Category Archives: 1 Prof. Values & Personal Commitment

The Last Week!

The last six weeks have gone by so quickly that I cannot believe is it over! When I started my placement six weeks ago I thought this placement would take a very different path than what it has. The start of my placement was very hectic as I thought that I was going to be completing my placement at The Brae Riding For The Disabled. However, after developing an allergy to something there this had to change. This left my placement very up in the air and left me worried for my future. Starting at PAMIS was very scary as I had not had time to prepare for this placement and I did not know where it would go and what my role within the organisation would be. When I started at PAMIS I had a lot of information given to me as well as the little research I had had time to do. As well as this, I was quickly thrown into life at PAMIS. This was scary and overwhelming but also very educational as it forced me to learn as I went. This was incredibly helpful as I will not have time to prepare for every incident in my future career and at university.

This week has been very hectic as I have had to make sure that everything that I have been working on is completed and handed over to the people that need it. I attended a meeting about K’s transition at the primary school. She had had her first visit up to the high school in the morning. This meeting was with the head teacher of the primary school, two members of staff from the high school, the child’s mother; the visual impairment principal teacher plus two other people that work along with K. This meeting had been requested by K’s mum as she felt that having every professional around the table overwhelming. To overcome this, they had broken the meeting down into smaller groups to create smaller but more meetings. The next meeting was going to with only the health professionals. During our interagency module, we learned that when parents go to these big meetings with several professionals, it can be very daunting. The fact that the primary school had recognised this and made changes to try and overcome the family’s feelings is excellent. This is something that I know that I will take into my future practice if I ever happen to be at or run one of these meetings. Helping families not feel as scared and nervous about this kind of meeting is vital to the success of the meetings so if breaking the professionals down into groups help those feeling lessen then it is a fantastic thing to do.

My main goal I had set myself in the placement was to work with disabled children as I had no experience of working with disabled children. This placement has not only allowed me to meet this goal but it has also allowed me to learn about what families with disabled children go through; the challenges that people with disabilities go through to be able to go about simple everyday tasks like getting on a bus and going to the toilet; and the way that children with disabilities are treated in schools. Learning all about the life of children and adults with profound and multiple disabilities has been fascinating. This placement has taught me a lot about myself as well as several transferable skills that I can take into my future professional practice.

During this placement, I have not had anyone watching over me all the time to make sure that I have completed certain tasks. At the beginning, I was told that I would be helping with K’s transition and what needed to be done for this. After this time, it was my responsibility to have these done when they needed to be done. At PAMIS I had to learn to work autonomously as everyone else had lots to do. I was given different tasks throughout my time and different tasks arose as I attended meetings and spoke to the family and other professionals. Being able to have the time to read about the different campaigns that PAMIS are involved in as well as the research behind the multi-sensory stories and different communication methods has been very interesting and educational. This time has been important as it has meant that I know the research and information behind the projects and campaigns which has given me an insight. At PAMIS I have also had to manage my own time. PAMIS were very flexible about where I could spend my time. If I needed to organise meetings then I was the one to contact the person and arrange when it would be best to do this. It also meant that if I needed to go to the library or go to the shops to buy the sensory items then I could do this. Since, it was always me contacting and arranging the meetings that I was attending it helped to build my confidence when I was at the meetings. Previously, if I have attended meetings I have not felt confident to speak up as I was only there shadowing. However, at this placement that was not the case. Most of the meetings that I attended were only myself, Max and the people/person that we were meeting. This meant that I could not hide behind someone else and I had to speak up and share my own ideas. I was also not viewed as a student during my time at PAMIS. I was always viewed as a professional and asked for my opinion in every meeting that I attended. I know that I will carry this confidence on when I return to university and in my future placements. This relates to several of the Standards of Provisional Registration but mostly to do with professional commitment.

I have learned several new skills during this placement that I will carry on to my future practice as well as my time as a student. I do not think that I could have learned these new skills or developed other skills anywhere else. I plan to continue my relationship with PAMIS and volunteer there when I can.

Scottish Parliament Visit

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Yesterday, Jenny (PAMIS CEO) Max, and I went to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. We were going to a Learning Disability Cross Party Group in one of the meeting rooms at the Holyrood building. I was really looking forward to going to the meeting and hearing what they were discussing. There were three speakers during the meeting: – the first was Professor Andrew Jahoda; the second was Kayleigh from ENABLE Scotland and the last was Donna Marie Speir and her team from Values Into Action Scotland.

It was a controversial day to be at Holyrood as it was the day that the Government were debating whether to have a second referendum in Scotland. This meant that when we got there, there were several media vans there reporting on what would happen. There were also campaigners campaigning for the referendum to go a certain way. I had never been to the Scottish Parliament before and all of this activity made a simple visit seem very exciting.

I found the meeting really informative and all of the speakers were very interesting. The first speaker at the meeting was Professor Andrew Jahoda, who works in psychological medicine, and his colleague from Glasgow University. Jahoda has researched exclusion of people with learning difficulties previously. They have been looking at bullying in schools of children with learning difficulties and whether anti-bullying strategies are working. I found what they had to say extremely interesting as having being bullied myself previously where teacher’s anti-bullying techniques were questionable, I know how important this is. Professor Jahoda found that there were more cases of bullying than what they expected to find. He told us that we also found that generic anti-bullying techniques do not address people with learning difficulties. As well as this, many anti-bullying programmes work with the victim so that they can learn how to cope with the bullying and can be more assertive and develop their social skills. I think this is shocking that it is more often the victim that is worked with so that they can deal with the bullying rather than the bullies being given workshops on not bullying and the results of bullying. Professor Jahoda and his team thought it would be a good idea to teach young people to have knowledge and understanding of people with disabilities, their condition and what goes on in their lives.

The team at Glasgow University have developed lessons for school children. These lessons will teach the children about diversity, disabilities and understanding disabilities. They are hoping that these lessons will be delivered often in schools and the children will be engaged and interested in the topics. Many anti-bullying programmes are only on for a short while or are a programme that children go to once. The team want to stop this and have a more permanent solution. These lessons are aimed towards children in secondary schools, primarily first year pupils. These lessons are being developed over the next five years and have been piloted in several areas in Scotland. Currently, the lessons are out for their second pilot after being developed after the first time. Professor Andrew have also developed resources for teachers to use to help teach these lessons and they have also made sure that they have fitted into the curriculum. At the moment, they have not made any links with Education Scotland to do with these lessons yet but that is the next step that they are planning to do. They have worked with local authorities and they think the lessons are a great idea.

I think that these lessons are a fantastic idea as it means there are long term solutions to bullying available rather than short programmes that focus more on the victim than preventing the problem. However, I think that they should work these lessons into the primary curriculum as well. I think that waiting until secondary school to start these lessons could sometimes be too late. These could be brought into upper primary school stages which would help educate children earlier on about different disabilities.

The second speaker was Kayleigh from ENABLE Scotland who spoke about the IncludED In The Main?! Campaign (see IncludED In The Main). She summarised what the campaign was trying to achieve and spoke about the 22 recommendations. She said that a child with a disability being present in a classroom does not mean that they are being included. ENABLE hope that along with Professor Jahoda’s plan to deliver these lessons and their 22 steps that inclusion for all can be achieved. Currently, it is found that there is a big reliance on classroom support teachers as only 12% of teachers feel equipped to teach disabled children. This is an incredibly low number of teachers and means that the majority of teachers do not feel prepared to teach disabled children. This number does not surprise me as I did not feel very confident, when I was on placement last year, teaching children with learning disabilities and neither did the class teacher I was working with. Even though IncludED In The Main?! highlights a lot of problems Kayleigh said that it is about campaigning for solutions, not highlighting the problems. Kayleigh also agreed with Professor Jahoda as she thought that having lessons within the curriculum about disabilities would make a big difference.

Professor Andrew Jahoda and his team at the University of Glasgow and ENABLE Scotland think that the Scottish Government should invest more money into the role of teaching. They also want modules to be out into teacher training courses on additional support needs and think this training should be continuous throughout a teacher’s career. They also think that more money should be invested into additional support needs in general so that each school can have more ASN staff.

The last speakers at the meeting were Donna Marie Spier and her colleague, Jordan, from Values Into Action Scotland. They were speaking about transition and what VIAS do. Jordan is a quality checker for VIAS. A quality checker is someone that has a learning difficulty or is on the autism spectrum. Quality checkers visit people and ask question about what support that they provide. Sometimes the quality checker also do mystery shopping to see how much support there is in place. They then write down what they have discovered in a report as well as suggest how the organisation can improve their support. I think that this is a great idea as who knows if the correct support is in place better than the person with the same or similar condition. Fifty five NHS staff have been trained correctly as a result of Quality Check. VIAS are also working alongside People First Glasgow and Glasgow city Council on “The Life I Want Public Social Partnership”. This is a person-led partnership that gives people with learning difficulties in Glasgow a strong voice where they can help to make decisions which helps them to achieve choice and control in all areas of their lives. This is the first person led public social partnership in Scotland. Values Into Action Scotland help to give people with learning difficulties and individuals on the autistic spectrum a voice in their lives. This is hugely important as why should they not get a say in their lives and the support that is offered to them.

I found the meeting at THE Parliament highly educational and eye-opening. It showed me just a small amount of the work that it going on to help people with learning difficulties live a normal life. As well as this it also showed me what can be done to prevent people with learning difficulties to be bullied. I know that the information that I have learned today will help me in my future practice as I have learned information about organisations that I may never have. The meeting yesterday can also be linked to the SFPR for professional commitment as I had to be professional throughout the entire day. Whether that was when I was met some of the people that would be attending the meeting; throughout the meeting or when I was on the train to Edinburgh with Jenny and Max. I am also working towards the standards for social justice – Demonstrating a commitment to engaging learners in real world issues to enhance learning experiences and outcomes, and to encourage learning our way to a better future. i cannot teach about real world issues and help learners towards a better future if i do not know what these issues are and how i can help to change them. The meeting today has opened my eyes to some of these issues.

Monday Meetings

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This morning Max and I had two important meetings to help us finish creating the Multi-Sensory story (MSS) for the child that we are working with. The first meeting was at the primary school of the child who is transitioning and the second was at the high school that she is moving to. Both meetings were important but for different reasons. The one at the primary school was our first meeting of the day and this was when we got to meet the child for the first time. It was great to see how she interacts with al of the teachers and how she reacts when her teachers sing to her. The enjoyment that she got from them singing to her while she shook a maraca showed us that we needed to have a song in her story so that she can shake her maraca at the same time. When she is being sung to her full attention is on the song and the person singing it. Meaning if a song is at the start of her story she will be paying attention to the voice for what is coming next. To keep her attention we are also going to have a sing-song repeated line throughout the story.

The primary schools main concern with the transition was that the noise of all of the other pupils within the high school would be bothersome as in her primary school she is in the same room with five pupils and five teachers most of her day. Even though, we did not think it would be a big concern, as she is going to be in a very quiet part of the school all day, we took their concerns on board and addressed it when we got to the high school.

As we had already been at the high school for a meeting we were only really going there to briefly get the recordings that we needed for her story and to speak to one of the ASN teachers about what he thought best for the MSS, the transition and to let him know of the primary schools concerns. He agreed that she would not hear the sounds of the other children much but showed us the best place to capture these sounds so we could let her hear them anyway. We spoke to him about what sounds would be the most different and unusual for her. The most distinct noise was the school bell as it was not something that she was use to hearing. We made sure to record this noise of the bell as well as the noise of the children when they were moving between classes since that was the primary schools main concern. We also recorded the voices of the teachers that would be working with the child so that she could get use to them recognised who each person was. One of the ASN teachers is male. The child has never had a male teacher work with her. This means that this will be something very different for her. We made sure to record his voice too and incorporate it into the multi-sensory story. This will help her get use to his voice before she goes to the high school and become even more familiar to her through the transition.

These meetings have been very important to us being able to make the multi-sensory story as helpful as it can be in the child’s transition. They were also important for finding out what each schools wants from the story and what concerns they each have about the child’s transition.

Throughout both of these meetings I had to be professional as well as remember that I was representing PAMIS at these schools. These are skills that are always useful to contiously develop for now and when I will fully qualified as I will need to be professional at all times.

A Time for Change!

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My second week has been busy as well as a little worrisome. As I had to leave my placement at the Brae last week I was worried what would happen and if I would be able to progress into third year. Susan got in touch with me quickly and told me that she had found me another placement. I was relieved! She sent me the organisation details and the contact details of the CEO of the organisation. I got in contact with her and she was happy for me to come in for a meeting the next day to meet everyone and find out more about the organisation. She also sent me some information on the organisation so that evening I did some research on PAMIS as I had never heard of them.

Meeting Jenny and everyone at PAMIS on the Wednesday was great and I found out more about the organisation as well as all of the different tasks that I would be taking part in. PAMIS is an organisation that works with children and adults with profound and multiple disabilities which meant that I could still achieve my goal of working with disabled children as well as let me complete tasks that I had never had experience of before. I also found out that someone else in my course was at PAMIS.

All the different tasks and meeting done at PAMIS sounded fascinating to me as well as great for my development as a teacher. After my meeting, Jenny had asked me if I had wanted to join in a meeting that the other teaching student had. I decided that it would be best to jump into this placement straight away and decided to join the meeting even though I had no idea what the meeting was about and all I knew that it was with other students on placement. When we walked into an empty room I was a little perplexed and then I noticed that it was a video meeting. The students were in the Glasgow office!

Walking into a meeting blind was scary when I was only just learning about the organisation. Luckily, the meeting was with four occupational therapist students so it did not feel so scary. Straight away I was experiencing new things which was scary and nerve-wracking but also very interesting. A first I did not know what the meeting was fully about but I very quickly worked it out. The Great Day Out had been mentioned in my initial meeting but only briefly as Jenny was telling me all about the different projects that PAMIS has running. PAMIS are currently trying to create a website so that parents of children with profound and multiple disabilities can know which activity places that have certain facilities and activities that are suitable for disabled children and their siblings so that the siblings do not get bored doing the same thing all the time. The meeting with the occupational therapist students was to share ideas for this website that they had come up with and what we (the other student more so as I had just started but I contributed what I could) had thought of too. The organisation is hoping to plan a Great Day Out at one of the places that would be on the website so that different activities at one of these places can be organised. This website may have things like a symbol to show certain facilities at different places, for example, a gold star to show which locations have a changing place
s toilet. It was also discussed that the website should have a filter type feature so that families can filter all of the places to what they need. For example, if they need a changing places toilet and wheelchair access they can click those two features and the website will bring up all the places
that have these facilities. As well as what facilities each place has the website could also show teaching activities for each place so that schools can use the website when planning school trips. This was particularly interesting to me from a teaching point of view as its showing what can be learned from each place. For example, what activities could a disabled child and her non-disabled sister do at Blair Drummond so that it is enjoyable for them both and they both learn something.

When I had my initial meeting with Jenny she had mentioned that Max had a meeting the next day at a close town’s high school as he was putting together a Multi-Sensory Story to help with a child’s transition from primary to secondary school. Jenny thought it a good idea for us to work on this together. The next day we went to the high school to meet with the teachers the child would be in contact with the most as well as speak about what is best for the child when they visit the school for transitions visits and what signifiers she uses to signify different rooms and places as the child is registered blind. On the way to the school I had made sure that i knew who we were going to meet, about the child and about the transition. This meant that when we got to the high school I knew what was going on and could contribute to the meeting, even though I had only started at PAMIS the day before.

The meeting can be linked to the Standards for Provision Registration as meeting with an ASN teacher and a visual impairment teacher I needed to be professional and confident in what we were discussing. this meeting can be linked to several of the GTC Scotland’s’ standards for professionalism but I feel like it inks best to this one develop an understanding of the sector and schools in which they are working, including: the role of education authorities, the organisation and management of schools and resources, improvement planning, professional review and development and how these connect to teachers’ professional practice. This is important as by having this meeting and helping with this transition has also let me see what facilities there is within my local community in which I will be teaching within one day.

Working Together Visit

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As part of our Working Together module we get to go out on a visit to different agencies to see how they work together across different disciplines. We had been preparing for this visit for a few weeks and had prepared questions to ask when we were there.

My group visited Baldragon Academy in Dundee where we spent the morning with their Pupil Support Department. They had two pupil support workers or as they were referred to from the children “The Toast Ladies”. Both workers came from different disciplinary backgrounds, one was social work trained and had worked in social work for several years prior to joining the school twelve years ago while the other came from a Community, Learning and Development background and also joined the school twelve years ago. They also both agreed that their job was the most rewarding job they had eve done. They both agreed that their disciplinary did not matter within the school and they just worked to help the pupils the best as they could. They were happy to be known as the “Toast Ladies” and even joked about going to university for four years just to end up making toast.

They are known as the toast ladies because they make toast during break every morning for as many pupils as 200 pupils every day. This is because where the school is located is the fourth highest deprived areas in Britain. They fund this entirely themselves and rely on bread being reduced at the end of the day in supermarkets and donations from teaching staff and their families. The women also run nurture clubs that focus on the most nurture deprived pupils in the school and they give them breakfast as well as a little task to help them focus on the day ahead.

I found this visit highly fascinating and could have stayed all day if I had the choice. The way the women worked with the pupils to help them the best they can was amazing to see and showed the support that pupils have within the school. It was also very obvious how trusted they were by the pupils and were even brought gifts from the pupil’s holidays.

Another highly interesting aspect of the visit was how the pupil support workers work with other people within the school as well as outside agencies. They had a CLD worker who came in every week and worked with the children and took little groups. They also worked closely with the teaching staff, the guidance team (so much so they said they felt part of the guidance team) the school nurse and the senior management staff within the school. Outside the school they work with KIKO and Fairbridge who support the pupils and give them different areas to work within. They also work with primary school teachers and primary sevens in the move up to secondary school, giving some pupils that extra support they need. The staff within the school constantly pop into the “Toast Room” to speak to the workers or sometimes to just grab a slice of toast. They also spoke about how the senior management team are very supportive and if they pitch an activity or idea well them they will most likely let them do it.

On follow up we spoke to some of the agencies and people within the school. All of them reported a great working relationship with the pupil support workers that had next to no barriers to working together. They also have regular meetings with everyone they work with which include monthly meeting with the guidance team within the school; three monthly meetings with all CLD workers across the city and regular board meeting which include the school nurse, CLD workers and people from outside agencies.

Important Qualities of a Teacher.

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When looking at professionalism I feel like compassion is an important characteristic for teachers to have. Compassion is helping someone that is struggling or suffering. This is important for a teacher as they need to constantly be helping children who may be suffering. Teachers may also need to be compassionate towards parents or guardians if anything is going on out with the school environment.

Patience is another hugely important quality that teachers need. When working with children, patience is something that you need as children may not pick up ides and concept that you are teaching as quick as adults would. Children can get something wrong several times over, make a mess when doing art projects or playing. Teachers need patience to just keep calm in these situations and not get angry with the children but teach them what they need to do.

Another quality that I find important in teaching is fairness. Children come from all different backgrounds and have different skill levels. A teacher needs to be a fair person and treat all children the same. A good teacher cannot treat children differently because of where they come from or how clever they are. A lot of the time teachers can be seen as not being fair but this isn’t the case. All children learn differently so sometimes you have to teach children differently to combat this but at the same time you are still teaching children fairly. Fairness when disciplining children is also important as teachers cannot be seen as favoring one child over another.

In my opinion, tolerance is another important characteristic that teachers need. Teachers need to be able to tolerate a lot from all angles. Teachers may need to tolerate abuse from parents or guardians on the way they are teaching or how they may think you are doing something wrong. A teacher needs to be professional in these situations and tolerate what the parent say. It does not mean the teacher needs to do what the parent is telling them but they need to be able to tolerate the criticism but be confident in your teaching style.

Lastly, honesty is an important quality for teachers to have. An honest teacher is a great teacher. Children do not benefit from a teacher that lies about what they are good at. A teacher needs to be honest about what their pupils are good and bad at. If a teacher was not honest then children would not know what they need to work on and what they are good at. On the other hand, teachers also need to be careful with honesty and make sure that they are not brutally honest and that they do not offend anyone.

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