Fw: [senco-forum] Training for all teachers

Hi Brendan- Thanks for explaining your view - and I understand it.  I trained as a solicitor many years ago and can happily eat regulations for breakfast so SENCoP isn't tedious for me personally.  But I did assume all SENCOs read it occasionally.  

My concern is consideration of teachers - not to put off teachers in ITT (and in the classroom?) by giving them something dry to start with.  Teachers are people-people so let's make SEN about people, children who are hurting, parents who don't get heard.

If we are talking about stages of learning and limited time, my view is that the contents of the CoP come later - but I accept the importance of making the point that the CoP can't be dismissed, and knowing where to get their own copy or read online.  I understand your frustration.

I just don't want to think of teachers in ITT struggling to 'learn' the CoP when too many haven't yet learnt the 'leap of imagination' required to understand how children (dyslexics and HFA/Aspergers spring to mind) just can't learn in the traditional way.  There's so much pain in the classroom and too many teachers aren't able to recognise it.  That's not meant as a criticism.  It's a statement of fact.  The recent research sponsored by the NUT makes the point that inclusion can be abuse.  I would qualify that and say it is ignorance which makes inclusion a form of abuse.

If teachers can avoid at least some of what parents see their SEN child experience as abuse, then SENCOs wouldn't have quite so much to do.  I know one headteacher who sincerely thinks being in the classroom is inclusion. 'Differentiation' would mean making the child 'different' and that wouldn't do at all.  Surely we intend to value difference, not sweep it under the carpet and be discreet about it???  But I can't find anything in the Code of Practice about this! (I bet I haven't looked closely enough - prove me wrong, please! :-))

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: KngBrndn at aol.com 
  To: astryngia at tiscali.co.uk ; senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk 
  Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2006 7:08 PM
  Subject: Re: Fw: [senco-forum] Training for all teachers

  Hi Astryngia
  The reason I support Shiela in her view that the CoP should be included in an SEN syllabus for all teachers is, that to exclude it would be like excluding the Bible from a Christian teaching syllabus because there were "too many words". The CoP is an excellent framework for understanding all aspects of SEN. It was put together after wide consultation and has been once revised and is standing the test of time. It is not, of course, a perfect document, and it is getting to the time for further revision. But, all of your concerns about children and parents' vulnerabilities would be catered for if the guidance in the CoP were followed in practice. What worries me is your dismissal of the CoP as being "crushingly boring". That is the same as saying SEN is a boring subject. Your analysis is, in my view, overly simplistic. I'll repeat -- all that is needed is an understanding of the outline contents of the CoP -- in itself representing an outline syllabus for an SEN course.

  What worries me even more, is the number of SENCo's, senior school management, SEN officers, SEN governors, EP's etc., that  I come across who have never heard of the SEN CoP (or seem not to have) and have certainly never read or referred to it, never mind having not obtained their own free copy for ready reference. I well remember an EP at a critical review meeting proudly boasting that he had never looked at a copy of the CoP -- and "acted according to his own instincts at all times". In fact he merely did as his line manager and the senior SEN LEA officer told him to do -- so he had no reason (in his own mind) to bother with the statutory guidance written to ensure a national consistency of SEN good practice.

  Many questions from SENCo's crop up on this site that can be checked quite easily by reference to the CoP. To be helpful, I often answer these by quoting the relevant paragraphs of the CoP -- but it does cross my mind -- how many SENCo's/teachers, etc., are not in the habit of checking the CoP when they are in doubt about what to do in particular circumstances? The answer to their dillema's is invariably contained in the CoP if it is a matter of substance and best practice.

  Brendan 