The Inclusive Learning Assignment

1720 Words4 Pages

It has been theorised by Liddle (1963) that disaffected children can make up to 25% of the school population, however this term can refer to several different groups of students, including those with SEN needs. From what I have observed and the classes I have taught I feel that there tends to be around three or four ‘invisible children’ per classroom, depending on class size. These children are generally overlooked by members of staff as do not openly contribute to class discussions and most importantly never cause any disruption. The following essay will attempt to look at the strategies available to include this group of children within the maths classroom, linking together observation and good practice and considering the implications of this in my future career.

Even in the early stages of observing my new year eight class I noticed that something was different about Pupils A and B in that they were very quiet and preferred to work alone. When I was starting to think about taking over the class I would try and make an effort to communicate with them before the start of the lesson, even if it was just to ask, “Did you have a good weekend?” to which I would normally get a one word answer.

“Although creating good relationships is a two way street, you might have to persist with your positive efforts for a long time before some students let you in.” (Cowley 2009: 120)

I would repeat this action for every lesson, talking to a few select students as they entered; which just happened to always include my two ‘invisible’ children. I found that the above statement from Cowley did appear to be true, in particular for Pupil A whom after a while would arrive and ask me if I had a nice weekend. This was just one of the stra...

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Crozier. W. R. (1997) Individual learners. London: Routledge.

Pye, J. (1989) Invisible children. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Holt, J. (1982) How children fail. Merloyd Lawrence Delta.

Cowley, S. (2009) How to survive your first year in teaching. 2nd Ed,. Continuum International Publishing Group.

Black, P et al. (2002) Working inside the black box. London: nferNelson Publishing Company Ltd

Liddle, G. (1963) The schools job with the disaffected. ASCD. [Online] [Accessed on 22 December 2011] http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/journals/ed_lead/el_196302_liddle.pdf

Lane, M. (2010) Where hands-up in class is banned. BBC. [Online] [Accessed on 22 December 2011] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11090044

Kagan, S and Kagan, M. (2001) Kagan cooperative learning. Kagan Publishing.

Montgomery, D. (2000) Able underachievers. London: Whurr Publishers.

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