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Hi
I was wondering if you could offer any advice on how to get SEN voices heard within a mainstream setting, particularly those with ASD. Could you give me any advice or point me towards any articles etc?
Thanks so much
Julie
Hi Julie,
as I'm sure you'd expect, there's no simple answer to this, but I'll do what can to help.
Some schools have gone down the route of having SEN representatives on their school council, but I think you need to be very careful about this. From a democratic point of view it can become very problematic, with some people being represented twice (i.e. by their class rep and by the 'SEN rep').
What may be better is to have an 'inclusion working group' that involves a variety of people co-opted from across the school, both those with SEN and without, and without support from relevant staff. They could act as an advisory group to the school council giving specific oversight to and insight into how different issues might advantage or disadvantage groups of students. They would not have a veto, but could have a right to be heard at each meeting.
Obviously this only deals with a small area of what you're trying to achieve, namely SEN students having a say on inclusion issues, whereas what you want is for SEN students to have a voice an all issues. Including all pupils in actively using their voices is what all schools should be working towards and the way to do it is through training. Ideally of the whole school, but especially of those who are reps (or want to be reps). This training needs to look at how people communicate and that the differences in how they communicate may mean that for everyone to have an equal voice they (as reps) might have to put in more time with certain groups and individuals. The school needs to commit to this and ensure that there is time for reps to do that, this could be in class council meetings, surgeries and targeted discussions (i.e. reps target specific classes, groups or individuals to canvass).
In terms of students with ASD, I must admit that my knowledge is pretty limited, but having clear systems for elections, reporting back, communication between students, the school council and staff will be beneficial I am sure. Having clear, well-publicised structures will also help everyone else in the school engage with student voice, so I'd suggest creating a school council constitution and/or student voice policy and getting some ASD students to help you to do it. There's a section on constitutions in this free guide, which might help you: http://involver.org.uk/2009/11/a-short-toolkit-for-school-council-co-ordinators/
You could also consider getting ASD (or other un-involved students) helping out on the 'delivery' side of things. Get them on to an action group: the school council decides something needs doing, they mandate a group of other students to do it. This way students who are not interested in standing for election, but may be interested in doing something practical (e.g. creating surveys, building a website, writing a magazine, painting lines on the football pitch) get to take part and it may spark an interest in deeper involvement in decision-making.
Hope that's useful,
Asher
