Before I had my current role, I had never worked in Early Years, nor had I ever had a child in my class with PMLD (Profound and Multiple Learning Disability). So imagine my panic when I had my first caseload child who was both!
If you read my earlier posts on defining inclusion for autistic children, you’ll know that I believe in a growth mindset and that inclusion is an educational and human right. It was time to practice what I preach!
The child is the curriculum
I had been fortunate in that I had recently had some training in London by teachers from the Chailey Heritage School. They advocate that the child is the curriculum. Here’s a link to their rationale: https://www.chf.org.uk/The_CHILD_Curriculum_-_March_2018.pdf
This emboldened me to put this child’s needs at the heart of what I did. Now, my role is to ensure inclusion for SEND children in mainstream education. We as a service focus on cognition and learning, and a lot of what I do involves adapting the curriculum so that children can access it, while meeting the objectives in the child’s plan, either an EHCP or our local authority’s cognition and learning SEND plan, written by the school. In this instance, I had to do some re-evaluating.
The EHCP objectives had to come first. My boy’s complex needs meant that I needed to learn from him and adapt to his learning styles and capabilities. At the same time, I needed to be ambitious and aspirational!
I was lucky to have this boy come into my life. I was able to work with him and his settings and parents for 3 years, from nursery to Year 2, and boy did he teach me a lot! I won’t go into everything today, but to summarise, we worked a lot on engagement through strategies such as Intensive Interaction, Attention Autism, and PECS. In hindsight, I made some mistakes. For example, I tried PECS too soon, he just wasn’t ready and didn’t understand the process. Luckily, I worked with a great Speech Therapist who introduced Sealed Jars to me, and this worked so much better! You live and learn! I intend to describe all of these strategies in future posts.
Cognition and Learning – Task Baskets!
Eventually, we reached a point where I felt we could focus more on some cognition and learning targets. I like to approach my work by looking at what is happening in class and replicating that in a way that is accessible. You may have picked up on this in previous posts! So how would I do this with my boy? Step up Task Baskets!
I tend to work in threes. I don’t know why, but somehow it seems logical. For instance, lessons tend to have an introduction, the main task, and a reflection or plenary. So my boy had three baskets. Two baskets had tasks that worked on his objectives, and the third was a preferred activity. I guess what I particularly like about task baskets is how they provide a structure. I like structure, and I believe so do most of us, children included!
I aim to incorporate developing independence into my sessions, so whichever of the first two baskets my boy would reach for would be the first activity. Hey, I find opportunities where I can! The items in the baskets would change depending on what we were working on at the time. So there might be mark-making tools in one, stacking cups in another. If the class was working on measurement in maths, we might have some big and small items to sort. If the topic was rainforests, there might be animal toys or a fuzzy felt rainforest scene to try. It could be castles, Antarctica, or anything.
There are so many different options, and with a little imagination, whatever topic the class is working on can be adapted to the baskets and needs and abilities of the child. All you need are three baskets, some ambition, the child’s objectives, and the class topic! This is inherently inclusive, and can be undertaken in class alongside peers learning the same topics at the same time! Bonus, doubly inclusive!
The items can be changed up depending on the lesson, and some baskets can remain the same if there is a specific child-centered objective to work on. Evidence can be collected via photos and stuck into books – we teachers do like our books and evidence!
Hope this is helpful, or at the very least, interesting!
That SEND Teacher 