Head of Service Meeting• FIESTA Facilitating Inclusive Education &

Supporting the Transition Agenda

• MOLLVIS • Mobile Language Learning for Visually

Impaired Students

Facilitating Inclusive Education & Supporting the

Transition Agenda: Transition, Inclusion and

Partnership Dr John Ravenscroft Professor John Davis

FIESTA Partners

FIESTA WEBSITE• http://www.fiesta-project.eu/

• Self Assessment Tools• Disability Awareness Training • Research

– Literature Review – Best Practice Report

Presentation will consider• The Literature Review • Best Practice Report

• Quantitate Research with 573 Professionals across Europe

• The qualitative data was generated from • professional focus groups where 173

professionals participated and 34 individual parent and child

Introduction• Professional led• Parent partnership • Child led transitions• Concludes child led approaches connect

disability, childhood, & rights based-working• Children, parents, & professionals• We are all experts

Key Themes Medical v Social

• Medical - transition is innately painful/stressful– Age and Stage Process

• Social model designers and leaders in educational process should ensure:– systems considered – do not create stress – enable children to lead solutions

Professional Led

• First of all I’d like to mention that all our colleagues in this room have a solid theoretical basis and know the main elements of the psychology of children’s development very well. Everybody studied at university or at the pedagogical high school and has done lots of training courses. Everybody is well acquainted with the basic concepts related to a child’s development, its stages etc. We are experts in this field. Psychologist.

The Professional Maestro

He is in other words the maestro, the coordinator and the children are his band, meaning, this is why I rank the teacher role very high, he will destroy myths created at home or enforced and is responsible for the souls he has under supervision for anything. Teacher.

Children Too Immature• A 12 year old is not fully capable of making a

well-considered decision…But I do think that the parents are more capable of making the decision of what is better for the child. A 12 year old does not yet have the overall picture of what is better in the long term. Health Professional

Parents – Reasons Not Involved• Confusing changes in directives• Lack of trust in teachers and schools• Societal barriers

– Inaccessible buildings– Negative stereotypes– Intransigent welfare rules (Oliver 1990, Morris 1991,

Barnes 1991)– Disabilist Curriculum

Katie Caryer (1999) Young & Powerful

A lot of people think inclusive schooling consists of two things – lifts and ramps – wrong that’s integration. Inclusive education is where people have the right attitude towards disabled young people. My English booklet introduced Christy Brown’s piece with “Christy Brown was born a victim of cerebral palsy”. Now I have cerebral palsy. I have often been the victim of other people’s attitudes but I have never in my life felt myself to be a victim of cerebral palsy.

Katie Caryer (1999) Young & Powerful

When my English teacher found out how I felt about the word victim, the whole class had a discussion about it. This was good for the 30 teenagers in my class, but what about the other 1400 in my school – especially those who’ve called me a freak, invalid, retarded and other fantastic words.

Professional Parent Partnership

• We as teachers have to realize that parents are our partners and that we have to involve them in the educational process especially when we deal with a process of transition. We must always keep in touch with them, talk with them and find the best solutions. Teacher.

Parents As Advocates of Inclusion

• We also try to develop good relationships among parents because when we have a child with disabilities in class, the other children tend to look on him/her differently. I think that parents should talk with their children about children with disabilities and encourage them to love and respect them. Psychologist.

• Community Inclusion?

Key Person – Link Parents

• That’s the big thing that’s lacking in transition. It’s imperative that there is a key worker. There needs to be one person pulling the parts together I feel that’s a big lack in pre-school to primary anyway. Early Intervention Educator.

Parent – Child - Key Worker• We live near the school, we know other children

who attend there and apart from knowing other families, the key worker was an important point to take into account for our son. Parent.

• Another stakeholder is a child him/herself. Children’s role is to communicate with both teachers and parents, to talk about their needs. Psychologist.

But Need to Make Sure Listening Leads to Change

• Well, I also quite often went to my care coordinator about that door, so many times that I am fed up with it, because that door is driving me insane. He keeps saying that he did something about it, but nothing changes so then at some point I was just like forget it. Pupil.

Disabled Children still not included• Yet, only 38.4% of professionals said that

children were involved with defining the aims and outcome of the transition process.

• Only 39.4% of professionals said that children were involved with the decision making processes of their own organisation.

Contemporary Solutions• Parent and Child Leadership• Professional Respect• Dialogue and communication• Local Collaborative Forums• Shared budgets• Joint & holistic Assessment• Planning & Participation• Accesible and Bespoke• Formal Transition Framework

Child Led Transition• Child developed transition material• Buddy systems• Child led social activities• Child presentations • Joint visits• Meetings with staff• Use of technology• Transition with local peers• Clear information• Specific Staff Training on Child-led

Children Leadership Inclusion & Accesibility

• They are very accepting over here and I find it incredible and I love it and I get good results. Pupil.

• There should be proper, to have proper teachers, for me this is everything, the ABC of things… I think it all begins from them teachers, from there on everything. Pupil.

• It’s grand like, and there was a girl before… so they adapted the school. Pupil.

We Are All Experts – Davis et al 2014• Children indicated a preference for child-led

processes.• It should not be assumed that adults should

never take the lead. • Parents & children - key workers effective when

they listen, discuss & then led changes.• Child-led process put the views, knowledge and

abilities of parents and children on a par with those of professionals.

Evidence from 573 ProfessionalsChildren’s Rights Under Pinned Practice 79.9%Collaborative Working 65.7% Some Or A LotInformation Sharing Between Professionals 68.2%Transition Planning Occurs 69.5%Key person identified 66.4%Buildings were accessible 64.2%Parents Involvement In Decision Making 62.2%Professionals Experienced At Transition 58.3%Adapted Documentation 58.5%

Conclusion• Child led approaches differ from other

approaches to transition by connecting concepts of disability and childhood, promoting rights based-working and recognising the capabilities/expertise of children, parents, communities and professionals.

• We still have a lot more work to do to improve disabled children’s experiences of transition and we need to follow clear frameworks for planning change which FIESTA provides.

MOLLVIShttp://www.mollvis.org/

• Existing language learning apps on mobile devices are not accessible.

• MOLLVIS plans to create German language learning apps for Windows, Apple and Android.

Mobile Platform • IoS• Windows • Android

• Phones and • Tablets • PC

Testing Phase • Internal

– NOW and nearly finished

• External

• September to November

Looking for Teachers and Students

• Need Testers/Evaluators

• Given App to evaluate and test – Design– Language course– Accessibility– Learning

• Learner Questionnaire to complete (online or hard copy)

• Teacher Questionnaire (online to complete)

• Report by December/January

Put your hands up

• If a) Want to participate yourself and/orb) Happy for me to email through the ScotVI forum/SAVIE

• Thanks for your time today

– It was really much appreciated.

John