SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS

Special Educational Needs

Special Educational Needs

Introduction

Over the last few years the number of families relocating to the UK with children who have learning difficulties has dramatically increased. However, it has come as something of a shock to large numbers of them, that unlike their home environment the children will not necessarily be mainstreamed - indeed that is normally far from the case. Likewise parents have decided that they will not inform the schools they are trying to enter that their child might have special needs until they are in the meetings with respective heads in the hope that it will not matter, only then to be told that the school cannot or indeed will not be able to cope with the level of need required.

One family for example placed on their application that their son needed Speech Therapy but it was not a significant need. The file on the student arrived at one of the International Schools and was an inch thick - the school felt it could not cater for the child and the parents were devastated. Eventually the young man concerned was placed in a school, which could cater for the need and prepare him for the international school at a later date - if only they had indicated that situation up front the situation would have been so different and the distress to parents and child mineralized.

In order to compare the special education needs of Middle Eastern Countries and United Kingdom, it will be better for us to analyze them separately. This will give a more thoughtful insight into the picture.

Special Education Needs of United Kingdom

At a recent national educational research conference, a contributor to a symposium on aspects of special educational needs (SEN) provision chose to open with a striking allegory (Slee, 1996). Thus, he narrated how, following the closure of the bar after the conference dinner, he had chanced upon a colleague on his hands and knees in a pool of light shed by a lamplight and scrabbling the ground in front with his fingers. 'What's the matter, Dave?' he inquired. 'I've lost my wristwatch', came the reply.

'Where did you lose it? "Over there', replied Dave pointing to the shadows to his left.'Why, then, are you searching here?” Because there's some light here', was Dave's response. The contributor's intention was to try to shift 'our research gaze away from the more politically correct inclusive education research and provision to reconsider what is happening in special school provision' (Slee, 1996). While that intention may well appear valid, what if that too is off the mark regarding an analysis of SEN? Is SEN analysis in the light or the shade?

Every school has some type of sport being played by the students. For some, sports are the only reason they do not drop out of school. However, if finances are not available then the school should focus mostly on the special education of all of its students as a whole, not just ...