Special Educational Needs and Disabilities in Schools: A Critical Introduction

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities in Schools is a key resource in supporting student teachers during and beyond their teaching training to begin to understand how, and be able, to address the needs of children and young people within schools and college in line with the Code of Practice (DfE, 2014). Drawing on her wealth of experience and up-to-date theory, Janice Wearmouth explores current legislation related to special educational needs and disability (SEND) within a historical and geographical context so that readers can understand how and why the current SEND policy and practice has developed as it has. She considers assessment and planning in relation to both informal and standardised approaches, and offers ways to engage with young people’s, peers’ and families’ views and experiences. Wearmouth focuses on ways to understand, assess and address the most common forms of SEND: literacy and numeracy difficulties and behavioural concerns related to social, emotional and mental health. She discusses how ICT might be used to include young people with various degrees of difficulty in learning and explores professional relationships and partnership work with parents and families. Throughout this engaging guide, readers are supported with clear questions of focus for each chapter, and within each chapter exemplars and vignettes, and reflective and discussion activities for individuals and groups, can be found to enable them to consider their own practice to ensure that all young people can learn effectively in their classrooms. The supportive companion website provides a wealth of further reading resources.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1. Special Educational Needs: General Considerations 2. A Historical Perspective and the Current Legal Position 3. Assessment of, and Planning for, Learning Needs 4. Approaches for Understanding and Addressing Four Areas of Need 5. Focus on Literacy Difficulties 6. Focus on Numeracy Difficulties 7. Focus on Behaviour in Schools and Colleges 8. Uses of Technology to Support Learning Needs 9. Professional Relationships with Others 10. Including Young People: Moving Forward Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Janice Wearmouth is Professor of Education at the University of Bedfordshire, UK. She was previously Director of the Centre for Curriculum and Teaching Studies at the Open University, UK, and Professor of Education at the University of Wellington, New Zealand. Janice won the National Association for Special Educational Needs (NASEN) National Book Award 2009.

Review :
Professor Wearmouth’s timely new book makes an insightful and very accessible contribution to the development of trainee teachers’ awareness of key issues, policies and practices in the area of special educational needs and disability support. This essential resource for teacher training programmes takes a holistic approach encompassing student, teacher and parents, while showing the clear links between policy setting and the development of codes of practice. This informative, stimulating and well-written book concisely covers a wide range of topics, delivered from a practical perspective, relevant not only to pre-service teachers and those providing support to students and their families in different educational contexts in England and Wales, but also to a more general audience with an interest in the field. This new book from Janice Wearmouth is both comprehensive and insightful. As in her other books, the author digs deep and provides answers to crucial questions - extremely comforting in times of change and uncertainty. The book provides a blueprint of how to deal with the changes and the challenges in today’s schools through informative chapters discussing a host of key issues facing teachers and educators in all sectors of education. Without doubt this will emerge as a key text in teacher training. Janice Wearmouth’s new book presents a very engaging critical perspective and introduction to the field. It combines a breadth of coverage of the range of special educational needs while providing in-depth discussion of the social and political context and of the key issues. The opportunity for reflective activities while reading the book makes this a very helpful resource to those starting out in the field, as well as those preparing to become SEN Coordinators. A helpful introductory book that will be useful for students who are new to the area of Special Educational Needs. It is clearly structured and the reflective activities are useful to help the students engage with the material on a deeper level.