Including Children with Special Educational Needs in Physical Education

Objectives  Re-cap on work to date on inclusive PE  Assessment in PE for children with SEN  Examine what we understand by ‘High Quality PE’ for children with SEN  Examples of best practice…..  (DFES CD-ROM)

Recap

Contexts for working  Entitlement - Fundamental right to access sport and PE  Accessibility - Our responsibility to modify or adapt what we are doing to meet specific needs  Inclusion - Subscribe to this belief  Integrity - Whatever we do to change or adapt our services, must be of equal value, worth and in no way patronising

Ideological impurity  There is no logical purity in equality and diversity issues, rather there is ideological impurity in which no single value or principle encompasses all of what is considered worthwhile  Flexibility, creativity and a readiness to modify and adapt practices is key

Interacting variables in physical activity  The resources the individual brings to the activity and or learning situation  The context in which learning takes place (teaching, learning)  The nature of the task to be performed

Learning objectives  Matching the activity to the individual needs of pupils  Setting suitable learning challenges  Responding to individuals diverse needs  Overcoming potential barriers to learning and assessment through adaptation

Goodwin and Watkinson (2000) Thematic summary of inclusive PE from the perspective of students with disabilities

Assessing children with SEN in PE What, why, how and why do we assess?

 “She tries hard and always has a smile on her face, but due to her lack of mobility Sunita is unable to take part in most areas of activity, so we are unable to give an accurate assessment of what she can do. Although she is sport mad we recommend she prioritises academic study over PE..”

PE NC (2000)  “Teachers must take action and ensure their pupils are enabled to participate”  Teachers must be responsive to a diverse range of individual needs in order to facilitate inclusive PE for children with SEN

Context of assessment  Assessment should be considered as a process which gives both the child and the teacher an insight into learning, development and achievement  Assessment focuses upon feedback and feed forward  Assessment can be formative or summative

Task  Why do we assess in PE?  What do we assess?  How do we assess?  When do we assess?

Assessment contd..  Timing of assessment is critical to the learning of new skills  How can you overcome potential barriers to assessment for children with SEN?  Flexible approaches  Creativity and innovation  Language and wording of assessment tasks can be a barrier or be tailored to be inclusive

Task  Look at the level descriptors for the PE National Curriculum  In what ways do you think they are inclusive and accessible for children with SEN?  Where are the potential barriers?  How can you modify the language without losing the skill level to make it more inclusive?

What should we be assessing?  Developing and supporting children’s movement patterns  Contribution of PE to wider social life and life long learning  Self esteem, motivation, confidence  Assessing against the attainment targets

Task  What issues will you need to consider in relation to children with SEN in PE?  Validity  Reliability  Objectivity and bias  Practicality

Assessment programmes in PE for children with SEN  They serve the purpose in…  Screening to determine which pupils are in need  Placement to assure that each pupil has the appropriate support to progress  Diagnosis to determine present level of performance  Progress to determine the objectives that need to be met

 Assessment should be discovering what a pupil can do, not highlighting what they cannot  Assessment should be:  Child centred  Concerned with process as well as outcome  Concerned with more than just performance and skills (learning to move/moving to learn)  Part of an ongoing dialogue between both teacher and pupil and peers which inform future learning and teaching

Task  How would you define high quality PE for children with SEN?  What are it’s characteristics and how can they be facilitated?