Inclusion - Developing a profile of individual needs
 | aaaa | This course is designed as a follow up to Inclusion courses Introduction to Additional Support Needs/Special Educational Needs and Barriers to Learning - for those teachers who wish to investigate the factors contributing to the barriers to learning experienced an individual learner. Course participants will already have completed a CPD Bytes Inclusion Course, or have undertaken other professional study to inform their classroom practice for meeting the additional learning needs of their pupils. They will already be aware of many |
of the signs that a pupil is experiencing difficulties in the mainstream classroom. They will be knowledgeable about reasons why some pupils meet barriers to learning in the curriculum and already have some strategies in place to address these.
Developing
a profile of individual needs
Tutors:
Maggie MacLardie and Moira Thomson
Sector: Primary and Secondary Schools in Scotland
CPD: 20 hours online interactive + more than 35 hours off line activities and reading
Cost: £110 (+ £30 admin fee if a pupil profile is submitted for individual comment)
Code: PP111
Course Aims:
This course, in 4 parts with a short introduction to the profiling task, will guide course members through the process of:
- gathering information about a pupil
- identifying factors that may contribute to a pupil experiencing barriers to learning
- developing a profile of an individual pupil’s learning needs
- suggesting strategies to support any unmet needs identified
- reviewing, collating and analysing findings and presenting them in the form of a pupil profile document
The course offers a range of practical activities,
many to take place within the classroom and will result in the production of a
learning needs profile of a pupil selected by the course participant.
Learning
outcomes
In this course, a classroom teacher will develop a knowledge and understanding of:
- some developmental issues that may underlie a pupil experiencing barriers to learning
- how to evaluate the curriculum and its presentation and how this may contribute to an individual experiencing barriers to learning
- the impact of different teaching styles and pupils’ learning preferences on effective learning
- diagnostic methods and instruments that may be used to identify factors that may contribute to pupils’ additional needs
- how to use the different planning frameworks available in schools to identify an individual pupil’s strengths and additional needs
- identification of an individual pupil’s unmet needs and support strategies to meet these
- the need to maintain confidentiality/ Data Protection issues
Course content:
Each part of the course provides downloadable text and video information, links to other appropriate websites and presentations to guide course members through the process of identifying the factors that contribute to an individual learner experiencing barriers to learning. Exemplars are provided of formats for carrying out classroom observation and compiling a profile of an individual’s additional learning needs. Some strategies that may support individual needs are suggested.
The task:
Developing a profile of individual needs - an opportunity to focus on a pupil whose difficulties have been identified but not fully assessed.
Selection of a pupil: This may be a pupil who does not currently receive a high level of support in the classroom.
Consideration of likely barriers to learning: An opportunity to select appropriate checklists and observation schedules from a wide range provided.
Planning and carrying out profiling tasks: Most of these activities will be carried out off-line, many in the classroom. Course participants are recommended to set time limits for each of the planned activities required for the completion of the pupil profile and to keep a log of the time spent on each activity.
Many of the activities required by this course must be carried out off-line, in the classroom. Course members will accumulate a lot of information on the pupil being profiled and they should make confidential notes on this – possibly in the Notes or Blog section of their online CPD Bytes profile.
After a short introduction that sets the context of the course and provides suggestions for off line professional reading, the course is structured in 5 online sections, as follows:
Section 1: Barriers to Learning
This 3 part section reviews the most common factors that impact learning in the mainstream classroom.
Section 2 - Gathering Information
In this 4 part section explores ways of accessing information relating to the pupil selected by the course participant for profiling:
- Gathering information
- Sources of information
- Identifying difficulties inn the curriculum
- Diagnostic assessment and screening tests
Section 3 - Identifying strengths and needs
This presentation provides practical advice on developing the profile of the selected pupil’s learning needs and advice about writing a report on these. Practical activities in this section are completed off-line.
Section 4 - Supporting the pupil
The 4 part section explores a range of strategies that might be used to meet the learning needs of the selected pupil, covering dyslexia and other developmental disorders as well as other, lower incidence factors.
Section 5 – Submission of the pupil profile for review
The opportunity is provided for course participants to share the profile they have developed with course tutors and other course members by posting it in their CPD Bytes course blog and asking for comments.
Course tutors will review all profiles and comment on these. Course members may request a more detailed, private critique from a course tutor. There will be a small additional charge for this service.