TEACHERS say pupils with learning disabilities are losing out because too many education staff lack the training or the time to support them in class.
In a survey carried out for the learning disability charity Enable Scotland, fewer than 10 per cent of teachers said they were confident a child or young person with a learning disability would get enough of their time and support.
More than three quarters of the 204 education workers taking part in the research (78 per cent) said there were not enough additional support for learning staff to support children and young people with learning disabilities in mainstream classes. This rose to 86 per cent of frontline classroom teachers.
The findings are part of Enable’s survey of pupils, parents and teachers’ experiences of mainstreaming, the policy of placing disabled pupils in regular schools wherever possible. They help explain why only 22 per cent of education workers said the policy was not working and only 3 three per cent were confident it was working for every child.
Meanwhile, 55 per cent of teachers said their initial training had not given them the skills to support children with additional learning needs, such as learning disability. Another 43 per cent said initial teacher education (ITE) could be better.
The problems are causing unhappiness among teachers, as well as families. Asked about their personal reaction to being unable to meet the needs of a child with learning disabilities in their class, 62 per cent of subject teachers said they suffered stress and anxiety, and 71 per cent said it undermined their job satisfaction. Many teachers said they needed more ongoing training to help pupils with additional support needs, but 30 per cent said there were not enough opportunities provided for such training.
Nicola, a teacher from a high school in a deprived part of Central Scotland, said: “There isn’t a teacher I know who doesn’t have problems. At my university we got the odd hour or two of training.”
She said it was important to remember classrooms could also contain children with many other support needs, including neglected young people, non-English speaking pupils and children with speech and language difficulties.
“And they are all sitting side by side. Never mind trying to provide a high quality learning experience for each individual child, there can be days in a row that go by when what you’ve planned to teach goes out the window,” she said.
The Enable Scotland report says the Scottish Government should urgently assess ITE programmes and their coverage of additional support for learning needs. New continuing professional development courses should be offered on children with a learning disability and supporting their families, and a career pathway should be established for additional support for learning teachers.
Jan Savage, executive director for external affairs at Enable Scotland, said teachers needed support but councils had cut specialist units and staff. “They have taken specialists out of the system. We need them back again,” she said.
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