education-curriculum

Introduction

Differentiation is one of the means by which children of all abilities and learning styles can access and learn from the structure of a common curriculum shared with their peers. It involves the modification and matching of curriculum objectives, teaching and assessment methods, learning activities and resources to pupils’ individual abilities, educational needs and learning styles in a social learning context.

Successful differentiation requires that teachers value the achievements of all children and recognise the right of all children to be socially included in school and community lives while acknowledging that children learn in different ways. Teachers also need to maintain positive, open minds about possibilities for learning at all stages of children’s development. These attitudes are essential for teaching all learners, for example, ‘typically’ developing children, unusually able children, children with behavioural difficulties, children with different social, cultural, emotional and economic experiences, children with autism, children with dyslexia, children with visual, hearing and physical disabilities and children with language and developmental delay, including those children who have Down syndrome.

To be able to differentiate well, schools need to have whole school development for inclusion, with school staff, parents and pupils working in ways that facilitate differentiation. The Index for Inclusion TODO: references 1 is a set of materials to support schools in a process of inclusive school development, and will lead any school, in any country, into practices that overcome barriers to learning and participation and enable social inclusion and differentiation for all pupils. Whole school development for inclusion is a starting point for differentiation and the needs of individuals are embedded in this social and community framework. Whole school issues in relation to children with Down syndrome are discussed in another module in this series.

The modules on reading and writing illustrate ways of differentiating literacy teaching to teach language and understanding. Similarly, the modules on number make recommendations for how to meet individual learning needs, improve skills and include pupils in maths lessons. The recommendations and techniques described in these modules can be used across the curriculum, for developing and assessing understanding, for recording and for enabling children to participate in whole class activities through adapted or additional resources. Additional examples of work by pupils included in lessons with their peers are illustrated in this module, followed by discussion of teaching style and classroom management, to stimulate teachers’ creativity and to raise teachers’ expectations that pupils can access, share and learn from the same overall curriculum as their age peers in the same classrooms, provided teachers differentiate for them.

Differentiation

To illustrate how children of all ages and abilities have accessed their curricula with their peers through differentiation, some examples of work are reproduced, with the permission of the children, their families and schools.

! Conor’s work files (aged 6 years)

Figure 1. Conor’s work files (aged 6 years)

The children’s work shown is representative of pupils with Down syndrome who have a wide range of language and academic skills. The examples include work by children with severe hearing loss and additional physical disabilities, and pupils’ in secondary school who read and write with support but cannot yet do so independently. These examples are of recorded work, and do not show the learning that has taken place through drama, visual aids used in teaching or activities led by teachers and parents to develop understanding. All of the examples are reduced in size.

Basic principles

Using learning strengths

Most children and adults are helped to learn from good visual analogies or icons, from coloured, eye catching, illustrations and objects that support spoken or written information, and from doing activities ‘for real’. People benefit from multi-sensory experiences and images to develop their understanding and remembering, so children with Down syndrome are not unique in benefiting from these teaching and learning experiences. For this reason, increasing teachers’ differentiation skills and expanding schools’ teaching resources will improve educational experiences for many more children at school.

For children with Down syndrome, many of the recommendations for teaching are aimed at:

The examples in Figure 2 and Figure 3 show materials that make good use of pictures and colour in a visual timetable for a 7 year old pupil in a year 2 class, and topic books for a pupil aged 6 years in a year 1 class.

Visual timetables can have different versions for the same day where activities and the timetable change on alternate weeks. Timetables with pictures and word labels mounted on card with ‘Velcro’ allow for a more flexible timetable to be created daily. The timetable illustrated in Figure 2 rested on an upright stand wherever the pupil sat, and was rehearsed with her at the beginning of and during the day.

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Figure 2. Timetable for a 7 year old pupil in an infant school

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Figure 3. Mini-beast book (pupil aged 6 years)

Typically, as children get older, the need for differentiation is greater in many curricular areas. Children require a social curriculum as well as an academic curriculum for their education to fulfil its aim to meet all their learning needs, and they need school and home to work collaboratively to promote their development. Procedures for communicating learning objectives across the curriculum, and between all staff at school who interact with the children, are necessary for making full use of the many opportunities for learning at school, outside and inside the classroom, to help children to generalise their learning.

All children with Down syndrome are different and the need for and types of differentiation should be led by the way in which each child most successfully learns, given their abilities, skills and learning styles.

Cognitive profile and learning strengths associated with Down syndrome

Teachers are helped to plan for children with Down syndrome by learning about their specific cognitive profile and likely learning strengths, such as visual awareness and visual learning skills, ability to learn and use sign, gesture and other visual supports, ability to learn and use the written word, ability to learn from and with their peers and sensitivity to emotional cues. Their sensitivity to emotional cues can be a positive asset as pupils with Down syndrome respond to praise and pleasure taken in their progress. However, it can also make them vulnerable as they quickly pick up negative cues and anxiety around them. Not all children with Down syndrome will have these learning strengths yet they may have other ways in which their learning can be enhanced.

Base differentiation on good teaching practice for all pupils

The ways in which teachers help all children to attend, understand, learn, work together, respond to feedback and revise their learning are the ways in which to help pupils with Down syndrome achieve, with perhaps the addition of ‘do this even more explicitly’ to each principle.

For all pupils lessons should be well structured, with an outline of content and aims at the beginning, summary of key points as the lesson progresses and a review at the end of the lesson. Transitions during the lesson should be signalled clearly so that pupils know the new expectations for them. Pupils should receive frequent, clear feedback in a way that helps them, and delivery of the lesson should be with enthusiasm, clarity and a rapid pace.

Changes in activity or style help to refocus pupils’ attention, and ‘slower learners’ often benefit from ‘more frequent changes’. Although pupils with Down syndrome often need more repetition to learn, and do need time, help, encouragement and practice to understand and respond, this does not mean doing things slowly. If pupils are beginning to lose interest in a task, speeding up the task will likely regain their interest, as will anticipation of the next task. So if a pupil is losing interest or showing fatigue, offer to help pupils achieve the end goal and bring that activity to a successful conclusion more quickly.

A high degree of structure and preparation in advance makes supporting pupils easier, especially for learning support assistants that lack familiarity with the pupils they are supporting or are new to their positions. These assistants will then know what will be happening in the lesson, and they can move on or add extra, relevant, short activities if the pupil needs this, until the next whole class transition point.

Planning and preparation in advance and increasing structure are two techniques that can rapidly change pupils behaviour in the classroom, should this be a concern.

As for all pupils, teaching should take place in a social learning environment in ways that increase independence, develops skills across the curriculum, generalise the use of new skills in the wider school and home environment and develop greater understanding and knowledge.

Curriculum planning

Finding the right balance between the curriculum content and the level of experience, skill and understanding of the pupil with Down syndrome is not always easy. But with increasing awareness of pupils’ needs and abilities it is possible to develop this balance through a largely standard curriculum.

When including a pupil with Down syndrome or other significant language or learning differences, teachers may need to adjust the minimum that they expect all pupils in class to experience and access, to give them useful skills and some understanding of the subject. This calls for flexibility, creative thinking and imagination, common sense, some additional resources and good planning and liaison between staff to help prepare and differentiate materials.

Curriculum for pupils aged 14 to 16 years

Issues for curriculum planning and differentiation tend to become greater over time. They are at their most complex by the time a child reaches the final two years of their secondary school education, when pupils are typically following examinable courses. In England and Wales this is known as Key Stage 4 and pupils are typically aged 14 to 16 years. This is the time when the curriculum should reflect pupils’ needs for educational and vocational skills, independence and social competence and develop pupils’ skills in self-assessment.

Curriculum planning at this stage usually involves drawing upon a wide range of material. This may include programmes of study from any earlier key stage where the demand of the material is appropriate for the child. Tasks are re-interpreted as necessary to enable the pupil to demonstrate achievement in age appropriate contexts, while developing age appropriate social and independence skills.

This module provides guidance for differentiation for pupils of all ages and abilities. However, the need for transition to the next stage of education means that it is important that the chosen curriculum leads to recognised qualifications for pupils with Down syndrome. For some pupils, alternative accredited courses and qualifications are preferable to participation in differentiated courses from which they may not gain a qualification. Predicting pupil achievement years in advance is difficult though, and the authors recommend that pupils’ preferences and enjoyment of particular subjects are given heavy weighting in their final choice of subjects at the age of 14 years and beyond. The wider the range of courses that pupils have available for them to select from, the more choice and satisfaction they will experience in this period of their education, in preparation for their continuing education at colleges of further education.

Relationships

The qualities of the relationships that pupils have with their support staff and teachers affect learning. Interactions based on positive relationships with staff affect the relationships children have with their peers, just as negative qualities of relationships and rejection do. The interpersonal skills as well as the teaching and differentiating skills of teachers and learning support assistants are highly significant for children’s development and well-being. While this is the case for all children, it is particularly important for children who are less able, at various points in their lives, to describe and discuss their feelings and experiences with their school teachers, family and friends.

Children with Down syndrome are particularly sensitive to the emotional cues of others around them and classroom atmospheres. So teachers need to get to know their individual pupils, find out what motivates them, develop positive relationships with the children and their families, as well as think about the ways in which they can differentiate the curriculum and plan lessons for the children’s abilities and skills.

Developing differentiation skills

For improving teacher’s skills in differentiating lessons for all pupils, A Strategy for Differentiation, written by Geoff Moss, TODO: references 2 provides a clear framework for whole school training and development. This offers a two dimensional model for teachers to use as a checklist for differentiating for pupil differences, with training materials, and clarifies the ways that teachers can differentiate by following a clear, practical, easy to remember guide. One dimension considers pupil factors, task factors, teaching style and management, support and resources. The other dimension follows the stages of the lesson or ‘teaching-learning cycle’, namely lesson presentation, lesson operation and pupil response.

For pupils with Down syndrome, information from research into the cognitive and learning profiles can help teachers to identify, describe and plan for all of these factors. Moss’ framework provides up to 12 different aspects for teaching and learning that can be changed slightly, greatly, or not at all for different individuals with Down syndrome.

Additional support for learning

Some pupils with Down syndrome require little differentiation, other than additional support for learning, and access the full curriculum throughout primary and secondary schools. Some pupils require differentiation of most curricular areas with adapted work in the classroom, and a minority of children with profound or complex developmental delays need both creative thinking and a great amount of differentiation and support at the curricular and task levels to learn inclusively with their peers. For these children in particular, teachers in mainstream schools can be supported by and learn from specialist teachers experienced in choosing targets and designing activities for inclusive settings, to develop their own teaching skills further and promote learning for everyone in an inclusive environment.

Figure 4 shows whole class work for a 7 year old pupil (year 2, Key Stage 1) differentiated only by the provision of additional support to understand the task and complete the work for learning how to use map coordinates.

! Class work with additional support from a learning support assistant (pupil aged 7 years)

Figure 4. Class work with additional support from a learning support assistant (pupil aged 7 years)

The examples of work in Figure 5 (Key Stage 2, junior school) are differentiated only by the use of some extra pictures and additional support to help structure the lesson input and the pupil’s output. This pupil (aged 10 years) can read and spell beyond her chronological age and her literacy skills are used to good effect to develop her understanding through reading and writing. (She was introduced to reading at 2 years of age).

! Class work with additional support (pupil aged 10 years)

! Class work with additional support (pupil aged 10 years)

Figure 5. Class work with additional support (pupil aged 10 years)

Similarly, Figure 6 shows an example of work in a science lesson by a pupil in secondary school.

! Class work with additional support in secondary school (Key Stage 3)

Figure 6. Class work with additional support in secondary school (Key Stage 3)

Summarising and simplification to key points

Pupils can write their own key points, with support as necessary to think, remember, write and spell. The examples of work in Figure 7 show differentiation by reduction in amount and complexity, to build on the pupil’s knowledge over a series of lessons.

! History in secondary school, year 8 (pupil aged 12 years)

! History in secondary school, year 8 (pupil aged 12 years)

Figure 7. History in secondary school, year 8 (pupil aged 12 years)

This pupil was tested orally with questions and answers recorded by Dictaphone at the end of the series of lessons. He achieved a ‘level 3 curriculum attainment’ for his understanding of the subject, answered verbally, and was able to answer questions like:

Helping pupils to listen, learn, respond and record

Participating in listening, the activity or operation of lessons, with explanation and understanding ‘scaffolded’ by the teacher, support assistant and peers, will result in positive learning experiences for most children. It is also important for pupils to record in a way that reflects and helps to consolidate their learning experiences. As well as supporting the construction of text (by clearly written words, word cards, sentences or print from the computer), assistants can draw illustrations for pupils and paste suitable pictures or even pieces of equipment they have used into the pupils’ record books. This will enable pupils to look back through their work, remember and rehearse the activities they undertook and the vocabulary and ideas they learned about.

Figure 8 shows an aid to learning about drugs and medicines for a pupil aged 7 years (year 2 infant class, Key Stage 1). The pupil with Down syndrome shared in the class activities, handled empty packages and participated in discussion activities, with support. She pasted packaging into her book to create a visual record.

! Record of activity and language used (pupil aged 7 years)

Figure 8. Record of activity and language used (pupil aged 7 years)

Figure 9 shows the record of the class activity to make a ‘Christingle’. This pupil, aged 8, (Key Stage 2 of the curriculum in junior school) could read but was in the early stages of learning to write and record at the time of completing this work. She enjoyed participating fully in the lesson.

! Picture record for class activity (pupil aged 8 years)

Figure 9. Picture record for class activity (pupil aged 8 years)

Figure 10 shows one minute ‘doodles’ drawn to help a pupil aged 7 years to ‘listen’ to part of a story presented to the class during the first session of whole class teaching during a ‘literacy hour’. The drawings helped the pupil to listen and link words that she heard to the pictures. She could also follow the written text presented to the whole class by overhead projection. The target for this pupil in this session, was to for her to listen, recognise characters and their names. Later work on the series or sequence of events in the story and the links between characters would be worked on in other parts of the ‘literacy hour framework’. The pupil could share whole class work on ‘adjectives’, although her adjectives such as ‘scary’, ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘dark’ were differentiated and at an easier level to those her class peers were being asked to consider. The pictures, although very simple, and quickly drawn, enabled the pupil to sit with her peers, listen and follow text.

! One minute ‘doodles’ to improve listening and attention (pupil aged 7 years) ! One minute ‘doodles’ to improve listening and attention (pupil aged 7 years)

Figure 10. One minute ‘doodles’ to improve listening and attention (pupil aged 7 years)

The examples of work in Figure 11, Figure 12 and Figure 13 show records of the most important or fundamental information from the lessons, written in single words or simple sentences, with coloured pictures, sequenced by the pupil to help her understand and remember the activity of the lessons. Some of the differentiation is to the level of learning new vocabulary. The records include opportunities for developing handwriting skills by copying over yellow marker pen, and for recording the date. These examples are from the infant, or Key Stage 1, science curriculum, for a child in the early stages of learning to read and write. The pupil was supported by discussion of the information presented in the lesson, was given guidance with her peers for completion of the activities and was given help to record.

! Picture record for activity (pupil aged 6 years)

Figure 11. Picture record for activity (pupil aged 6 years)

! Vocabulary and drawings, science (pupil aged 6 years)

Figure 12. Vocabulary and drawings, science (pupil aged 6 years) (Words read: ‘Bluetac’, squeeze; foam, squeeze; paper, rip, scrunch; elastic band, stretch, twist)

! Colour pictures and vocabulary record (pupil aged 6 years)

Figure 13. Colour pictures and vocabulary record (pupil aged 6 years)

Photographs from an instant camera and digital pictures will enable activities to be recorded even more effectively, with text to support the pictures. Video diaries and records add an extra dimension to learning and recording, and are especially good for teaching children with more significant learning and language difficulties. Some of these methods take the pupil from the classroom and around school, and whether or not to do this will depend upon the skills and understanding of the pupil as well as those of the teacher. Extra individualised activities to support learning can create learning opportunities for cross curricular skills and independence, for example, independently going to the office or buildings manager to obtain keys for particular rooms or pieces of equipment. Provided planning has been done in advance, and the learning support assistant knows how the lesson will develop for the other pupils, so that the pupil (and learning assistant) do not miss important parts of the lesson or opportunities for group work, it is quite possible for the pupil to come in and out of the same lesson. Children do not need to be in one place to learn the objectives of the lesson individualised for them.

Figure 14 shows part of an 8 year old pupil’s record about the places in school and the people who work in them.

! Digital photograph and text (pupil aged 8 years)

Figure 14. Digital photograph and text (pupil aged 8 years) (Text reads: “The Office. Mrs Atrill. She works hard. She is nice and friendly. She works on the computer. She writes the school letters.”)

Making visual aids that move can help to represent action or create suspense to support language learning. This is illustrated by the example of a 7 year old pupil’s differentiated work for literacy (as part of the national literacy hour, year 2, Key Stage 1) in Figure 15. The picture of the wolf that appears ‘suddenly’ is folded and can be opened quickly to illustrate ‘suddenly’, and support the telling of the story. The words in the sentence have been written on coloured card for the pupil to arrange as her writing task. These have been pasted into the book as a record, and for the pupil to read again and rehearse this part of the story, along with other pieces of work related to the story.

! Literacy with moving picture (pupil aged 7 years) ! Literacy with moving picture (pupil aged 7 years)

Figure 15. Literacy with moving picture (pupil aged 7 years)

Many pupils will develop drawing skills and will be able to draw their own illustrations, given practice over time ( Figure 16, Figure 18, Figure 19). Combined with multi-media recording, they can illustrate their own knowledge and understanding, with pictures, diagrams and text.

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Figure 16. Illustrated history by a 14 year-old pupil in year 9

! Boudica in pastels by an 8 year old pupil in a year 4 junior class

Figure 17. Boudica in pastels by an 8 year old pupil in a year 4 junior class

! Viking Gods and Goddesses, by a pupil in junior school

Figure 18. Viking Gods and Goddesses, by a pupil in junior school

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Figure 19. Food chains, science, Key Stage 3, secondary school (pupil aged 13 years)

Confidence for using new techniques and art materials will develop with encouragement from peers and support workers ( Figure 17 and Figure 20). Some pupils may show apprehension at first, particularly if they are not used to having materials with different textures, such as glue and other sticky materials, on their hands.

! Treasure Island, by a pupil in junior school

Figure 20. Treasure Island, by a pupil in junior school

Even more visual resources, icons, teaching aids and wall displays

Teachers can use visual props and wall displays to illustrate the ideas of the lesson or series of lessons for the whole class. Large, newly created visual resources should be saved and re-used for future year groups and courses. For materials that will be retained by the pupil or entered into the pupil’s workbook or file, take a photograph so that departments and schools are developing resources and ideas to share with school staff for use in school training.

Figure 21 shows vocabulary and symbol cards for learning about electricity. These enabled extra practice in key word and symbol learning, and the 8 year old pupil (year 4, Key Stage 2) accessed the curriculum with her peers and learned how to read and create circuit diagrams and relate these to practical circuits.

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Figure 21. Vocabulary and symbol cards, year 4 (pupil aged 8 years)

Figure 22 shows three feudal pyramids made from coloured card, using pictures, words and simplified language. These were made for a 13 year old pupil (year 8, Key Stage 3, secondary school). History classrooms in many secondary schools have similar pictures displayed on the wall, although often with more complicated language. These materials allowed the pupil to match and build his own pyramids.

! A feudal pyramid (secondary school)

Figure 22. A feudal pyramid (secondary school)

A similar social pyramid ( Figure 23) from the 1750s has been drawn, and the writing copied, by a 13 year old pupil studying social history. Linked with this work is an example of a suitably sized and completed piece of homework set for this pupil ( Figure 24).

! A social pyramid for 1750 (secondary school)

Figure 23. A social pyramid for 1750 (secondary school)

! Differentiated homework, year 8, pupil aged 13 years

Figure 24. Differentiated homework, year 8, pupil aged 13 years

Figure 25 and Figure 26 show materials used to help teach a pupil how to use maps and find his way around his local community (north Portsmouth) in year 9, and resources that will be used in year 10 (Key Stage 4) for learning about south Portsmouth. The book about maps was already in this school’s library and the support assistant for this subject has begun to collect post cards. She plans to teach this pupil how to travel by bus and find important locations around the city.

! Where I live, work in secondary school, pupil aged 14 years

Figure 25. Where I live, work in secondary school, pupil aged 14 years

! Preparation for work in year 10, pupil aged 14 years

Figure 26. Preparation for work in year 10, pupil aged 14 years

Cutting and pasting

Whether on computer or by hand, framing work and using colour and design skill for presentation, either for teaching or recording, can make work more inviting and the finished result more of an achievement, for pupils themselves and for others to look at. This shows to the pupils that their work is valued, and can make learning materials and recorded work more robust. A4 loose paper can easily tear and come away in ring binders, and bound books showing continuous work suit some subjects, but not others. Figure 27 shows topic work for geography (Key Stage 3, pupil aged 14 years) that has been pasted on to A3 size coloured paper to create a folder.

! Cover for a project about Japan, A3 size, for a pupil aged 14 years, in year 9 at secondary school

Figure 27. Cover for a project about Japan, A3 size, for a pupil aged 14 years, in year 9 at secondary school

In Figure 28, pictures have been cut and pasted to support the pupil’s work and enliven the finished result. This pupil was aged 8 years and attending a junior school (Key Stage 2).

! ‘Cut and paste’ junior work (pupil aged 8 years)

! ‘Cut and paste’ junior work (pupil aged 8 years)

Figure 28. ‘Cut and paste’ junior work (pupil aged 8 years)

Styles of teaching - use a variety of techniques

An example of different teaching styles and participation for learning is provided by two history lessons about the Boston massacre. The associated work is illustrated in Figure 29. The pupils in the class followed a workbook (already differentiated for this history group). In one of the series of lessons observed, the pupils, aged 12 and in year 8 at secondary school, were asked to imagine the events as if they were taking place in the year 2000 in Portsmouth Guildhall Square, with groups of people with differing opinions. They were asked questions that led to the pupils deciding there would be an argument and that someone would call the police. Pupils were then asked to play roles and acted the series of events at the front of the classroom. They were asked to look carefully at the picture of the events that was published at the time of the massacre and asked how this showed the events to those who saw the picture at the time.

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Figure 29. Written record for interactive lesson year 8 in secondary school (pupil aged 13 years)

All pupils participated in the discussion and drama activity, answered questions and completed their work. The pupil with Down syndrome was able to answer questions about his work, demonstrated understanding about what had happened and answered many of the questions addressed to the whole class accurately. Apart from receiving help to break down the information a little more than the workbook text supplied for the lesson, and receiving support and encouragement to complete his writing from his learning support assistant and his peers, the lesson was accessible to him and he shared the learning objective to develop understanding of peoples’ different points of view.

Linking work tasks to personal interests

One way of making writing easier or more interesting for some pupils is to relate the writing task to what the pupil knows most about: their own life and interests. This is particularly the case for creative writing. All pupils will be able to think of sentences to write about their own activities, likes and dislikes, although some find it more difficult to create stories about other people’s lives (depending upon personality as well language and literacy skills).

Figure 30 shows a magazine created over a series of English lessons by a pupil aged 14 years, in year 9 at a secondary school. At this point in his education, his writing task for his English lessons had been differentiated to planning, writing and completing a magazine about his favourite activities and interests. This contributed towards developing his self-esteem, communication skills as he shared his magazine with others, as well as his planning skills and independence. At this age, as for other pupils, it is important that pupils begin to think about what they might like to do in the future, based on what sort of things they like doing in the present, and for all those who support pupils at home, school and in the community to think how they can be helped to develop their pupils’ social lives and increase their skills for self advocacy. In this example, the pupil included his favourite television programmes (‘Barrymore’), films (‘Mr Bean’ film review), recipes and activities out of school - swimming, attendance at ‘Boys Brigade’ every week and at a weekly club for teenagers with Down syndrome (established by parents, who run the tuck shop and have their own discussion, with student volunteers supporting leisure activities in a separate room).

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Figure 30. Magazine about interests (pupil aged 14 years)

Creating and modifying worksheets

Worksheets can be created for lesson presentation, to support tasks, to encourage responses, for revision, rehearsal and homework. They can be used in combination with sorting and selecting tasks. They can be arranged with information presented sequentially, like lists, or they can be organised by meaning, more like a picture or map.

Many lessons are supported by written instructions on the board, on worksheets or from textbooks. Secondary schools in particular use modified worksheets as a form of differentiation for many of their pupils with special educational needs. Although modified worksheets should not be used as the sole means of differentiation by any means, and their purpose should be considered, they can make a valuable visual contribution to the differentiation resources for pupils with Down syndrome. For many pupils with Down syndrome the combination of strong visual learning skills and the ability to read means that the use of modified visual worksheets using the printed word, with pictures and diagrams for reinforcement, are often an extremely useful form of differentiation for teaching and for response, to teach, develop and assess understanding.

Figure 31, Figure 32 and Figure 33 illustrate the use of a variety of techniques to differentiate and to revise learning in science lessons, for a pupil in Key Stage 3 in a secondary school, aged 15 years.

! Modified work and response sheets (pupil aged 15 years)

! Modified work and response sheets (pupil aged 15 years)

! Modified work and response sheets (pupil aged 15 years)

Figure 31. Modified work and response sheets (pupil aged 15 years)

! Modified work and response sheets

! Modified work and response sheets

Figure 32. Modified work and response sheets

! Modified work and response sheets

Figure 33. Modified work and response sheets

Figure 34, Figure 35, Figure 36 and Figure 37 illustrate worksheets for history lessons in secondary school.

! Differentiated activities, worksheets and records (pupil aged 15 years)

Figure 34. Differentiated activities, worksheets and records (pupil aged 15 years)

! Worksheets for history (secondary school)

Figure 35. Worksheets for history (secondary school)

! Work and response sheets for history, secondary school, Key Stage 3

Figure 36. Work and response sheets for history, secondary school, Key Stage 3

! Differentiated activities, worksheets and records ! !

Figure 37. Differentiated activities, worksheets and records

Figure 38 and Figure 39 show differentiated activities for English in secondary school and a ‘story board’ about ‘Macbeth’ completed by a younger pupil at junior school, aged 11 years.

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Figure 38. Worksheets and record for English in secondary school.

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Figure 39. Worksheets and records for English

Testing knowledge

Figure 40 has clearly written information for this 10 year old pupil in junior school. Word omissions have been included (or cloze procedures) to encourage her reading and comprehension skills. The pupil has completed a typed revision sheet.

! Differentiated response sheets for a junior school pupil (aged 10 years)

! Differentiated response sheets for a junior school pupil (aged 10 years)

! Differentiated response sheets for a junior school pupil (aged 10 years)

Figure 40. Differentiated response sheets for a junior school pupil (aged 10 years)

Figure 41, Figure 42 and Figure 43 were created for pupils in secondary schools.

! Activity for an English lesson, with homework (year 8)

Figure 41. Activity for an English lesson, with homework (year 8).

! ‘Keeping fit and clean’, worksheets for a secondary pupil

Figure 42. ‘Keeping fit and clean’, worksheets for a secondary pupil

! Worksheets for a pupil in secondary school

Figure 43. Worksheets for a pupil in secondary school

Foreign languages

Enjoyment of and success with foreign languages is as varied as enjoyment and success of any other subjects from the curriculum. Some pupils particularly enjoy languages and are familiar with learning vocabulary and grammar in the first few years of secondary school. This is the approach, including learning through reading, that many pupils with Down syndrome have benefited from for learning their first language, and the procedures are familiar.

Figure 44 shows worksheets from a French lesson at secondary school, followed by a pupil’s work in a year 8 lesson in Figure 45.

! Pictures, words and a worksheet for learning French in secondary school

Figure 44. Pictures, words and a worksheet for learning French in secondary school

! Learning French in secondary school

Figure 45. Learning French in secondary school

As an example of asking questions at an appropriate level to facilitate inclusion, this pupil was regularly asked to tell the class the date in French at the beginning of the lesson and enjoyed doing so.

Music

This series of worksheets were created for a pupil in secondary school to access music lessons with his peers in a mixed ability group. His music teacher worked in collaboration with his support assistant to produce the worksheets and homework.

The pupil was provided with pictures of musical instruments on pieces of individual coloured card for matching, to learning the instrument names and to identify instruments he could hear as he listened to the music ( Figure 46 and Figure 47).

! Differentiated activities and resources for teaching music in secondary school

! Differentiated activities and resources for teaching music in secondary school

! Differentiated activities and resources for teaching music in secondary school

! Differentiated activities and resources for teaching music in secondary school

Figure 46. Differentiated activities and resources for teaching music in secondary school

! Differentiated worksheets and homework for music

Figure 47. Differentiated worksheets and homework for music

The pupil worked from worksheets, reproduced here in black and white.

Each lesson was broken down for him and he learned to play the music on the piano.

Help from parents

Where teachers and learning support assistants have tried working in various ways but remain unsure about the pupil’s understanding, parents may think of ways to help develop understanding. For example, a pupil in secondary school was able to understand and remember the layers of the earth’s structure after his parent baked a cake with different layers and fillings and related this to the layers of the earth. Cutting a large multi-layered chocolate in half (example taken from a ‘BBC Knowledge’ television programme) creates a similar aid to learning.

Figure 48 was devised and created by an advisory teacher with help from the pupil’s parent, to explain the meaning of ‘pi’, and used successfully with the pupil in school.

! Resources devised by a parent and an advisory teacher to teach ‘pi’

! Resources devised by a parent and an advisory teacher to teach ‘pi’

Figure 48. Resources devised by a parent and an advisory teacher to teach ‘pi’.

Adaptations: tips and checklists

A summary of adaptations that will help some children with Down syndrome to access the curriculum are described below, linked with the skill areas they are likely to enable.

Supporting children’s fine motor skill development

Encouraging participation in physical education

Supporting visual skills

Adapting to children’s physical needs

Encouraging speech, language and communication

Encouraging understanding and participation

Ways to support recording and responding

Supporting short term or working memory

Encouraging positive engagement in tasks, with increasing duration

Encouraging learning

Tips for preparing worksheets (adapted from Lewis, 1995 TODO: references 3)

Language

Teaching styles and classroom management

Good classroom management strategies are essential for those working with any pupil with individual educational needs who wish to achieve effective differentiation.

Different teaching approaches and pupil learning styles both need to be considered. Teachers will need to look at their classroom practice and the whole learning environment of the class, so that activities, materials and pupil groupings are all taken in account. For example, ability is less important than how pupils learn most effectively. Differentiation must not be restricted according to ability, which can often result in less attention being paid to teaching and individual learning styles.

Pupils with special educational needs are often the ones who are the most vulnerable to mismatched learning situations making them more susceptible to failure and avoidance behaviours.

Some pupils with Down syndrome may find some classroom practices difficult to cope with for long periods of time, for example, whole class teaching, learning through listening, and follow up work based on the completion of unmodified text activities or worksheets.

Many teachers will be familiar with modifications such as providing visual reinforcement, using simplified worksheets or giving exercises involving ‘cloze’ methods. However, it is important not to become restricted by such techniques: fitting pupils with special educational needs into one main mode of classroom delivery is narrowing. In particular, differentiation borders on discrimination where pupils are constantly withdrawn from mainstream activities physically or follow completely different subject matter. In addition, working in one way, with few other opportunities to work in different types of settings will not meet all the needs of pupils or develop the flexibility to interact with a range of different people and in a range of situations.

Individual teaching

At certain times, children may benefit from a short intense one to one session with an adult. In addition, short focused sessions of well managed individual teaching, can enable the pupil to develop skills in order for them to be included more fully into group and whole class situations later.

Pairs and partners

Working in pairs can provide the initial steps towards working in a group. This is especially so for younger pupils who have not yet practised this skill.

How pairs are organised will depend on the nature of the task and the needs and abilities of the pupils. Some pupils with Down syndrome within the pair may need to be supported by a support assistant initially. If this is not the case, care must be taken that the more able pupil does not dominate the situation and the activity is planned in such a way that both pupils are able to contribute.

Peer tutoring can avoid this over dominance on the part of one pupil if careful training of the peer tutor is given. Peer tutoring can be between different ability and different aged pupils.

The pupil with Down syndrome can be the tutor as well as the tutee. Pupils with Down syndrome can have better reading skills than other pupils within the class or school. Thus the pupil could be a tutor for a pupil whose reading skills need help and support. Peer tutoring is an ideal way for any pupil to gain in self-esteem. Research has consistently shown that peer tutoring benefits the tutor as much as it benefits the tutee.

Group teaching

Many children with Down syndrome are highly motivated by their peers - they are often keen to do the same as their peers, using them as role models.

In addition, research has shown that pupils not only prefer to work in groups but that cooperative group work is beneficial as it fosters learning. TODO: references 4 This was confirmed by Riding and Read, TODO: references 5 who found that pupils with special educational needs prefer working in small groups to whole class or individual teaching. Croll and Moses TODO: references 6 found that pupils with special educational needs whose overall concentration spans were below average, had a significant rise in their concentration, when working in a group with the teacher rather than in individual or class work.

It is important, therefore to teach pupils with Down syndrome in cooperative groups (with support as necessary within that group) and to keep one to one teaching to a minimum. Being included in group work can also increase pupils’ independent learning skills.

Mixed ability and single ability grouping

One of the big questions that arise when considering group work is how to plan the composition of the groups. There are many different ways of organising groups but for any group to work effectively, the needs of individual pupils, the lesson content, learning opportunities and outcomes, group size and dynamics must all be considered. Having four pupils in a group has been considered to work best, TODO: references 7 although younger pupils may need initially to work in pairs.

Much grouping in schools is still based on ability. Secondary schools in particular tend to group pupils with similar learning needs together and this practice has also developed in primary schools during the literacy and numeracy hours (England and Wales). In addition, pupils can work as a small group in a learning support room. This can be advantageous for learning in well-organised, focused working groups, to accelerate learning of specific skills.

Working in streamed classes can sometimes have advantages, as the differentiation, work books and resources may already be at a suitable level for the pupil with Down syndrome. The pupil may access the teacher’s verbal presentations as well as their peers without support and work more easily in groups within the class.

However, ability grouping can also deny pupils the opportunities to learn from other pupils with a wider range of ability and from different situations. In addition, it sometimes results, paradoxically, in differentiation techniques not focusing on pupils’ individual learning styles.

Grouping children with diverse individual needs together in loosely formed ‘lower ability groups’, without adequately supporting the behavioural, learning or skill needs of those individuals, can be to the detriment of pupils with Down syndrome, who often take their cue from peers with whom they are working. Many of these individuals have varied and complex needs and grouping them together can be without purpose other than to exclude them from other groups or to share the classroom support available for them.

Children with Down syndrome are helped by learning in appropriately planned groups, and their assistant can effectively support them and others in the group. However, using support intended for the child with Down syndrome for several children with complex educational needs is bad practice and is unlikely to lead to educational gains for any pupil in the group.

Mixed ability groups can help learning for pupils with special educational needs by increasing the resources they can draw on at the same time as increasing their self-esteem. However, managing groups of differing abilities can be challenging and time and thought must be given to their planning.

‘Jigsawing’

One way of arranging differentiated group work is described as ‘Jigsawing’ by Rose. TODO: references 8 This involves a group activity being broken down into small interdependent parts which can be achieved by individual or small subgroups of pupils who all need to work together cooperatively to achieve the end result, like the pieces of a jigsaw fitting together. Not all pupils need to stay on task for the same length of time. This allows the pupil with Down syndrome, whose concentration span may be less than that of their peers, to be given a short task within the group activity, which can be completed within a certain length of time. This enables the pupil to finish and move on to a change of activity while feeling that they have contributed to the success of the group.

Planning for a ‘Jigsaw’ activity means that the teacher has to identify the parts of an activity that will be most suited to individual needs and abilities. Teachers should try to develop an atmosphere where pupils share in each others development of knowledge and skills, where group activities allow pupils to divide up tasks and pool what they have learned, where pupils learn how to compile a joint report from the different contributions of the group and share responsibilities for helping each other.

Whole class teaching

It is important that pupils with Down syndrome join in whole class activities as much as possible in order not to be segregated, not to feel different and to encourage their independent and collaborative learning skills.

Some activities lend themselves better than others to whole class work and pupils are able to follow the example set by their peers. In some whole class activities the class teacher may have to adjust their teaching slightly to accommodate the needs of the child with Down syndrome. Asking pupils’ with Down syndrome specific questions tailored to their ability is quite easy if the teacher has the willingness to do so and is very important to ensure that each pupil feels part of the class. The same principle applies where whole class teaching is used for drill or rote learning. Most pupils can learn through whole class teaching, if it reinforces knowledge and skills which have been learned in small group or individual sessions beforehand.

The national literacy and numeracy strategies in England and Wales

The national literacy and numeracy strategies introduced daily structured teaching of one hour into primary schools in England and Wales for focused numeracy and literacy teaching. Initially, these produced concerns from teachers about pupils’ abilities to participate with their age peers. In practice, the structured teaching required by the strategies can be differentiated in much the same way as any other part of the curriculum. It has been the first author’s experience that pupils’ skills have increased, most noticeably in numeracy, following the introduction of these strategies.

Some schools have chosen to move pupils into different year groupings so that they could learn with peers at a closer ability level, requiring less preparation or skill in differentiation. The authors have worked with schools with pupils across the whole ability range who are successfully included in age-appropriate literacy and numeracy hours, with differentiated presentation, activities and methods of responding. The planning required for the whole class make it easier to differentiate, as each part of the hour has a specific focus. Long term outcomes must always be considered when making changes to age related groupings: friendships, transfer to secondary school with the support of peers and the development of age appropriate behaviour. Guidance is provided for teachers on the implementation of the literacy and numeracy hour strategies in DfEE publications TODO: references 9 and specific recommendations for children with Down syndrome for teaching literacy are included in the reading and writing module in this series.

Developing a team system

Particular features of inclusive school practices that enable children to access the curriculum include developing systems for shared planning and communication and for developing resources, a programme for staff development and training, and working with parents.

Teachers already have the teaching skills for differentiating the curriculum for pupils with Down syndrome. Those who receive further training, encouragement and support from their employers and colleagues, as well as help to gather and make resources, are likely to do a better job than those that feel isolated in work places that do not value or support their initiatives and efforts. Many teachers differentiate to a high standard and successfully include children of all levels of ability in the curriculum and lessons. Most effective are the schools that recognise differentiation as a whole school responsibility, have a system in place and a team who work together to achieve differentiation for all children.

Developing such a system efficiently in school is a task for the senior management of each school. In many countries it is a legal requirement for schools to appoint a teacher with responsibility for the educational needs of more individual learners in school, titles for which may include ‘head of learning support’, ‘special educational needs coordinator’ (SENCo), ’ learning support coordinator’ or ‘inclusion coordinator’. This person cannot function effectively on their own and does need to share the responsibility for recognising and meeting individual learning needs with the whole staff team. Learning support coordinators have the lead role in this team, together with the parents, teachers and learning support assistants supporting the children. Specialist teachers, advisors and therapists, particularly the child’s speech and language therapist, are also part of this team and should be invited to participate in and be informed about all aspects of educational planning. The core team and the wider staff team should work together in a variety of ways at different levels to choose, find, design and create, use and monitor differentiated teaching methods, objectives and resources for teaching, learning and evaluation. This team should work with respect for the privacy and dignity of the child and family.

Planning in advance and communication

Procedures for planning in advance and communicating with others are beneficial for all children with Down syndrome. Generally speaking, the greater children’s level of need compared with their peers and the more variable their behaviour, the newer their relationships with support staff and the less familiar they are with their environment, the greater the need for more detailed planning and preparation in advance of lessons.

Planning should be a part of the whole school planning system, and be based on the existing way schools plan for their children. A prescriptive method cannot be recommended therefore, although some examples of good practice are described below.

Primary school

  1. Half termly planning with parents, to establish or develop the ‘Individual Education Plan’ (IEP) for the half term ahead: (core team, for example, parent, learning support coordinator, teacher(s), support assistants, advisory teacher)
    Meetings for the IEP process must involve parents. In addition, many of the activities below will benefit from involving parents, as well as the relevant teachers, support assistants and learning support coordinators.
  2. Half termly planning, using the half term plan for the whole class, for considering adaptations, differentiated targets for the child, cross curricular targets, extra resources and ways of including the targets described in children’s individual education plans.
  3. Weekly planning, using the whole class weekly plan, as above.
    (Resources may include finding finished products from the year before, so that children can see the final aim of the lesson or series of lessons, as well as hear about what they will be doing and working towards).
  4. Weekly liaison with the key staff to plan for additional resources.
  5. Daily plan: class teacher and support assistant(s) make changes and adaptations as needed through the day with flexibility. Liaison and daily communication with parents is likely to be through the ‘home school’ or ‘communication’ book, and by phone and in person as required or requested.

Secondary school

Secondary schools need procedures for planning and communicating in just the same way, although typically a larger number of people are involved, for example, support assistants for particular subjects, subject teachers, lunch time and extra curricular activity staff, staff who lead and support ‘buddy systems’ and ‘circles of friends’.

Close physical proximity between the base for additional resources, the learning support coordinator’s office, equipment (photocopier, computer with internet and e-mail, printer, telephone), refreshment rooms and a small meeting room or rooms can be extremely helpful for the learning support staff. A physical ‘hub’ will facilitate both informal and formal communication, and resource development.

Secondary schools are divided into departments for subjects, and a department specialist with responsibility for differentiated teaching materials can be supportive and lead subject teachers within the department, encouraging them to share their differentiated plans, activities and resources with other staff to develop good practice throughout each department.

Subject teachers should have termly and half termly plans or schemes of work and these should be shared with support assistants, to enable them to help with ideas for differentiation and location of resources. Better practice still would be sharing of the plan with parents and pupils. This must happen in advance - otherwise learning support assistant skills can be wasted, as teachers have not given assistants the opportunity to use their skills.

Differentiation of lessons and homework is the responsibility of subject teachers, and an atmosphere in school for sharing and valuing differentiation skills with teachers, support assistants and parents will promote the development of good practice throughout the school.

The learning support coordinator will have a role in facilitating differentiation, training, encouraging and supporting staff, as will advisory or specialist support staff, as well as being the main person for communicating with parents, through the individual education plan and as needed for the individual and family.

Each week, learning support assistants should know the content and themes of the next week’s lessons, and have brief lesson plans, so that they know what will be happening for the whole class. This allows them to prepare differentiated work and to support the pupil with special educational needs within the lesson plan for the whole class.

Lesson by lesson, many secondary school teachers discuss activities with the learning support assistants at the beginning and during the lesson. Each support assistant should also know how the work will continue in the next lesson, through discussion or written notes (e.g. the next lesson plan in brief, or even a one line description) communicated at the end of the lesson. For continuity, the same support assistants should support pupils for particular subjects.

The pupil’s individual educational plans (IEP) should be circulated to subject teachers by the learning support coordinator, and all learning support assistants working with the pupil in lessons should know the pupil’s targets and priorities in order to developing cross curricular and social skills.

The learning support coordinator will lead on how the cross curricular and social targets are to be achieved and what extra training, activities or resources are to be used. Subject teachers and the learning support coordinator will choose and order suitable resources for their subject departments and lessons.

The learning support coordinator and parents may meet to ‘brainstorm’ if and when concerns arise, and the learning support coordinator will communicate changes to the subject teachers. The learning support coordinator is also responsible for communicating any major changes in the curriculum, having consulted with parents, advisory teachers, support services and the pupil’s educational psychologist.

Subject teachers, learning support assistants, parents and pupils should have channels for feeding back to the learning support coordinator about pupil and staff performance, pupil progress, likes and dislikes.

Learning support assistants should meet weekly to communicate and support each other, as well as to share ideas and resources, discuss cross-curricular targets and the pupil’s needs, with liaison with the learning support coordinator, pupil and parents as needed. This is particularly important for staff supporting pupils with variable behaviour, and who are at times challenging to support, so that behaviour plans can be monitored and adapted and the team can support each other through formally arranged, timetabled and regular meetings.

Developing channels for positive communication with parents is especially important as pupils are likely to be entering and leaving school independently. Communication books will need to be skilfully, respectfully and positively written. Many pupils will read their communication books and notes written for parents.

Developing resources

Resources should be accessible to all school staff. For developing resources for school staff and pupils some of the following points may be helpful:

Staff training and development

Staff training and development is needed for staff to develop their skills in all of the areas included in this modular information pack. Training on disability awareness, inclusion, understanding and delivering education to meet the needs of individuals with Down syndrome, and training for the age range the school caters for, are particularly important. All school staff should be involved in some training, to ensure that their knowledge of the development of individuals with Down syndrome is up-to-date, that they understand the goals of inclusion, and to ensure that staff attitudes towards inclusion are positive.

Intensive training in one day workshops is helpful, but continuous training and sources of support within each education authority are needed for schools to develop, deliver and maintain a good service. In many countries, the Down syndrome associations can point education authorities towards trainers and are often involved in providing such training. Increasingly, this role is becoming more collaborative, with voluntary organisations and trainers working closely with education authorities.

Some education authorities have developed their own specialist services, trainers and networks of support between schools. It is important for authorities providing internal training to stress that inclusive schools are the most effective for all pupils and to ensure that information is based on current research and good practice. While trainers’ experiences of supporting children with Down syndrome and their families is beneficial, this experience should be wide ranging and not confined to the work of specialists who have only worked in the segregated education sector or only supported pupils in segregated learning environments. Trainers and support service specialists will benefit from an international as well as a national perspective to learn from good practice around the world.

The priority for training for schools with younger pupils with Down syndrome will be in the areas of language and literacy teaching and cognitive development through education. This need will continue for pupils in the secondary age range, although issues relating to disability awareness, curriculum access, whole school inclusion, social development and friendships, and empowerment of the individual in their school and community become more significant with increasing age.

The authors recommend that education authorities and schools invite parents to specialised training events that concern their children. This will help staff and parents to promote the development of their children and pupils together.

Working with parents

Schools should welcome parent involvement in school and in their children’s education. Parents know more about their children than professionals, and it is parents and families ultimately who will support their children throughout their education and into adulthood.

It follows that parents should be invited to every occasion where professionals meet to discuss their children. Parents may not be able to attend, but they should be informed and invited, with every effort made by school to enable them to contribute to outcomes of meetings.

Target setting

The help of parents is essential for choosing and setting learning goals and targets. It can be offensive and upsetting for parents to receive written reports and targets from professionals who work infrequently with their children and who have not consulted with them. This often occurs if reports and targets are based on assessments that were not appropriate or that produced unreliable (or inaccurate) results due to the assessor and child not knowing each other very well. Knowledge about play and leisure activities, independence, self help skills, interests and behaviour at home are particularly relevant for school, as staff may not see children in a sufficiently wide range of situations to have comprehensive information about their skills or capabilities.

Improved learning

Parents who are enabled to support their children’s schools and who share knowledge of their child’s curriculum and learning goals can make the difference between transitory learning of curriculum targets and learning that is generalised and accelerated by being made more meaningful and purposeful for the child, through interactions and activities as a part of family and community life.

Better understanding of the child

Parents can help school to know about and understand their child’s likes, dislikes, interests, sense of humour and behaviour in certain situations. Together, parents and schools can develop ways of improving attention, listening skills and teach new routines and behaviours.

Helping to differentiate the curriculum

Parents differentiate all of the time. They explain things differently and with different resources for children of differing ages, abilities and levels of understanding. They differentiate knowing their child’s particular interests, and offer children different ways of responding so that they can communicate together and participate in family life.

Parents will have advice for teachers about how to include their children in school life and suggestions for making curriculum targets more accessible and enjoyable for them, in a way that will build on their life experience, knowledge and skills.

Help with creative and practical ways of teaching new ideas

Many parents will go further than this and create new learning experiences that consolidate and generalise learning introduced at school, for example, taking their children to visit a vet, or a lighthouse, or whatever else may link with a topic or even a story being read in school. They can often find resources that will help their child in school if given sufficient time through advance planning and notice - finding toys or objects, postcards, brochures, leaflets, literature and pictures, and discussing information that links with the child’s curriculum experience and targets.

No jargon

All parents, especially those who are not teachers or working in the field of education, should have the language of the curriculum and targets explained and discussed with them, without the use of jargon and without oversimplification.

For schools, inviting parental involvement in education is a sensitive task, so that parents do not feel pressurised to support school, and know that their contributions are welcomed however small and infrequent, but neither are they rejected if they feel unable to help at any particular stage in their children’s education. However, assumptions should not be made about parents’ motivation or skills to help in their children’s education, and all should be offered ‘routes in’ at regular intervals.

Conclusion

The practices described in this module present challenges for classroom teachers and for management structures within schools. Many teachers will find daunting the idea of including children with more complex needs into their classrooms and will initially be apprehensive and anxious. However, most teachers do have the skills to understand the particular needs of individuals with Down syndrome and are able to differentiate the curriculum and to teach them effectively and sensitively. What many are lacking is the confidence to do so.

This module has tried to show how teaching skills and confidence can be developed through

This understanding can equip the school, teacher and support staff to smooth the path to inclusion for a group of children with complex needs, enabling them to achieve and develop with their peers.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the children, parents, learning support assistants, teachers and schools they have worked with in schools across the UK, whose talents have contributed towards this module.

Terminology

The term ‘learning difficulty’ is used throughout this module as it is the term currently in common use in the United Kingdom. The terms ‘mental retardation’, ‘intellectual impairment’ and ‘developmental disability’ are equivalent terms, used in other parts of the world.

References

  1. Booth, T., Ainscow, M., Black-Hawkins, K., and Shaw, L. (2000). *Index for inclusion - Developing **learning and participation in schools*. Bristol, UK: Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education.
  2. Moss, G. (1996). A strategy for differentiation. Birmingham, UK: The Questions Publishing Company.
  3. Lewis, A. (1995) Primary special needs and the National Curriculum, London, UK: Routledge.
  4. Ainscow, M. (1995). Special needs through school improvement: School improvement through special needs. In Clark, C., Dyson, A., and Milward, A. (Eds.), Towards Inclusive Schools? 6. (pp. 63-77). London, UK: David Fulton.
  5. Riding, R. J., and Read, G. Cognitive style and pupil learning preferences. Educational Psychology, 16(1), 81-106.
  6. Croll, P., and Moses, D. (1985). One in five. London, UK: Routledge.
  7. Bennet, N., and Dunne, E. (1992). Managing classroom groups. London, UK: Simon and Schuster.
  8. Rose, R. (1991). A jigsaw approach to group work. British Journal of Special Education, 18(2), 54-58.
  9. Department for Education and Employment (2000). *The National Literacy Strategy - Supporting **pupils with special needs*. London, UK: DfEE Publications. (Available online) http://www.dfee.gov.uk/sen/

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