The first impulse, the heart’s core in additional support needs (ASN), rests on the maxim of “keep it small”.
These three words should be stamped across every advisory document, lecture, article or discussion when ASN is the topic. I’m talking, obviously, about class sizes.
As an experienced specialist in English - versed in the rigours of mainstream, where every 50-minute period there were 30 to 33 young people in the room - some time ago I received a memo from a guidance teacher telling me that a particular S3 student had been diagnosed with “fairly high dyslexia”.
I remember my reaction was something like, “Well, God bless him, but what am I going to do with the other 32 while I’m helping him?”
Had the same lad been in a far smaller class grouping - normal in an ASN setting, where conditions such as dyslexia are common - I would have had more time to sit with him and ask him to tell me if or when the words began to jump about, what colour of overlay helped or which desk position worked best for viewing the whiteboard.
ASN: Keeping it small, but aiming high
However, keeping it small doesn’t mean keeping it low, dumbed down or “good enough”: I don’t allow a diagnosis of dyslexia or other ASN to be a reason not to aim as academically high as possible.
There is a skewed belief that ASN schools are basically primary schools and operate solely at that level. Not so. Over the past few years I have taught post-16 young people, who often carry a legacy of poverty that has impeded their advance in life or of labelling that stymies their growth and belief in themselves.
A priority for me, then, is to turn such self-belief around. When pupils come into my classroom every August, I tell them they are there to achieve SQA qualifications. Treating them as young adults with aspirations, just like any other teenager, is my priority.
We may do things slower than in mainstream schools, but I tell pupils that we will get there if they commit. Our senior students were nominated last year for a Scots language award - in a nationwide contest. They got this far partly because I had time to be with them every step of the way.
Lessons from the ASN sector
I knew their individual concerns, both cognitive and physical: who needed the help of a scribe; who preferred to work on their own; who preferred to type or write with a pen, not pencil; who needed an enlarged worksheet; who (like me) got a headache from the big overhead light and so preferred the gentler glow from reading lamps. Time fosters trusting relationships, and from that comes deeper learning.
But all young people need all of this, I hear you say. Yes, they do. And that is why ASN schools show the way forward for Scottish education: we are already doing what mainstream needs to be allowed to do.
Priorities in ASN are, for example, to protect small class sizes, facilitate pupils in achieving their potential and create an atmosphere of trust.
I believe we should have the confidence to showcase our methods in the ASN sector - to help create the conditions where all young people across Scotland get the best start in life.
Dr Anne Scriven is a teacher in the additional support needs sector in Scotland and author of Beyond the Label: encountering ASN education
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