The crisis in teacher supply and training for children identified with SLD and PMLD is part of a larger crisis in the system, namely the poor life outcomes that are inseparable from the continuing existence of segregated schools. Present practices in teacher training and pupil assessment for this group are not related to the general aims of government policy on inclusion and equality for adults.
Children identified with SLD and PMLD are a part of ordinary life, and should therefore be a normal part of their local mainstream school, not the object of a separate pathology. The proposal to develop SLD schools as leaders in training is vitiated by the medical model on which segregation is based; these schools are not well positioned to help young people to have ordinary lives. “Best practice” in SLD and PMLD requires that teacher training be based, not on assessment relating to conventional attainment targets which these very children are (by definition) unlikely to reach, but on person-centred planning, i.e. on enabling children and their families to identify the things that are important to them. The particular expertise then required is that which is most relevant to helping them achieve those things.
The need for expert teachers in sufficient numbers, identified in the call for the Review, does not exist in isolation from the need for a strategy to develop expertise right across the workforce. Experience gathered from thirty years of inclusive schooling has demonstrated that SEN training is not a necessary qualification for good teaching, and that the best teachers of children in mainstream settings are those who are the best teachers overall. To help children and their families achieve the “ordinary lives” that are the aim of cross-governmental policy for adults, teacher supply and training should be re-modelled on the basis of person-centred assessments and plans, in mainstream settings.
Salt Review – Response from CSIE (Word, 93 Kb)
