Cauldeen Primary School: Open for all - Discussion Point 5.3
This is a city primary school with nursery provision in an area of social disadvantage. It has had to progress beyond having a separate unit for additional support needs to a context where the emphasis is on whole school policies and curriculum planning for all.
Deliberate steps have been taken to ensure that all learners within the local community are attracted to the school and their needs provided for within the mainstream.
Discussion point 5.3
Key themes:
Ethos and commitment
Participation: the voice of the child
Alternative curricula
Audio file: Cauldeen Primary School - Discussion Point 5.3 (2 MB)Transcript
Ian Kyle, Acting Headteacher, Cauldeen Primary School
Each of the children who has an identified Special Educational Need will have a programme of inclusion into the class. For some youngsters that will mean that they will spend all of their time within the class and we try to provide as much inclusive education for the youngsters as we possibly can. But we are aware that children, particularly some of the children who have distinct physical disabilities, will have particular difficulties with movement and communication and what we have done is, we've built up an inter-disciplinary team and the function of the inter-disciplinary team is to work together to share aims to support the children that are within the class. What that means is that the children will sometimes spend time supported within class with some of our specialist staff looking at their communication needs and their movement needs, hopefully within the context of the class.
Gina O'Brien, Special Needs Teacher, Cauldeen Primary School
MOVE is a programme that I'm running at the school for children mostly with cerebral palsy (6 children) and they're learning new mobility skills which enables them to mix much more freely in the classes in the school. They use a special piece of equipment called a gate trainer and that enables them to learn the skills of walking, standing, sitting which means they've got better opportunities to integrate with the other children.
MOVE goes right through all the children's individual education programmes. It's a very important part of it. So we plan MOVE targets and then for each child it goes into the IEP and they're assessed as to whether they have achieved these targets. It's a very useful programme because it has very specific targets and the children are videoed at the beginning of each year and at the end of each session so we actually have recorded evidence to show the increases in mobility and can test them ourselves. So it's a very useful tool for teachers and it works in beautifully with the IEPs.
In terms of the teaching of MOVE, I run groups here supported by Learning Support auxiliaries and we do our MOVE programme to music and the children have one or two sessions a week when they're learning their new mobility skills. They then are taken into a daily programme for them with the Learning Support auxiliaries where they are to put them into practice in a functional way, and for our children with cerebral palsy this usually means coming out of their wheelchairs for things like toileting so that they learn to stand up and walk towards the toilet instead of being lifted and hoisted as was done previously.
Ian Kyle, Acting Headteacher, Cauldeen Primary School
Because we've targeted children with physical difficulties for a number of years, one of the things we've taken to heart in listening to the children is that they feel very strongly that they have two peer groups. They have the peer group of children that they're going to encounter in their mainstream classes but they have a very strong bond to the other youngsters who have distinct physical difficulties as well and I think there was a time when we didn't think that was a particularly relevant group. But we've come a long way; we've listened to the children and the children have told us that this is a very important peer group for them. So we now have structured activities that focus in on things like communication and movement where these youngsters come together and work together as a group and that's very beneficial to the children because verbal children can become the voice for the non-verbal children and there's a sort of shared ethos of motivation and progression and moving forward there.
Angela, Parent
It's really only his legs that are affected. He likes to be in class with other children the same as himself but then again he likes to be in the Unit where some children can't do so much as what Sean can do and he can help them. He likes to be able to - instead of everyone helping him he likes to help at times as well.
Ian Kyle, Acting Headteacher, Cauldeen Primary School
The thing that makes support at Cauldean is simply the commitment of all the staff here and we have a group of staff who are both extremely professional and very committed to the school and very committed to the notion of inclusion and that's Support Staff and as well as mainstream teaching staff and the host of learning support auxiliaries that we have. In terms of ethos, there's a huge commitment. It's a long-established commitment to meeting the needs of all the children from the class.
Schools sequences and discussion points
| School | Discussion point |
|---|---|
| Stranraer Academy: No turning back | Discussion point 1.1 Discussion point 1.2 Discussion point 1.3 |
| Marlpool Special School: Making connections - opening doors | Discussion point 2.1 |
| Alness Academy: Planning for diversity | Discussion point 3.1 |
| Sandwick School: Working together - a school in community | Discussion point 4.1 Discussion point 4.2 Discussion point 4.3 |
| Cauldeen Primary School: Open for all | Discussion point 5.1 Discussion point 5.2 Discussion point 5.3 |
| Lumphinnans Primary School: Reaching out and reaching in | Discussion point 6.1 Discussion point 6.2 Discussion point 6.3 |
| St. Roch's Secondary School: Valuing Ethnic and Cultural Diversity | Discussion point 7.1 Discussion point 7.2 Discussion point 7.3 Discussion point 7.4 |