Special needs education

“The Revised National Curriculum Statement adopts an inclusive approach by specifying minimum requirements for all learners. The special educational, social, emotional and physical needs of learners will be addressed in the design and development of appropriate Learning Programmes.” (Department of Education of South Africa. 2009)

 The highlight of my day was holding a 27 day old baby boy! Whilst I was holding him, I realised what a miracle small people are but that I am FAR from ready to take on the responsibility of having a little child of my own...I am becoming a godmother soon (stocked!) so I will hopefully learn more about the ins and outs of small people J Besides having to talk baby language and rocking from side to side, we reported back to the therapist at the clinic about the ideas for a new progamme that we had gathered during the past two days. They seemed as if they liked what they were hearing which got us all excited J The therapists at the clinic are giving us the feeling as if we are one of them which we really appreciate. They try to include us on all levels and are always suuuper friendly. Once we received the ‘go ahead’ from them, we prepared a slide show for the staff at the day care clinic in order to ‘sell’ (as Kirsty would say) our new programme ideas to them. In the beginning of the meeting I got the impression that the staff members were not really interested in what we were suggesting. They kept asking about who was going to pay for all of these adaptations that we were suggesting. Another sore point was, that previous students had suggested similar changes to ours which they never implemented! This (and I fully understand) made them sceptical when they heard what we were trying to put across to them. Preparing a new programme for the day care centre and visiting schools for the disabled has got me thinking about what the legislations and policies have to say about educational programmes for the ‘special’ kids. In other words, does everyone have to apply pen and paper skills or is it ok to change the curriculum to more functional activities pertaining to everyday life, based on the special kids capabilities. Let’s have a look at what the sixth White Paper has to say...*I will stick to the original words from the document that I found as I do not think that I will be able to do it justice if I do otherwise*

“Education White Paper 6 emphasizes partnerships between schools and parents who need information, counselling and other skills to be able to participate more effectively in the planning and implementation of inclusion activities. Parents need to play a more active role in learning and teaching of their own children regardless of their child’s limitations due to disabilities or illness. Training will assist educators to identify and address barriers to learning and to prepare lessons that are responsive to individual learner needs. This includes curriculum enrichment, curriculum and assessment differentiation, multi-level classroom instruction, co-operative learning, inclusive learning programmes and the development of learner strengths rather than a focus on shortcomings.” (KZN Department of Education and MIET Africa.2009)

What I am gathering from this paragraph is that it is integral to include the parents in the learning program of the child, so that the programme is reinforced at home.

“In essence, the model outlined in Education White Paper 6 is child-centred and aimed at
ensuring that every child receives the required support to overcome any barriers to learning and development. This requires that we look at each child within his/her context to see how the child’s behaviour is impacting on effective learning and teaching. That will determine the support that the child receives. Providing additional support will therefore be tailored to the child’s support needs rather than in terms of a label of disability – it could mean adapting the physical environment (like wheelchair friendly toilets), providing access to specialized physical facilities, providing assistive devices (like hearing aids) or specialized learning and teaching support material, adapting the curriculum and/assessment, providing access to specialized professional services like counselling or to other government support services (like grants, food programmes, health services).The identification of a disability or impairment in itself does not mean that a learner has extremely high support needs and requires placement at a special school. Ideally, each child will receive the required support at the local mainstream school as far as it is reasonably practical.” (KZN Department of Education and MIET Africa.2009)

 Furthermore, it is important that the child’s context is taken into account when working on a child’s individual needs, which our programme is steering towards. Changes that are allowed to be made in order to accommodate the child’s limitations are in terms of the environment, assistive devices, specialized learning material & services and ADAPTING THE CURICULUM (which is what our aim is with regards to adapting the programme of the day care centre). Children with special needs, that is only if their limitations allow this, have a right to be integrated in a main stream school.

 

Our short term aim for the day care centre that we are working on, is to bring in more functional based activities for the moderately to mildly impaired children. Part of our goal is to structurally adapt the one room that two of the groups will be making use of. We are very excited to work together with the speechies and the staff of the day care centre on starting a revised programme!  

 Reference

KZN Department of Education and MIET Africa. (2009). Education for all: A guide to building schools as inclusive centres of learning, care and support. Retrieved on 26 February 2014, from www.miet.co.za/site/search/downloadencode/nLa8aaWMqp2zp4Sx