Tuesday 31 March 2015

Talk from the Headteacher of special needs school.. 26/3/2015

Today we had the opportunity to recieve a talk from a Head Teacher of a Special Needs School.
As I had never done any type of work experience in a school before Unit X, or ever really worked with any kind of special needs people, this was an opportunity I was definatley going to be a part off, it was a very intruiging experience as it allowed me to understand another kind of industry I could go down, a whole new yet different kind of role I could concider for the future. There was a clear point being put accross by how exactly the procceses would be different if I was to go down this chosen profession.  
The 'rough' percentages regarding the amount of people in our near region who have special needs was quite shocking, but still came as a massive suprise to me. Learning that one fifth of the population have a generic form of special needs really surprised me, as I already knew special needs isnt only branded as how a person may look but the brain of an individual too, it was also made very clear that there would be a very high chance that if I were to become a teacher in this proffesion, I would more than likely have a child with special needs in atleast one of my classes.

When working with students with a learning disability, there are a number of factors you have to consider,
not particularly challenging, but essential for success. When teaching a new skill, repetition will often be needed for the child to grasp the concept of what exactly is going on and to take it in properly and accuratley. This repetition process is also essential because they do not tend to generalise the skills they are taught as effectively as you may think, you could have to explain something several times, you may think they understand something, when in matter of fact, they could still get it wrong until they have had a numerous time to practice,This therefore does require the teaching of the specific skills.
During the talk, the Head Teacher did highlight how important it is to keep the context of the learning age very specific. For example if working with teenagers or adults, the topic must be something that a person of the same age without any learning disabilities would enjoy learning about, but on a simpler scale, this is something that can often be misconstrued or misunderstood, and therefore does not capture their full interest.

After listening to the talk, and hearing personal experiences that he has had in the past with students with special needs himself , I do feel that I would have to experience teaching in this particular enviroment first so I could see exactly what it would be like, and if that kind of teaching style is right for me. As I have my own experiences with my younger sibling I know exactly how hard school and education can be, and how important it really is, this would definatly be a proffesion I would concider as the feeling of helping someone still applies at all times but in my own personal opinion in a much more rewarding and appreciatvive way.  

Whilst this talk was going on, we were asked to play with Play Doh instead of taking notes. This was to test a different way of listening to the speaker, to test how much we take in whilst being occupied with something else.It was very interesting when we spoke about the session afterwards how different some of our reactions and opinions were to the exercise.
For me it was too distracting, I found it very difficult to actaully take in the information I was being told as silly as it sounds I was just enjoying playing with this tiny piece of play doh,

Although the worksheet that we got given about the lecture will be useful to refer back to as it did contain a lot of important information regarding teaching techniques necessary when working with children with special needs, my own notes and scribbles are always a great help for me when it comes to blogging or just expessing my won opinion about something. Note taking is something I seem to always enjoy however I am aware that other people work differently, and this therefore should be something we consider when both planning and delivering our workshop, to ensure we are all understaning not only each other but what we are doing.

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