessary and allows them to demonstrate their learning (Glatthorn & Craft-Tripp, 2000) in a practical and adaptable learning manner. Research design and Methodology The research design I used in order to conduct this small-scale research was a ‘systematic observation approach’, (Denscombe 1999 pp206). This appeared to be an efficient research method, which enabled me to record ‘live data’; there was a significant amount of reliability in the sense that I was able to record and measure the learning experience of SEN children in English. Through my small scale research, my perception about the teaching approaches which classroom teachers and SENCO’s adopted, allowed me to evaluate the use of support and resources which were available to the school to meet the ‘diverse learning needs of all its pupil’ (Farrell pp27) in English. Findings- positive I was able to observe a range of three key stage SEN groups across the school. I discovered that English Teaching Assistants and SENCO’s are attached to groups and pupils on a case to case basis, and may be working with a group or an individual on a regular basis. I realized that this form of support, which SEN pupils receive, is greatly beneficial to them as they have the full in class and out of class support to help them develop their Literacy and English skills. My observations revealed the use of support and resources which were available to the school to ‘meet the diverse learning needs of all its pupils’ (Farrell, Date, pp27). School focuses on improving and advancing resources for pupils in all departments. Learning Support Group My observations clearly revealed how SEN affects the learning experience for pupils studying English across three different key stages. I observed a Learning Support Group, also known as the Green Group, which helps support up to ten pupils in one class. I examined how these children were isolated and excluded from the other pupils in their year group. Therefore, since SEN students do not participate in small groups activities, they require an individual approach to teaching. Consequently, differentiation should be used as a tool to deal with this aspect of their learning. The process of differentiation is an effective course of action which a teacher deploys in order to provide a pupil with an opportunity to learn in the most productive way. From my observation I noted that the teacher used many different methods of differentiations to break the literacy barriers, for example. My observation showed how the Learning Support Group aims to provide SEN pupils the help and suggestions on how to reach higher National Curriculum levels. The programme which is designed to help SEN pupils is an accelerating reading programme to improve the pupils’ Literacy skills and give them the opportunity to catch-up. This literacy programme engages pupils in a regular reading recovery schedule which helps SEN pupils to be confident in processing sounds in spoken language and recognize written language. This includes a sufficient amount of differentiation as the teacher would equally balance out the teaching styles by input and time; each child would be equally an opportunity to read to the teacher in order for the last one to have an opportunity to monitor the progress the child is making closely. Although, this layer of differentiation allows the students to continually work at their own pace, it also causes some ‘deficit’ and ‘delay’ (Snowling, 1998). As the pupil is unable to process information and sound fluently, this holds one back from being able to communicate with others effectively. Year 9 Having observed a Year 9 English group I noted many of the pupils in this class had a learning difficulty, many of them were registered on the School of Action or the School of Action Plus. This enabled the school and the teacher to help children access the National Curriculum through the process of differentiation, the teacher was well aware of individual needs and catered for them accordingly. Many of these children were in the less able group as they had poor reading and writing skills, I observed how the teacher effectively differentiated the English lesson through ‘level’, ‘access’, ‘time’ and ‘participation’ (Barber 2005). The English lesson began with a maximum of thirty minutes shared reading time between the teacher and pupil; this helped pupils develop reading skills confidently as they inferred and deduced for meaning. This gave pupils the opportunity to engage with text, word and sentence level to develop a sense of awareness of English phoneme level; as well as intervene with the text in a meaningful way. The task was carried on by a comprehension writing task the pupils are encouraged to read for meaning and process information. The pupils were able to write in short sentences using simple words but not in long sentences with numerous spelling mistakes. Furthermore, my observations revealed that children showed little indication reading and engaging with the text, as they ‘copied’ (Hart, 1996 p42) out the passage rather than process information and intervene with the text independently. Although, all children were given access to the curriculum I established that this made it impossible to assess the pupil’s progress instead it showed a lack of understanding of the task as the child did not understand ‘what they were learning and why’, instead they would follow out the instructions and ‘submit’ the task. This supports Harts (1996) preceding statement as pupils with weak and limited literacy skills are continuously at disadvantage, although the school ensures that material and support differentiated through learning and teaching styles this doesn’t ease the situation for those with SEN as they are having to ‘rely for learning on their weakest resources’ (Hart, 1996, p41). However, the positive side of the situation is that schools do spend much time and effort into providing SEN kids with all the resources needed for their English skills to be developing properly and effectively. Though it doesn’t solve the problem completely, the methods and tools involved do ease the pupils’ learning and improve their learning experience. Many of these pupils need to be assisted to search and make meaning in the text; the teacher would circulate to each pupil to clarify the task as well as provide immediate ‘feedback’ (Glatthorn & Craft-Tripp, 2000). This helped the pupils to ‘take responsibility of their own learning’ (Carmetti, pp43) as they are able to demonstrate and recognize their errors in their writing and reading skills. As a result, they are provided with the basis for further independent thinking and, consequently, developing own abilities. Clearly, many of these pupils have low self-esteem and were unconfident with the task therefore it is vital that pupils are encouraged to achieve and tackle the underperformance of pupils. Those who were branded with a negative label in the less able groups have set low expectations and believe that they will perform academically low. Therefore it can be stated that the label ‘special education needs’, was quoted as most likely having a negative impact because it may provide justification for low academic performance: pupils may loose interest in achieving success in studying justifying it by the SEN label. Pupils’ motivation in studying English may be decreased making teaching more challenging. Year 7 I also observed a Year 7 English group and noted how the teacher differentiated material and support to help pupils break the literacy barrier. One child had problems writing next to the margin, so the teacher used a dark blue marker to highlight the margins; the support enabled the pupil to define where a line of text begins and should end. Furthermore, I also saw how the teacher practiced the learning modalities of teaching styles in the class, for instance the teacher often used ‘visual’ and ‘auditory’ (Kolb) learning styles to help pupils strengthen their learning experience and process information through different styles. The teacher displayed an image on the board - this reinforced the type of work the pupils were doing during this term. This helped pupils to mentally visualize the picture i.e. of the character during reading. The level of work which the teacher gave the pupils was easier. Resources and the style of language used were relatively simple. Clearly, this affects the learning experience for those with weaker literacy skills as they have to depend on resources which are not best-matched to their age or strengths, but are matched to their literacy skills which are not strong. Besides, most work done by SEN pupils is individual, since it is not a common practice for them to work in groups. Read More