Those of you who have the patience to follow my blog will know that for the past little while now I have been tripping around schools. Doing some relieving here and there.
One such school I happened across asked for me to come in and cover some member of staff for a little while. During the course of my time there I have got to know some of the students and one in particular made me wonder. There was something unusual there, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
I decided, the only action I could take was to speak to the Special Needs Co-ordinator. Not knowing who I was to speak to I approached the DP and asked the question: “Who is your special needs co-ordinator?”
A fairly easy question, I thought. But perhaps I caught them off guard, their mind on other things, maybe the answer was more complicated- “there used to be one, but…” or “So and so was but now they are….” Or perhaps that’s the English term and Kiwi’s call them something different.
Whatever it was I got this blank, scratching “I don’t know” head and directed to my syndicate leader. Or perhaps my Syndicate leader WAS the SENCO- (but that was not revealed to me)
Hmmmm. It just bothered me. Member of staff needs to be aware of who’s responsible for what, who to go to for what.
Two stories came to my attention:
1. Five year olds in this European city are not due to start school until they are six, in fact ON their sixth birthday. This five old I heard about is very, very bored at kindy and mum and dad want her to start school early. As part and parcel of the procedure for that to happen the kid needs to be assessed by a some Educational Psychologist or similar, there are a raft of result coming through regarding the kid but what stands out is the IQ of 140. The kid begins school immediately and is put in the Y0 class, where she spends the first week learning the number ‘1’. Are her needs being met?
2. Intermediate kid, he has special needs that I am unable to disclose. The school has streamed maths and literacy programmes. His ability is somewhat below even the lowest of groups in the lowest of classes. His class contains 29 students. The teacher sees him for focused teaching time, with 4 others three times a week. Are his needs being met?
The recent push in education towards ‘personised learning’ is merely rhetoric. The reality of one teacher personalizing the learning of 33 students on a continual basic is beyond the time and energy of any regular teacher. It is why Primary (Elementary) teachers have been organizing ‘differentiated’ groups for a long time now; it is the realistic balance between ‘personalized learning’ and ‘whole class teaching’.
When my kid finally hits school I want to know what is really happening in the classrooms. I don’t want some Principal talking to me about their ‘personalised learning plan’ when really its ‘differentiated learning’ in a new coat of paint.
Let’s keep it real people, let’s call it what it is.
