Marie Greenhalgh knew she needed to make a change. Her students, who all had an Education, Health andCare Plan (EHCP), were being forced to take – and pass – functional skills in three subjects: maths, English and ICT. For the majority, she believed it simply wasn’t achievable – high anxiety and mental health issues impact on attendance, and many struggled to keep up with the work. Any small milestones that were reached by the students had no official recognition within the curriculum they were studying. It was demoralizing for all involved.
“We worked with study programmes because that was funding related, but the outcomes didn’t match our learners,” Greenhalgh says. “They would come out with something that was classed as a fail when, actually, they might have made loads of progress. The standardised measures don’t fit our learners and it was in danger of making them look like they weren’t progressing when actually they were.”
But what else could she offer them?
Usually, colleges tend to opt for evolution over revolution – small changes are easier to roll out and track. There were a few options in that category that Greenhalgh could have chosen. But she did something different: she ripped up the rule book completely.
Greenhalgh is head of post-16 and lead for special educational needs and disability (SEND) at Inclusion Hampshire, a specialist education provider for those with EHCPs. Whether they’ve been referred by a mainstream school, Hampshire council SEND, or have attended a pre-16 alternative provision, these teenagers have one thing in common: they’re all too vulnerable to attend mainstream college.
This story is from the October 03, 2019 edition of TES.
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This story is from the October 03, 2019 edition of TES.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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