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Journey to Excellence

Supporting Children’s Learning: inclusion

Children smiling at camera

This collection of videos highlights how a school can successfully develop inclusive approaches.

These clips are from a DVD that accompanies the pack 'Supporting Children's Learning' produced by the Scottish Government in 2005. This pack, which also includes a CD-ROM, supports the implementation of the Additional Support For Learning (Scotland) Act 2004.

Inclusion exemplars

The DVD resource contains a series of clips to illustrate different aspects of the Code of Practice. The following clips illustrate positive approaches to inclusion.

Reflecting on the broader concept of additional support needs

Donnie McLeod introduces and reflects on what is meant by the term 'additional support needs'.

Watch or download large video

Additional support needs is not special educational needs by another name. It now includes young people affected by:

  • homelessness
  • personal trauma
  • substance misuse within a family
  • mental health problems
  • parent(s) being in prison.

This video examines the implications of this broader concept for teachers, and the roles and responsibilities of all agencies in promoting better communication. The implications include the need for teachers to understand more about the barriers to learning experienced by specific groups of learners and build upon existing structures to provide effectively for them within this wider definition of additional support needs.  

Enhancing capacity -  a secondary school's response

Headteacher Morag Towndrow describes how her school has created a positive and inclusive ethos for inclusion.

The clips show how the school achieved this outcome by:

  • developing staff skills through training
  • using school teams and partner agencies to support young people with additional needs
  • involving a youth counsellor
  • informing all young people about the needs of those young people with additional needs.

Videos 

An ethos of support (part one)

Find out how this school developed an ethos of inclusion which is shared by all staff and young people.

Social, emotional and behavioural needs (part two)

An exploration of the attitudes, understanding and skills needed by school staff to deal with young people with social, emotional and behavioural needs.

Youth counselling (part three)

Find out more about the role of the youth counsellor in school and the approaches that schools can use to support the mental and emotional wellbeing of young people.

Additional support: identifying needs - planning responses (part four)

Discover how to plan and deliver multi-agency support for young people which results in positive outcomes for them and their families.

Creating contexts for all (part five)

Explore the ways in which staff can work together to ensure that they adopt consistent approaches to meeting the social and emotional needs of learners.

Planning an appropriate curriculum - a secondary school’s response

In this video, Carol Cutler, PT Support For Learning, talks about extended transition planning to meet the needs of learners with individual additional support needs, for example Down’s Syndrome.

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This video highlights how the school has met these needs, including:

  • providing training to ensure that all staff can meet the learning, social and emotional needs of all young people
  • developing the curriculum to include a wide range of Access courses which build skills for life and learning which is more contextualised
  • improving the social communication skills of young people on the autism spectrum through small group work
  • implementing strategies that include pupils with additional support needs in clubs and activities beyond the classroom.

Planning an appropriate curriculum: responding to individual needs

This series of clips shows the journey which a school with its partner agencies embark on in order to include a child with social, emotional and behavioural needs. 

Practitioners explain the staged intervention system which they use and key factors leading to successful inclusion.

Videos

Setting the context (part one)

An educational psychologist and headteacher explain how they prepared for the inclusion of a boy with a range of needs, using an interdisciplinary approach.

Assessing needs and strengths (part two)

A teacher with responsibility for pupil support explains how he assesses the needs of a child with social and emotional problems, and the strategies he uses to engage young people in learning.

Developing strategies (part three)

An inclusion facilitator describes how a structured timetable can ensure consistency and continuity in learning for learners with additional support needs.

Planning with the learner (part four)

A school inclusion facilitator explains that through careful planning, a learner with additional support needs could pursue his interests in a way which did not distract him from learning.

Creating consistency (part five)

A pupil support teacher explains how he 'linked' with all the adults who worked with a learner with additional support needs to ensure that their support was well planned and consistent, and that all partners had a say.

Related links

Inclusive Education

Advice, ideas and support for promoting inclusion and equality in Scottish education.