Support and Aspiration a New Approach to Special Educational Needs and Disability
When I began to read this paper I didn’t get very far before the following points resonated:
Children with special educational needs or a disability sometimes do not get the help they need to do well
Sometimes children with special educational needs or a disability do not do well at school because people do not expect them to
Parents have to ask separately for every bit of help they need
1.700.000 children with Special Educational Needs
Latest statistics state there are almost two million children in UK schools who have special educational needs; many will have difficulties with number and mathematics. Michael Gove, Minister for Education, yesterday suggested that pupils may have to stay on at school until 19 to retake GCSE’s in English and Mathematics in order to achieve a grade C. However, should we be trying to fix the problem at the top end? I don’t think so. Government should be focussing its efforts and finance at the bottom end, in Early Years because the problems begin here. We should be making sure we do all we can to help – ALL – children develop the pre-requisite skills that are central to learning BEFORE any formal education takes place.
Early childhood development
Simply put young children learn from concrete experiences in their world, from sight, hearing touch and smell, known as the sensory motor period. Cognitive functions are being stimulated and begin to develop. These functions, also known as information processing systems, are the infrastructure for yours, mine and every child’s ‘thinking’ and ‘doing’. For example, the way we perceive information both visual and auditory; spatial awareness; receptive and expressive language; discrimination; sequencing; inter-sensory organisation; sustaining attention; working and long-term memory. Children with some form of special need or disability will have deficits in one, some or all of these functions making meaningful learning almost impossible. Imagine how it would be for you if your memory was not working effectively?
Learning about numbers and mathematics
With this in mind let’s take a look at maths. The number system is based on abstract concepts. Numerals are symbols made up of configurations or lines and curves, and can be as meaningless to many children as it would be if I gave you a sheet of hieroglyphs and asked you to crack the code! Without the cognitive infrastructure children will not have intellectual nor emotional readiness to think in abstract terms. Think about the children with summer births, almost a year younger than their peers. If you think about the cognitive development taking place they would not have arrived at the same point of development and so would struggle to keep up. Parents report that their child’s teacher says don’t worry they will catch up in time but do they? Many teachers I speak to feel that the curriculum forces children to work with abstract concepts too soon and in their view this is where the problems begin. The maths curriculum is notorious for its fast pace, moving children on when clearly topics have not been grasped. Later would require some form of extra help. As pupils move up the school teachers receive children who do not have the required skills in place for continued development. The important building blocks required to withstand higher levels of maths are not being put in place. No wonder children become demoralised and disengage with the learning process? By the time they reach secondary education teachers have serious issues to deal with. Of course at this stage there are other factors to consider as to why students do not get high enough grades to warrant consideration such as is being proposed yesterday by the Education Minister.
We have to ask ourselves why the way maths is taught in schools for nearly two million children does not work and why we are continuing to waste huge numbers of years. I believe we are robbing children of many years of potential learning that they can never get back.
Personal Experience
I speak from personal experience, my second daughter was born with Down syndrome and wasted almost 8 years were little progress took place. When she was 6 her teacher suggested that she may have gone as far as she could because of her syndrome. I would not accept this and continued to search for a different route to helping her develop number skills. She was twelve when I found the Stern maths programme which has its roots in concrete learning through multi-sensory input. She handled blocks and created number patterns to build her basic knowledge and facts. We taught her for three years at home, with the last year in school. My daughter went on to pass GCSE at Entry level for maths. Whilst this was a cause for celebration I was also very angry that it was left to me to help her progress. I never gave up. I maintain that had Stern structured equipment, and this form of learning appropriate to her operating level, been in the classroom when she started school at four and a half she would have gained sufficient maths understanding and skills for adult life.
Maths Extra
Motivated by my personal experiences, my colleague and established a small company Maths Extra and have devoted the past seven years to helping other parents and teachers who work with a son or daughter or pupil(s) with SEN to provide information training and support with maths with some remarkable results. Even whilst this information is passed on to schools, we have found a mentality in some schools that leaves us speechless as seen with the following cases highlighted below.
Case 1 - A six year old pupil with Down syndrome – After personally providing weekly tuition for one term at home, reporting to the child’s school on progress, after a visit to the head to demonstrate how the equipment will help this pupil and others in the school, after loaning them a set of equipment which stayed in the school cupboard for five months, after an annual review where maths was a subject of concern, after follow up as to why they would not consider using this approach with this pupil I was told by the head teacher “I think we will stick with what we know.” Incredible!
Case 2 - Two years ago a parent of a 14 year old student with Down syndrome contacted us, following a recommendation from BIBIC to use the Stern programme in school because of the concrete and cognitive input embedded in the programme. School was sent copious information and yet took no action despite mums continued attempts to get them to implement this programme for her daughter. Her daughter has speech and language delay, cognitive deficits and fine motor delay and is operating within the P levels. In despair, mum came back to me in December 2010 deciding to make a start herself at home. They have already worked through the first levels of teaching and this student now enjoys maths and is progressing in just one single term, mum has reported noticeable increased maturity and increased fine-motor ability. The sad part of this story is that if school acted on the recommendations two years earlier, the student would have gained foundation number knowledge with basic facts to 10 in place. Currently she is still working within the P levels for maths. Two wasted years.
This student would have a statement and extra funding to support her provision thus it is not unrealistic for ‘mum’ to request they use this funding to purchase a resource that has been recommended by other professionals who are involved with her daughters development. The green paper is looking at giving parents more say in accessing the support they feel they need to help their child. I hope they do.
Positive progress
Contrast this case with a student of the same age and disability who moved to secondary school with no maths understanding and was operating at P levels. Five months after being put on the Stern programme, he had foundation understanding and bonds to 10 in place with increased cognitive development. Throughout his primary years his operational levels remained within P levels. Has the system robbed this pupil of his primary years of learning potential for maths? Yes it has!
Case 3 - This example involves a pupil with Autism in a mainstream school. After asking the school to look at the Stern programme for her son, the parent was told by his class teacher that it wouldn’t work for him, based on what? Did he take the time to found out about the Stern programme? No. The pupil is ten years old and has no understanding of numbers. Clearly what is being taught in school for this pupil is not working. Determined to help her son, ‘mum’ is just beginning to teach her child at home with the support of Maths Extra.
Dyslexia and Dyscalculia
Whilst dyslexia is commonly thought of as a language based difficulty between 50 and 60% of pupils with this learning profile will have surface issues with maths and can be due to cognitive deficits. Pupils who have dyscalculic tendencies would have more profound issues with learning about numbers and maths. These can be cognitive deficits, having little or no understanding of pattern, number structures and relationships. They would most certainly have what is often referred to as a ‘ones’ based number concept where their only ‘tool’ is counting. It is common for a child, for example, when asked the number that follows 62 to count from 1 all the way to 62 before saying 63. We have found that following the first teaching programme is a wonderful means to help these children progress. The use of specific equipment teaches pattern, structures and facts in a very visual and meaningful way, encourages the development of a number sense, understanding of number properties, and number facts up to and including 10. These will transfer to long-term memory due to the VAK element. We also see improved cognitive growth, which incidentally enables cross-curricula progress! This large group of pupils would really benefit from this multi-sensory means of learning as early as possible and certainly at the beginning of reception class.
How many years do some schools require before they acknowledge that what they are doing is not working. Do they honestly need 5, 6 or 8 years to come to this conclusion? These are wasted years that a pupil with some form of SEN can never get back. What has happened to the parent/school partnership? Government and schools are failing these children. Section 2 of the green paper sets out the need to give parents more say in the help they require to help there child and I look forward to seeing this implemented.
Stern Structural Arithmetic Programme
identifying numbers to 10
This programme was developed by psychologists and begins with the sensory motor period of learning for children aged three upward. It also incorporates natural stimulation of cognitive functions every time they are manipulating the equipment. Working with two sets of number representations in the form of graded number blocks to 10, a series of specifically designed number patterns, and mathematical devices, all aid the learning appropriate to the child’s stage of development. Children take in information through sight, hearing and touch in other words visual, auditory and kinaesthetic input VAK. Interestingly, Professor Usha Goswami – Director of the Department for Neuro-Science at Cambridge University stated two years ago, when maths was again a topic of discussion, that for optimal learning to take place yong children require continuous visual, auditory and kinaesthetic input.
Pupils who are still operating at this concrete level through delayed development no matter what age also need to work with this programme. There are no adult notions which require abstract thinking so soon, instead children learn through experimentation and trial and error, self correction, through curiosity and enjoyment gently building number knowledge and facts which transfer to long term memory storage. Quickly working with numbers as whole ideas before work begins with their unit parts encourages much quicker calculation ability from effective recall of facts. Early work develops a number sense (a crucial building block) cognitive development, number properties, size, position, order, number concepts, number relationships and bonds as well as encouraging a child’s reasoning ability. If ALL children, including children with a disability, in Early Years/reception had access to this means of learning outcomes at the end of key stage 1 would be much greater and the budgets greatly reduced. Whilst these two factors are important it is the child and their potential learning that deserves the first priority.
working with number patterns
finding bonds to 10
subtraction - problem solving
Extracts from the Stern teaching programme where all topics are supported by specifically designed maths devices to make numbers and number concepts visible. (Experimenting with Numbers Book 1 – Margaret B. Stern 2004)
More parents whose child is struggling to get help are resorting to taking action at home because they feel that school is not listening. In my view a parents roll is to reinforce what is happening in school and not to take the lead with teaching.
If you would like help and advice for home teaching, or to find out more information to help pupils with SEN in school please get in touch we are here to help.
enquiries@mathsextra.com
www.mathsextra.com
0044 (0)1747 861503
