Why I wanted to join the research action group.

I want to do the best I can for the children I teach. I am given full responsibility for a whole class of children every year and want to give them the best chance in life. Most of the children I teach come from broken homes or have very unstable life styles. It is my challenge and duty to support these children emotionally and educationally, with the consistency that they often do not receive at home. These children should be given equal opportunities and all the life skills that they will need to survive.

I often find myself helping those children with special educational needs; these are the children I want to reach out to. I can relate well, and form good relationships with them, making them feel safe and secure, but I lack the skills to take them on further. I don’t have the knowledge or training that I want, in order to effectively teach children with special educational needs. The special needs I am referring to include autism, speech and language difficulties, and emotional behaviour and attachment disorders.

The numbers of special educational needs seem to be increasing. I read recently that in an average class 5% of children have serious dyslexic problems. There are 17 children out of 25 in my class this year that have a specific need that I should be addressing. How can I teach these children knowing I am giving them the best education I can, when I have had no training to deal with these needs?

I hope to achieve a greater understanding of the way to teach children with specific learning difficulties. I want to trial new ideas and create a curriculum that would best suit everyone.

Why do I teach the way I do?

Until I became part of the action research group I can honestly say I have never really thought about why I teach the way I do. It is now fascinating me as I begin to understand why I hold the values I do when teaching children. There are so many things that have obviously influenced and shaped my personality over the years, but I hadn’t realised how much they have influenced my teaching.

My own education and childhood have had a huge impact on my values. As a very shy child with low self esteem, I was in turn, a poor learner. Always just scraping into the top ability group at school never helped my confidence. Delving deeper into my past has helped me outline and understand my philosophy on education.

Catering for all

I have a child in my class this year that is severely autistic but his parents are in denial and wish him to continue in mainstream school... This will be his third year in our school He is been held back a year, consequently he is in the Year 1 class that I teach (along with 4 other Year 2 children) Our school has always believed that he should be in the autistic centre attached to us, The Margaret Coates Centre(MCC). With his parent’s consistent support and the advice from the MCC, I have set up strategies to best support him within the classroom, although always wishing his parents would place him in the correct environment and not mainstream education. I felt it was cruel and that I can not deal with all his differences and teach him the life skills he will need The educational psychologist came to observe this boy on Thursday (as she does every 6months to monitor progress). The Ed Psyche response has been a shock to me but has made me more determined than ever to learn how best to support children with specific learning difficulties. The report concluded that the boy was in the best place. He is happy and confident within his environment; he is learning appropriate responses to situations that he wouldn’t necessarily get in the MCC.

Everyone comes to school with a history, a past, a story, teachers and pupils. We are all different, we all learn in different ways. We all need to be stimulated. Inappropriate behaviour tends to stem from a low level of academia and self esteem. If there are discipline problems in my class, I will blame it on my inappropriate planning.

Enquiry ideas/thoughts

I taught in KS1 for 2 years before moving to Foundation Stage for 2 years. I am now back in Year 1 with a fresh look at planning an appropriate curriculum. I, along with a colleague, have changed a huge amount of the plans that were laid out for Year 1. I am not completely content with the changes we have made, but they are definitely a step in the direction to best benefit all the children I teach.

The changes are mainly based on the assumption that children learn best through play based activities. Where learning occurs through a ‘hands on’ approach.

I now spend every Tuesday lunch time working in the MCC to try and learn some of the strategies they use with Autistic children.

I hope that the questions, thoughts and ideas that will arise from my research enquiry will better equip me to teach every child that arrives in my class.