Welcome and Introductions

Hi, Welcome to your studies. Introduce yourselves and let us know where you work and what your role is? What is it that you are particularly interested in exploring further during your studies this year in Inclusion?
I look forward to meeting you all here.
Ruth Green
Programme Leader

Hi

My name is Anthony. I work for CfBT Education Trust in the Africa Regional office. I do capacity buiding for teachers on Gifted Education in school on voluntary basis at my spare time. This is due to the passion I have on this field and my belief that we can also establish successful GAT programmes in Africa. I am very concerned about the status of gifted education in Kenya which at the moment is not developed at all. I want to be of help and I have started giving voluntary capacity support to teachers in one private school. The only information I have is what I have read from the internet and books that I have bought. I hope to interact with professionals in this field now and fine tune my expertise.

I am greateful to Belle Wallace of TASC who has interest in what I am doing in Kenya and has given me encouragement.

Hi Anthony,Welcome to MA Inclusive Education. It is going to be really interesting to hear about your educational setting and I look forward to finding out more about how you can use the module to develop practice in Gifted Education in Kenya. It sounds as if you are in a good position to effect change.
We will try and link you up with other students on the Gifted pathway.
Good luck with your studies.
Ruth Green

Hello,

Until now I have been a class teacher at St. John's International School in Belgium. We follow the IB Primary Years Programme, so inquiry is very important to us as students and teachers alike. It was for this reason that this MA programme appealed to me. I am driven to better understand some of our international students that exhibit specific learning difficulties while needing to learn English at the same time. Our school is also looking at various models of bilingual immersion programmes, and I hope to help further this research.

I look forward to interacting with you soon.

Melody Dela Cruz

Hi Melody, This sounds so interesting and I'm sure that everyone will benefit from your perspective. I look forward to hearing what line of enquiry you plan to develop. We have had several really interesting dissertations from previous students exploring dyslexia and bilingualism.
Good luck with your studies.
Ruth Green

Hi Ruth,

I am excited about studying this overlap too. I chose to study bilingualism first because my school has decided to pilot a bilingual immersion (French/English) programme beginning with the pre-school in September (too quickly to make research-based decisions). I have always been interested in these sorts of programmes but they are rare. I would like to learn more about the different models out there to see if some are more successful and why, although decisions will have already been made at my school by that point. But as it is a pilot year, perhaps the school would be open to the research as they consider bringing the programme up through the primary school. Do you think this will be a good direction for my research focus?

The complicating factor is that I may not be employed at my school after June. I am still on a year-to-year contract and with the way things stand right now, they won't need me because of decreasing enrollment. I am blindly moving forward with this, hoping for the best, as I know a lot can change between February and September. But I am worried about having to collect evidence in the fall, when I may be working elsewhere.

My other question is- what are we supposed to be doing so far? I am not sure if I am supposed to be figuring out the orientation unit on my own or if we should be waiting for a conversation on this. (Phrases like 'Take the online tour of sites' make me think that I need to wait to have access to this) I am still waiting for my distance learner information pack in the post so I don't think I can access articles online anyway- which is too bad because we have holiday this week and I was hoping to get a lot done!

Any thoughts/ guidance much appreciated!

Melody

My name is Nicki Mitchell and I am interested in developing a better understanding of SpLD. I work as Head of School for children aged 5-16 who are all statemented for social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. Over the 8 years I have worked at the school I have noticed an increase in pupils coiming through with additional needs. Many have a specific learning difficulty and as a school we need to develop our capacity to meet these needs. I intend to share all I learn with my colleagues at school and am looking forward to sharing thoughts and ideas online as part of this learning community.

Hi Nicki,You are in a very fascinating position to explore the overlap between SpLD and behavioural difficulties. I'm very interested in this whole area and I am very excited by your enthusiasm to share your ideas with us all here.
Please start here, you don't need to wait for the next conversation.
God luck with your studies.
Ruth

Hi, my name is Ify Airiemiokhale.
I currently work in a secondary school in London. I am interested in working with children with specific learning difficulties especially dyslexia.At the moment,my school is running a pilot DORE programme scheme for pupils with dyslexia. Although we are still at our infant stage, I would like to make a significant contribution to the scheme to ensure its success and growth.

Hi Ify, Quite a few people already on here with a SpLD agenda. Here is the place to share and find out more from other students. You can start by telling us all about your pilot scheme. Are you planning to use it for your study? It should make a useful one which would be closely linked with your work.
I look forward to hearing more.
Good luck with your studies.
Ruth

Hi my name is Tara. We live in Munich and work in the International school. I hope to look at discalculia and working through to achieve their IGCSE. I am looking forward to learning through my studies and working with the children in my classes, as a learning support teacher, and balancing my 3 children at home.

Hi, I'm Emma. I'm a Specialist Support Teacher for the Early Intervention Service, Warwickshire, based in Rugby. I'm particularly interested in the area of SEBD, and I feel it is the area in which many of the teachers whom I work with feel least confident. I hope that this course will help me to support my colleagues more effectively. I'm really looking forward to getting started now!

Great news and I hope that the course does enable you to support colleagues. We will have a hot seat guest talking about behavioural issues in April and your contributions to that discussion will be very welcome.
Good luck with everything,
Ruth

Hello. I'm Claire. I work as a Specialist Support Teacher for the Early Intervention Service in Warwickshire. Over the last few years, I have worked with pupils with SEBD and I have developed an interest in finding effective ways to support them. I hope that through this course I can develop my knowledge in this area, to help me to offer advice and support to colleagues.

Hi, Its great that you have a colleague you can share with during your studies this year.
Finding out more about your experience with Early years and behavioural issues will be very interesting to all of us so please keep adding to the discussion.
I look forward to reading more about what you intend to investigate further.
Good luck with it all.
Ruth

Hello to all of you. I work with Ruth on this Programme and look forward to working with you all on this module. I also work as the Dyslexia/SpLD Co-ordinator at Middlesex University so have a great interest in all to do with specific learning difficulties. You all sound as though you come from very interesting and diverse backgrounds and I look forward to hearing more about you, your work and your research projects.
Best wishes
Pauline

Hello everyone,
My name is Kerri Clover and I am currently working as a class teacher in a primary school that has a large intake of SEN children.
I have previously worked in early years as a SENCO assistant and debveloped a passion for learning and teaching with a wide range of children.
I hope to further develop my knowledge and skills through completing this course, hopefully enabling me to become a more specialised teacher.
I'm very excited and pleased to be enrolled, also slightly nervous too though!

Hi Kerri,Welcome although I know that we have already had email conversations. No need to be nervous as I hope that you have now read through the module and are beginning to formulate a plan of action. I'll open up the next discussion so that you can share your ideas with everyone.
Ruth

I am doing the Developing Policy and Practice in SEN module first, is anyone else completing this one? If so would you like to share progress etc?
Kerri

Hi all I'm Mark

been rather busy as late trying to get our school world challenge trip to Ethiopia up and running and creating a new AFA parent pupil educational programme. I'm secondary History trained and currently teach Humanities in a secondary school in Essex. I'm very much interested in SEN and inclusion and I'm interested in researching new ideas linked into our schools AFA programme.

Hi Mark The Ethiopian trip sounds very interesting. Are you going along? Also the AFA programme idea sounds a solid starting point for this module.
I'll look forward to hearing more on the next discussion and in you first submission for feedback.
All best,
Ruth