UCL speaker presenting with a microphone. Credit: Mary Hinkley for UCL.

29 October 2024

By Leda Kamenopoulou

Synchronous accessibility can be challenging

In a previous IOE blog, I wrote about accessibility as a right and not an option, and I summarised key actions for creating accessible digital content, such as Word and PowerPoint documents. These resources, however, are almost always created asynchronously. In this post, I consider how to make sure live teaching delivery is accessible, focusing in this instance on the needs of students with hearing impairment. I list best practices that I recommend as an expert on inclusive education and sensory accessibility, and as a programme leader for UCL’s Special and Inclusive Education MA, experienced in putting reasonable adjustments in place for our students. (more…)

Credit: WavebreakMediaMicro via Adobe Stock.

10 September 2024

By Joseph Mintz

Government policy for the schools system in England has moved away from using the term ‘differentiation’, replacing it with what they have called ‘adaptive teaching’. This is an idiosyncratic term in this context, and it seems that by adaptive teaching the Government means to refer to an emphasis on direct instruction and mastery learning. I argue here that this shift risks the individual learning needs of children with special educational needs being ignored, and that this has not been given enough attention in policy, practice or teacher education. (more…)

Sir Francis Galton in 1912 (left) and Sir Cyril Burt (right). Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

25 July 2024

By Sandra Leaton Gray and David Scott

This blog post is Part 2 of a series relating to our newly published book: Intelligence, Sapience and Learning: Concepts, Framings and Practices.

Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911) and Sir Cyril Burt (1883-1971) were two pioneers of differential psychology who had close connections to UCL and IOE respectively. They worked at a time when a theistic philosophy in education was on the decline, and the new discipline of Psychology was in the ascendancy. The lives of Galton and Burt provide us with a cautionary tale about the dangers of working unchallenged in the field of science, with little accountability. (more…)

Credit: Quarta via Adobe.

24 July 2024

By David Scott and Sandra Leaton Gray

We have just published a book about some key educational concepts, with the title: Intelligence, Sapience and Learning: Concepts, Framings and Practices. These concepts are a central consideration for educators at IOE or at least we feel that they should be. In a companionate book – Women Curriculum Theorists: Power, Knowledge and Subjectivity – we looked in a similar way at the relations and connections between the concepts and practices of ‘woman’, ‘learning’ and ‘curriculum’. Social categories of gender, race, religion, dis-ability, sexuality and class are other examples of key life-defining concepts. Our new book seeks to shed light on the workings of these social categories because a proper examination of them is an essential starting point for understanding how the world and objects in that world are arranged and ordered. (more…)

Credit: Smolaw11 / Adobe.

16 January 2024

By Lindsey Macmillan and Jake Anders

The start of 2024 has seen a renewed focus on persistent absenteeism from school, with the Secretary of State for Education announcing a major national drive to improve school attendance, and the Shadow Secretary of State for Education laying out Labour’s plans to ‘rebuild the broken relationship between schools, families and the Government’. Yet this is not a new problem: the issue of persistent absenteeism has been looming since schools returned to ‘normal’ after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Everyone agrees that the rise in pupil absence since the pandemic is of significant concern. But the causes and what we should do about this are much less clear. (more…)

CICADA Stories, Bloomsbury Theatre

15 December 2022

By Carol Rivas, Amanda Moore, Kusha Anand, Alison Wu and Ozan Aksoy

This post is adapted from a blog for Biomed Central.

Even before the pandemic, many people with chronic conditions or disabilities, particularly those from minoritised ethnic groups, faced obstacles in accessing or utilising networks of support, health and social care. During the pandemic, some of these obstacles increased disproportionately, and widened the inequalities gap.

Now, during Disability History Month (16 November to 16 December), it is instructive to consider the interplay of different intersecting factors that compromise good health outcomes when considering inequalities. For example, chronic conditions such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease increase vulnerability to COVID-19 and are disproportionately (more…)

Credit: Pexels / Pixabay

6 December 2022

By Jo Van Herwegen, Elisabeth Herbert and Laura Outhwaite 

A good grasp of maths has been linked to greater success in employment and better health. But a large proportion of us – up to 22% – have mathematical learning difficulties. What’s more, around 6% of children in primary schools may have dyscalculia, a mathematical learning disability.

Developmental dyscalculia is a persistent difficulty in understanding numbers which can affect anyone, regardless of age or ability.

If 6% of children have dyscalculia, that would mean one or two children in each primary school class of 30 – about as many children as have been estimated to have dyslexia. But dyscalculia is less well known, by both the general public and teachers. It is also less well researched in comparison to other learning difficulties.

Children with dyscalculia may struggle to learn foundational mathematical skills and concepts, such as simple counting, (more…)

Photo: Jason Ilagan for UCL Faculty of Education and Society

4 October 2022

By Miriam McBreen and Jo Van Herwegen

In our third blog post responding to the DFE’s Green Paper reviewing the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) system, we consider what training the workforce needs so that practitioners are equipped to effectively support pupils with SEND. This involves considering the role of multiple educational professionals, including Special Education Needs Coordinators (SENCOs), teachers and teaching assistants (TAs).

SENCOs play a central role in supporting children with SEND. They coordinate children’s provision, help implement the graduated response to need, and work with key stakeholders around the child. SENCOs are currently required to have a Master’s level qualification and it is important that this qualification be maintained. It helps ensure that they have access to up-to-date research, develop critical engagement with current issues in the field, and become reflective in their practice. Indeed, Esposito and Carroll demonstrate a range of evidence that SENCOs are critically engaging with research at the (more…)

Early diagnosis is crucial. Photo:  RetyiRetyi / Pixabay

26 September 2022

By Miriam McBreen and Jo Van Herwegen

In our second blog post responding to the DFE’s Green Paper on the future of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision (AP), we look at how processes need to change to ensure the system more effectively supports these pupils.

This includes a need to improve the Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) process, in particular with regards to diagnosis and labelling, and to support practitioners to work more effectively with families.

First of all, the EHCP process needs updating. While the SEND code of practice suggests actively involving the child and parents, our research suggests the child’s voice is often not captured where it could be. Research from Tyan and Van Herwegen suggests the voices of children with intellectual disabilities as young as five years old can be accurately captured when professionals have appropriate training. This highlights the (more…)

Photo: olly via Adobe Stock

23 September 2022

By Jo Van Herwegen and Miriam McBreen

Children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) too often report negative experiences of the UK educational system, and have poorer outcomes compared to their peers.

Responding to the Department for Education’s Green Paper on the future of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision (AP), we consider how provision can be improved to ensure that more children and young people have positive educational experiences, as well as better outcomes.

In the first of three blogs, we propose ways to improve standards for supporting children with SEND, both during their time in school and beyond.

First of all, standards should be established to support pupils with SEND during transitions, such as the move from primary (more…)