Using Playful Practice To Communicate With Special Children

Playfulness is important; it creates an alternative space where emotional, cognitive and social dimensions can be explored and tested. This highly practical book explores the endless possibilities of using playful, creative and interactive activities to meaningfully engage with children with multiple learning difficulties or autistic spectrum disorders. The author presents playfulness as ‘an experimental frame of mind’, and encourages practitioners to play with roles, ideas, words, concepts and objects in order to enhance relationships and interventions. By providing accessible steps to playfulness, this text explores some of the contemporary issues surrounding the education of children with severe learning needs, in particular the use of ‘intensive interaction’. This text considers different areas of creative interactive work for practitioners to draw inspiration from, including: Music Interactive Musical Movement Finger Dance Story and Drama Artwork Reflective Circle. The varied array of tried and tested original activities have been devised to encourage the development of social interaction, cognition, play, experimentation and creativity, in particular but not exclusively, for children whose learning needs are more complex. The author also invites teachers working in mainstream, particularly early years and primary education, to investigate the creative possibilities inherent in playfulness and to use the activities in this book to enhance the learning environment. This text offers an abundance of advice, practical strategies and tips for teachers working in special and mainstream early years and primary education. Practitioners such as therapists, care workers, community musicians and creative arts specialists will also find this book useful.

There has been a growing awareness in recent years of the importance of play in children's learning and development--but that awareness has not been accompanied by sufficient scholarly attention, outside of conceptual studies and how-to textbooks. This collection fills that gap by bringing together scholars from a range of fields and methodological approaches to look at play from a practice-based perspective. Moving beyond the dominant voice of developmental psychology, the book offers a number of new ways of approaching children's play and the roles of adults in supporting it; as a result, it will be valuable to anyone working with or studying children at play.

Are you overwhelmed by the amount of paperwork that SEN generates in your school? Would you like to spend more time actually improving the quality of teaching and learning for pupils with SEN or disabilities? If so, this is an essential book for you. Fully revised and updated for the 2014 SEN Code of Practice, this new edition contains strategies for reducing the number of individual education plans and review meetings. Beating Bureaucracy in Special Educational Needs will help you to use existing systems for target setting, recording and planning – personalised systems that are used for all children as part of everyday teaching practices. It lists the intervention programmes that really work and showcases the work of four schools that have successfully developed ways of planning provision, working with parents, and supporting staff development. Ready-to-use proforma in the book are also available online, and include a model policy for Ofsted; strategy sheets for all main types of SEN; provision maps and proformas to help you plan, monitor and evaluate your provision Beating Bureaucracy in Special Educational Needs will provide support for school leaders, SENCOs and anyone undertaking the national SENCO award. A practical and engaging guide, this new and updated edition shows how to put responsibility for supporting children with most types of additional need firmly back where it belongs – with class and subject teachers. It will help you – in the words of one SENCO – ‘get your life back’.

The Routledge Companion to Severe, Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties is a timely and rich resource with contributions from writing teams of acknowledged experts providing a balance of both academic and practitioner perspectives. The book covers a myriad of topics and themes and has the core purpose of informing and supporting everyone who is interested in improving the quality of education and support for children and young adults with severe, profound and multiple learning difficulties and their families. Each chapter contains careful presentations and analyses of the findings from influential research and its practical applications and the book is a treasure chest of experiences, suggestions and ideas from practitioners that will be invaluable for many years to come. The chapters include many vignettes gathered from practitioners in the field and are written specifically to be rigorous yet accessible. The contributors cover topics related to the rights and needs of children and young adults from 0-25 years, crucial features of high quality education, characteristics of integrated provision and effective and sensitive working with families to ensure the best possible outcomes for their children. Crucially, the voice of the learners themselves shines through. Historical provision that has had an impact on developing services and modern legislation aimed at improving provision and services are also discussed. The contributed chapters are organised into six themed parts: Provision for learners with SLD/PMLD. Involving stakeholders. Priorities for meeting the personal and social needs of learners. Developing the curriculum. Strategies for supporting teaching and learning. Towards a new understanding of education for learners with SLD/PMLD. This text is an essential read for students on courses and staff working in and with the whole range of educational settings catering for children and young adults with severe, profound and multiple learning difficulties, not just for teachers but also for support staff, speech and language therapists, physiotherapists, psychologists, nurses, social workers and other specialists.

In the busy world that schools inhabit, this book provides clear guidance on how to implement a simple and user-friendly system that will ensure all pupil progress is forensically examined and any inadequacies swiftly addressed. Provision Mapping and the SEND Code of Practice describes a tried and tested system that helps schools to successfully identify, implement and track provision for all pupils, irrespective of whether they have a special educational need or not. This new edition: demonstrates how schools can implement the requirements of the new SEND Code of Practice provides achievable solutions to the problems that schools face in trying to evidence the impact of the additional support they provide provides photocopiable templates of tables that can be used to track progress of all pupils contains easy to use tools that will allow a school to clearly evidence that additional funding is used efficiently. This second edition has been fully updated to reflect the recent changes to SEN legislation, the new SEND Code of Practice (2015), the new National Curriculum and new assessment requirements and the new Common Inspection Framework. Additional material has been added to provide a resource for secondary and special schools. Headteachers, senior managers, leadership teams, SENCOs and other educational professionals will find the guidance and support provided by this book invaluable.

This comprehensive book provides all the information that practitioners need to know about assessment in relation to their pupils with Specific Learning Difficulties. The why, how and what of assessment is addressed, whilst the link between assessment and intervention is also a key focus. Looking at the full range of Specific Learning Difficulties, this book provides practical guidance on implementing strategies that are tried and tested for use in any classroom, whilst also acknowledging that assessment is a process involving other professionals and parents. Addressing issues and topics common in inclusive classrooms around the world, key topics covered include: Specific Learning Difficulties in context Teacher Assessment in literacy, numeracy and movement Motor development and co-ordination Attention factors in learning The key issues on learning differences Self-esteem and emotional literacy How to enhance skills and the self-sufficiency of teachers Assessing Children with Specific Learning Difficulties will be an invaluable guide for classroom teachers, learning support departments, psychologists and other professionals.

This book provides a quick and easy reference guide to different types of sensory impairment, including causes, symptoms and the implications on teaching and learning. With most children and young people with hearing or visual impairments attending mainstream schools, this book explains the most effective and practical strategies for use in mainstream classrooms. Fully up to date with the 2014 SEND Code of Practice, this accessible resource is split into two sections: Supporting Children with a Hearing Impairment and Supporting Children with a Visual Impairment. The wide-ranging chapters include: Educational access for pupils with hearing loss Teaching phonics Teaching deaf pupils with English as a second language Identifying children with visual impairment Classroom management Adapting resources This practical text provides strategies to use in schools to ensure that children with sensory impairments are fully supported. Featuring useful checklist and photocopiable resouces, it contains a wealth of valuable advice and tried-and-tested strategies for teachers and support staff working in early years settings, schools, academies and colleges.

Completely revised and updated in light of the new 2014 SEND Code of Practice, this second edition of Supporting Children with Dyslexia provides valuable advice and resources for teachers, TAs and SENCOs supporting pupils on the dyslexic spectrum. This practical resource will help those who are looking for expert guidance and strategies, as well as providing a professional development tool which will encourage outstanding practice at all levels. Spanning pre-school, primary and secondary teaching, this book covers the key areas to be considered when supporting pupils with dyslexia, including: how to identify a young person with dyslexia practical strategies for pre-school, primary and secondary settings useful advice to give to parents and carers of children and young people with dyslexia useful materials for continual professional development. Featuring helpful checklists, templates and photocopiable resources, this book provides guidance and practical strategies for identifying and supporting young people with dyslexia that will be of use to teachers, TAs, SENCOs and other educational professionals.