Opinions on "age appropriate" education?

[blueemerald]

I work in a special secondary school (as a TA) and am so frustrated by the obession with age appropriate education so was wondering what you all thought about it?

The kind of thing I am talking about is the situation where one 11 year old girl (with quite severe GDD, non-verbal, padded, unstable on her feet, no pincher grasp yet, pretty aloof/zoned out, developmental age estimated around 10 months) is highly motivated by nusery rhymes/kiddie songs (especially wind the bobbin up) so will work hard when these are playing in the background or as part of a reward system. The school says we are not to use nursery rhymes as they are not age appropriate. Very little else motivates her (the interactive whiteboard does but this is not always practical) so we will not be able to achieve the progress she is capable of.

We have a boy (15 years old, with Autism and Down's Syndrome) who loves the Tweenies. He is very noise sensitive and often lashes out when stressed but has made great improvement in his impulse control as part of a Tweenie reward system. Again, we have been told to stop this.

This is just two examples so I wondered how you all felt about it? How would you feel if this was your child? Are your children's interests "age appropriate"? How would you feel if they were used in school?

Personally? I wouldnt care less if it was Tweenies or bill and ben. If it calms and makes them happy to co operate in learning something that that is a good thing and do not see where age appropriateness comes in.

there's no point using an incentive/calming technique that doesn't engage a child! Of course if there's a a choice between 2 things, one age appropriate and one not, by all means encourage the age appropriate one, but otherwise, if it works and isn't harmful in any shape or form, tweenies/nursery rhymes are OK.

Oh ffs, is there no humanity or just plain common sense.

How is the child going to progress to their closest age appropriateness if you are prevented from engaging them in learning.

Exactly! I understand when it comes to how you treat the students (we have to call them students and not children), for example not changing pads lying down like a baby but if the tweenies work then lets use them!

Having done a quick google it seems this age appropriate thing was brought in to protect against 16+ year olds making finger paintings etc which I agree with but this intrepretation goes too far.

I wonder if the people decreeing these things spent an afternoon being walloped by the boy I described above then they would change their minds?

Dr. Dave Hewett is one of the leading academics and ex head teacher in the field of education of people with very severe and profound learning disabilities.
His concept is of "person appropriate" rather than simply age appropriate.
If you can go to one of his talks or get him to come into the school it would be a great experience
www.davehewett.com/index.php

Oh I so agree with you blue. This is one of my major bugbears, (along with SS TA's doing art instead of the children actually doing it).

A child won't learn unless you engage them. If you constantly aim everything completely above their heads in an attempt to be age appropriate, how are they actually being educated?

I worry about this sort of thinking as it leads to quite dangerous practices, like OFSTED 'consulting' with non-verbal, profoundly learning-disabled young people about the quality of their respite care, but not asking their parents if they have any concerns or feedback

I think they are confused about the nature of the term 'respect'.

You need to have respect fir the person you are teaching and children/adults should not be patronised. Further they should be education not entertained.

But none of this indicates they should not watch Tweenies. You should most certainly respect their interests s d motivations.

At ds' last school some of the curriculum was below his ability level and some of it above his ability level but the staff usually responded with 'but that's what we do here' - accompanied by a lovely smile if I asked them to explain why they were teaching him something he had learned 3 years ago or something that was far above his level of comprehension. You are absolutely right to challenge entrenched thinking and to advocate for the the child's right to learn at his or her own level.

This is all very bizarre - I thought at the moment there was a big push in education for 'stage not age' - ie Y1s and Y5s working together if they were at the same level.......

No, stage not age is a myth.

Starlight - explain? Why is stage not age a myth? ( I know nothing about this - just repeating things I have read)

Surely this is what this thread is about? If a child is in the Tweenies Stage than it doesn't matter how old they are?

Or do you mean it's a myth that it happens in education at the moment?

my experience (well, dd1's!) is that across the settings dd1 has been in ,stage not age does not happen.

right from her earliest experiences - the attempts at potty training before she was ready, the push to get ehr drinking froma regular cup before she could cope (she still can't - althoguh in part this is a reaction to those early experiences), and the rush to move her on educationally before the foundation blocks were set.

it is essential that, especially at times such as soothing and calming, the reinforcement used is motivating for the child/teen/adult. why on earth anyone would think otherwise is beyond me (obvious disclaimers re: not being patronised, and respect for the individual, dignity, etc)

When DS was four, the - otherwise very good - teacher was obsessed about getting him to drink from a normal cup. DS is 15 and still drinks from a beaker. He just throws drinks across the room at home, or drops them on the floor and hasn't got a clue. It seemed an inappropriate and unnecessary goal.

When I asked the teacher for her reasons for trying to make him drink from a normal cup was so DS could 'appear' age appropriate. It's a small example of how our children are always being asked to fit into the mainstream model of how a child should be, rather than just being themselves.

yes, Bakelite. dd1 uses a sports bottle, and will for the forseeable future. her pre-school, at one point insisted that she had to have a cup of water with her lunch. this lead to the delightful situation where dd1 started refusing lunch - really great.

this was after them knowing that she had, when she was 2, stopped drinking completely for 9 months. not a single drop of fluids passed her lips voluntarily. it was a long, slow process getting her back to drinking, and when her pre-school decided that she should have water at mealtimes, she was only drinking about 50ml a day, even then.

I was, understandably, livid. and they were a specialist ASD pre-school too. but yes, apparently, it was better for her to be 'age appropriate' rather than actually drink (or eat, as it turned out, that time)

I think my ds summed it up well. He has HFA, academically able also has OCD. He was having his going to bed cuddle just after his 15th birthday. 'I'm not really 15. I'm just a little child, except for my brain (meaning his intellect) thats much older. (pause) Of course technically I have the body of a teenager but I'm not really a teenager at all.' So we just have to respond to the different aspects of him as they are and on the whole his school does. I think thats necessary for everyone whether they can articulate where they are or not.

logfires Thanks for the link. I've ordered his book on age appropriate education and can't wait for it to arrive!

Bakelitebelle I totally agree with you about the art thing. Our class made wreaths on Thursday with foam shapes and stick on letter to spell Merry Christmas. I spread the glue and let my student smack and bang stick the shapes in place. I handed her the sticky letters in the right order and she put them where she liked.

At the end of the session the teacher compliemented one student's work (with was nice and had all the letters in order) and the TA working with her said "Yeah, I made it look a bit sloppy so it looked like she did it." I had to turn and look out the window so my expression was not seen.

These are non-verbal, padded, illiterate 11-15 year olds, their parents know they can't spell Merry Christmas for god's sake! Who do they think they are kidding!!

Back to the point, on the one hand I'm glad so many parents agree with me but on the other it's depressing that staff still have to carry on with age appropriate anyway.

Sorry Indigo. It is a myth like evidence-based-practice is a myth, and like working in partnership with parents is a myth.

does anyone find that in MS - not SS - that DCs would be more likely to be ostracised and less likely to maintain friendships if their education is perceived by their peer group to be aimed at a younger age?

Dont know if he is ostracised by his peers due to education more in the fact that his social skills are not good enough and the unstructuredness and lack of support in playtime doesnt help him form relationships or learn at present.

DS loves the nursery (he is yr2) and going in there used to be part of his day as he likes the play and the younger children and helping them made him feel useful and important. They took that away at the start of term as they felt he should be kept with his own age and he was and still is distraught over it and still trys to run in there when things are too much. Its a shame as it was helping his self esteem and also broke his day up and helped him cope with the rest of the day.

In my DS2s Y3 class there is a boy who's developmentally about a 3 year old.

The kids still like him and play with him.

I think he'll be fine socially all the way up to Y6 in this junior school, because of the ethos of the school.

I don't think he's getting much of an education though, and I don't think they'll be able to teach him as much as he would be taught in a SS, which is full of teachers with expertise in SN, and classes small enough to plan for him :(

AFAIK 'best practice' is to plan for the whole class and then 'modify it' for kids with SEN. Rather than planning something that their 'next step' to learn.

And this is a special school?????

Bloody insane.

Can you do anything about it?

If they could do age appropriate things they wouldn't be in bloody special school would they!!!

Mine go to SN school and it's not like that at all. Each child is individual and they treat them according to their level of understanding and need.