H810 TMA01

1. TMA01 Angela Phillips H810
My experience relates to teaching mathematics at a secondary school within Bradford, UK. I have taught at Queensbury School for 11 years, which is a fully inclusive 11 to 18 comprehensive school within 3 miles of Bradford city centre, with the capacity for around 1000 students. The school has approximately 8.5% of students with reported Special Educational Needs (SEN) (Department of Education, 2012a). The majority of students with SEN at Queensbury School have specific learning difficulties such as dyslexic tendencies (The British Dyslexia Association, n.d.) and/or Irlen’s Syndrome (Perceptual Development Corp and Helen Irlen, 1998). There are also a very small number of students at the school who have a disability.
The schools SEN policy (Queensbury School, 2011a) and the Inclusion policy (Queensbury School, 2011b) have been informed by the Educational Act (2005), the Educational (Special Educational Needs) (Information) Regulations 1999 and the Equality Act (2010) (Queensbury School, 2012). The policy states, “All staff are responsible for the early identification, assessment, monitoring, teaching and inclusion of students with SEN as an integral part of raising standards.” The policy makes it explicit that all staff within the school plays an integral role in delivering quality education to all students, regardless of their SEN or disability. The school also works alongside outside agencies and Bradford Council to provide appropriate educational provision.
Students who have a disability all have an Individual Educational Plan (IEP), this document is to ensure that all staff members who are involved with the students education are aware of the students needs. Students who have SEN do not necessarily have an IEP, the provision of an IEP depends on the needs of the students. Students who have difficulty accessing the standard educational curriculum, without any amendments or assistance, will have an IEP. The IEP tries to detail how the classroom teacher and support staff can ensure that students with disabilities/SEN are educated alongside their peers (City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council, 2012).
The school has certain procedures to ensure equality in educational standards for students with SEN and/or disabilities. The school has a SEN department that is lead by a qualified teacher, who is the SEN co-ordinator. The department also consists of several learning support assistants (LSA) and inclusion support assistants (ISA). The SEN department take the lead in ensuring students with disabilities/SEN have equality of access to education.
The SEN co-ordinator is responsible for liaising with feeder primary schools and other outside agencies to ensure the transfer of all relevant information. The SEN department is responsible for updating all students IEP and ensuring up to date information is passed to the appropriate teachers. The school has implemented a hieratical system of information distribution, the SEN co-ordinator shares information with the LSA/ISA, the appropriate head of year and the departmental SEN link teacher. These people then share information with the students form teachers and subject teachers. Please see figure 1 for a diagram to show the flow of information relating to SEN/disabled students.

2. TMA01 Angela Phillips H810
Figure 1: Pictorial representation of the flow of information.
One of the main issues with the school is the poor flow of information relating to the needs of the students. The form teachers and subject teachers are the individuals who are responsible for delivering education to the students. The form teacher and subject teacher need to have the most up to date and accurate information, if they are able to provide the appropriate educational opportunities for their students and ensure that their teaching is inclusive (The Open University, 2006). Figure 1 demonstrates the complex flow of information and this has lead to the form/subject teacher not receiving the appropriate information in a timely manner.
The limited flow of information is causing an issue for disabled/SEN students and teachers. The teachers do not have the information available to ensure that any adjustments to the learning activities are implemented before initially teaching the student (The Open University, 2006). If the students’ needs are not being met from the students’ first learning experience, in my experience, the students feel that their needs are not important as the school appears to be unprepared to meet their needs.
The school operates Eportal information management system (Serco, 2012), which enables all stakeholders to have access to information stored online. The secure web-based information management system can be programmed to show the information appropriate

3. TMA01 Angela Phillips H810
for the institution, for example grades and targets of individual students. Eportal allows stakeholders, including students and parent/carers to view information held. However, the system is not used appropriately to enhance the flow of information. The use of Eportal is limited to showing which students have a disability/SEN, without showing details of their needs. The system has the capacity to show an individual’s detailed IEP, but at present photocopied IEP documents are passed between stakeholders.
One of the major issues being faced in school is the lack of funding. Over the last few years OFSTED has moved the school from being considered a ‘good’ school, to a school that is a failing school (Bourley, 2009). Due to the school’s reputation declining, the numbers of pupils attending the school has dropped significantly, which has meant a significant decrease in funding (Department of Education, 2012b). Even though the school has improved considerably (Rush, 2010) the student numbers have not increased (Bradford Metropolitan District Council, 2012). This has meant that the spending across the school has decreased. However the number of students with disabilities/SEN has increased. This has created a major issue as the number of LSA and ISA has decreased, at a time when extra support in the school is needed.
At Queensbury School a part of a LSA role is to support the subject/form teacher to ensure students with disabilities/SEN are able to access the curriculum. Due to the decreases in SEN funding there are not sufficient LSA to assist in lessons. The average class size has also increased, which has lead to the majority of lessons having thirty to thirty two students and one teacher. Therefore, teachers are often teaching lessons with numerous students with disabilities/SEN who need extra support, but are unable to ensure all students have the support required. The students with difficulties are not able to receive the help needed to access the curriculum. A solution to this would be to work on carousel activities within lessons. Different groups of students would be completing different activities and the use of mathematical programs such as www.mymaths.co.uk (Oxford University Press, 2012) would ensure that students had access on online help until the teacher was able to assist them. www.mymaths.co.uk has audio, video clips, diagrams and text that can be displayed in different ways to ensure that most students with disabilities/SEN can access the majority of the resources.
Most of the classrooms now have access to a projector and a whiteboard. Interactive boards are being introduced across school. There is only one tablet, such as INTECH tablets (Xiamen Interactive Technology Co., Ltd, n.d.), for students with mobility issues to use within school, which excludes students from participating within interactive lessons. This is just one example of the lack of assistive technology within school. As technology is introduced, assistive technology must be introduced along side, so students are not excluded from participating in new interactive learning experiences.
The school building also creates and issue for students with mobility issues. The school is split into two buildings, joined by a link bridge, at present there is only a lift in the new building. If a student with mobility issues wants to move to a higher floor in the old building, they need to travel outside through the school grounds to the lower floor of the new building. Once inside the new building the student then takes the lift to the top of the floor, before travelling across the link bridge back to the old building. This means that

4. TMA01 Angela Phillips H810
students with mobility issues are often late for lessons, putting them at an educational disadvantage.
In conclusion, some of the issues faced at Queensbury School for students with disabilities/SEN are:
 Failures to pass information to the relevant teachers to ensure reasonable adjustments are made to meet the needs of the students.
 Lack of funding for the SEN department and school as a whole, which has lead to larger class sizes and limited LSA support in lessons.
 Lack of resources to ensure all students with disabilities/SEN have access to the programs/equipment needed to access the curriculum.
 A badly designed building that has minimal infrastructure in place to ensure students with mobility problems are able to move around the building.
Some of these challenges can be addressed using assistive technologies, but funding needs to be in place for the school to be able to provide these technologies for use in lessons. For all issues to be addressed, funding needs to be increase for the school.
Word Count 1472

5. TMA01 Angela Phillips H810
References
Bourley, A. (2009) Telegraph and Argus online Bradford School One of Five Schools in Special Measures for over two years http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/local/district/district_bradford/district_bradford_hay/district_bradford_hay_horton/4467373.School_recovering_after_failing_years/ (accessed 15 October 2012)
Bradford Metropolitan District Council (2012) Bradford Schools Online – Queensbury School http://bso.bradford.gov.uk/Schools/SchoolData.aspx?siteid=50207 (accessed 16 October 2012)
City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council (2012) Education and Learning – Special Educational Needs http://www.bradford.gov.uk/bmdc/education_and_skills/special_educational_needs/special_educational_needs (accessed 9 October 2012)
Department of Education (2012a) School and Local Statistics http://www.education.gov.uk/cgi- bin/schools/performance/school.pl?urn=107391 (accessed 9 October 2012)
Department of Education (2012b) Schools funding settlement 2012-13 including Pupil premium http://www.education.gov.uk/a00200465/schools-funding-settlement-2012-13 (accessed 15 October 2012)
Oxford University Press (2012) MyMaths: Bringing Maths Alive http://www.mymaths.co.uk/ (accessed 15 October 2012)
Perceptual Development Corp and Helen Irlen (1998) Irens Vision of Chico http://www.irlenvisions.com/pg/What-is-Irlen-Syndrome.php (accessed 9 October 2012)
Queensbury School (2011 a) Queensbury School SEN Draft Special Educational Needs policy 2011- 2012 http://www.queensbury.ngfl.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/SEN-POLICY-DRAFT-2011- 2012.pdf (accessed 9 October 2012)
Queensbury School (2011 b) Queensbury School SEN Draft Inclusion Policy 2011-2012 http://www.queensbury.ngfl.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/INCLUSION-POLICY-DRAFT-2011- 2012.pdf (accessed 9 October 2012)
Queensbury School (2012) Special Educational Needs http://www.queensbury.ngfl.ac.uk/policies/special-educational-needs/ (accessed 9 October 2012)
Rush, J. (2010) Telegraph and Argus online Queensbury School Lifted out of Special Measures http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/local/localbrad/8447517.Queensbury_school_lifted_ out_of_special_measures/ (accessed 15 October 2012)
Serco (2012) Bringing service to life Eportal http://www.serco.com/markets/education/schools/secondary/facility/ePortal.asp (accessed 15 October 2012)

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The British Dyslexia Association (no date) About Dyslexia > Schools, Colleges & Universities > Indications of Dyslexia in Secondary Schools Secondary Hints and Tips http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/about-dyslexia/schools-colleges-and-universities/secondary-hints- and-tips.html (accessed 9 October 2012)
The Open University (2006) H810: Activity 10.1 Making your teaching inclusive http://www.open.ac.uk/inclusiveteaching/pages/inclusive-teaching/making-appropriate-reasonable- adjustments.php (accessed 15 October 2012)
Xiamen Interactive Technology Co., Ltd (no date) INTECH > INTECH tablet http://www.intechboard.com/wireless-touch-tablet.html (accessed 15 October 2012)