PLAY AND LEARNING IN THE EARLY YEARS FOR INCLuSION

Transcription

Play and Learning in the
Early Years for Inclusion
– PLEYIn
Working collaboratively in
an international context
Wanda Baranowska, Gill McGillivray and Adela Elena Popa,
with Karen Argent, Chris Collett, Deborah Harris, Justyna Leszka,
Daniel Mara, Elena-Lucia Mara, Allison Tatton and Linda Treadwell
Play and Learning in the Early Years
for Inclusion – PLEYIn
Working collaboratively in an
international context
Wanda Baranowska, Gill McGillivray and Adela Elena Popa,
with Karen Argent, Chris Collett, Deborah Harris, Justyna Leszka, Daniel Mara,
Elena-Lucia Mara, Allison Tatton and Linda Treadwell
Cover illustration: ‘Planet Earth’ by Tudor age 7.
© 2011 Wanda Baranowska, Gill McGillivray and Adela Popa, with Karen Argent,
Chris Collett, Deborah Harris, Justyna Leszka, Daniel Mara,
Elena-Lucia Mara, Allison Tatton and Linda Treadwell
No part of this publication are to be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without permission in writing from the authors.
Published by Newman University College, Birmingham, UK.
Leonardo Lifelong Learning Programme Grant Agreement:
2009-1-GB2-LEO 044-01383
Acknowledgements
The PLEYIn project team want to thank the numerous people and organisations who
have contributed to the PLEYIn project activities in all three countries: Poland, Romania and England. Our gratitude is owed to all the participants in project seminars, and
colleagues from our respective universities and inspectorates. This includes translators, seminar facilitators, administrative staff and technical support staff. Thank you
to our children who have reminded us of the wonder of creativity in their drawings.
Finally, thank you to Graham Brotherton and PLEYIn team members for their careful
and critical reading of draft versions of the report.
The PLEYIn project team would like to thank the children, staff and families in
Poland from the following:
l Education Office in Lodz, Branch Office in Sieradz
l The Janusz Korczak Special Educational Centre in Sieradz
l The Ursuline Order’s House of Social Help in Sieradz
l Children’s House in Tomisławice
l Public Kindergarten No 4 in Sieradz “Słoneczne Przedszkole”
l The Miś Uszatek Public Kindergarten No 5 in Sieradz
l Public Kindergarten No 6 in Sieradz with Integration Sections
l Private Kindergarten of the Ursuline Nun’s in Sieradz
l Centre of the Young’s Socio therapy No2 in Łódź
l Public Nursery in Zgierz „Koziołek Matołek”
l Public Kindergarten No 12 in Zgierz “Pod Topolą”
l Special Educational Centre in Zgierz
l Private Kindergarten in Kalisz “Bursztynowy Zamek”
Romania from the following:
l School Inspectorate for Sibiu County
l County Centre for Resources and Educational Support, Sibiu
l Kindergarten no. 14, Sibiu
l Kindergarten no. 29, Sibiu
l Kindergarten and school of Sura Mica village, Sibiu County
l Kindergarten ‘Gradina Mariei’ in Sibiu, ‘Sisters of Immaculata’ Association (Genoa)
l School no. 25, Sibiu
l Community Service Centre “Prichindelul”, Sibiu
l Centre for Inclusive Education no. 1, Sibiu
l Centre for Inclusive Education no. 2, Sibiu
l UCOS (‘One child, one hope’) Foundation, Sibiu
l ‘The House of Light’ Day Care Centre for children with
mental and multiple disabilities, Sibiu
l Residence Centre ’Speranta’ for children with severe disabilities, Sibiu
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England from the following:
l Shenley Fields Children’s Centre
l Bushbury Hill Children’s Centre
l Victoria Special School
l Garretts Green Children’s Centre
l St Francis CE Primary School
l Roundabout Children’s Centre and Low Hill Nursery School
l Walsall Traveller Education Support Service
l West Midlands Consortium for Travelling Children, Schools and Families
Play and Learning in the Early Years for Inclusion – PLEYIn
Contents
Abbreviations............................................................................................. 7
What’s it all about?.................................................................................. 8
1.Introduction............................................................................................ 9
1.1 Partners and aims of the PLEYIn project..................................................... 9
1.2 Children’s rights and inclusion................................................................. 10
1.3 What about play?.................................................................................12
2.An International Context.............................................................................13
2.1 England.............................................................................................14
2.2 Romania............................................................................................15
2.3 Poland..............................................................................................17
3.Methodology............................................................................................19
3.1 Approach...........................................................................................19
3.2 Research Design...................................................................................19
3.3 Case Studies.......................................................................................20
3.4 Participants........................................................................................20
3.5 Ethical Considerations...........................................................................21
3.6 Project Management..............................................................................22
3.7 Data Analysis.......................................................................................22
4.England Findings and Analysis........................................................................25
5.Romania Findings and Analysis.......................................................................30
6.Poland Findings and Analysis.........................................................................36
7.Conclusions.............................................................................................39
What have we learned?...............................................................................41
Appendices................................................................................................43
Appendix 1 A child born in Afghanistan: Hassan’s story.The case study child for England...43
Appendix 2 A child born in Poland: Dominik’s story. The case study child for Poland........44
Appendix 3 A child born in Romania: Maria’s story. The case study child for Romania...... 45
Appendix 4 Questions for each case study.......................................................... 46
Appendix 5 Biographies for members of the PLEYIn team........................................47
Appendix 6 Principles collated from seminar data in each country............................. 51
References.................................................................................................55
5
List of Tables
Table 1.1 Timeline of PLEYin project activities.....................................................10
Table 2.1 Comparative Table of Early Years Provision for England, Poland and Romania.....13
Table 3.1 Participant numbers........................................................................20
Table 5.1 Coding scheme for analysing data in the Romanian seminars........................30
Table 5.2 Order of main codes for all the participants and subcategories.....................31
Table 6.1 Vertical analytical categories determined by analysis of the discourse
of participants in relation to inclusion...................................................36
Table 6.2 Horizontal analytical categories determined by responses to the
case study questions and their variables.................................................37
List of Figures
Figures
Figure 5.1 Levels of agencies that can intervene to address children’s needs.................32
List of Boxes
Boxes
Box 4.1 Inclusion Headlines............................................................................25
Box 4.2 Family Headlines............................................................................. 26
Box 4.3 Practitioners headlines......................................................................27
Box 4.4 Policy Headlines..............................................................................28
Box 4.5 Community Headlines........................................................................28
Box 4.6 Play Headlines.................................................................................29
Box 7.1 Statement of principles from the PLEYIn Project........................................40
6
Abbreviations
Abbreviations England
DfES Department for Education and Skills
EYFS Early Years Foundation Stage
NUC Newman University College
SEN Special Educational Needs
SEND Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UNICEF United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund
UNCRC United Nations Convention on the Rights for the Child
Abbreviations Romania
ANPFDC National Authority for the Protection of Family and Children’s Rights
CES Special Education Needs
CJRAE County Centre for Resources and Educational Support
ISJ Sibiu County Educational Inspectorate
NGO Non Government Organization
RENINCO National Network for Information and Cooperation in
Promoting Community Integration for Children
and Youngsters with Special Education Needs
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What’s it all about?
This report tells one story of the PLEYIn project. Its purpose is to share the narrative
of the research amongst those who participated in the research – it is told with
practitioners in mind. There are other stories to tell, about the challenges of
collaborative work, about the role of play in inclusion, about the impact of history
and policy on inclusion, but those stories are yet to be told. A narrative approach
is reinforced by Dey (1993:39) who says we should ‘tell a story’ of research and
‘construct an illuminating narrative’ for the reader.
The beginning of the story was a desire to know and understand more, in this case,
about play and inclusion in different countries from a children’s and human rights
perspective. By bringing people (practitioners, professionals, academics, decision
makers) together, by providing a stimulus for debate, by listening to others through
collaborative, respectful work then there is capacity and opportunity for professional
learning. This was the ambitious premise on which the PLEYIn project was founded.
The report is therefore a collective account, contributed to by all members of the
PLEYIn project team.
It became evident at the first full team meeting in November 2009 that there was
a shared commitment to the aims of the project amongst all team members. Words
in the bid document had to be translated to actions, taking us towards the goal of
a community of practitioners who, through the PLEYIn project activities, had the
opportunity to deepen their understanding of play and inclusion. One of the outcomes
from the project was to be a ‘statement of principles’ – thus a significant storyline in
this report is how the statement of principles was constructed from the data, in other
words, how the principles were grounded in what practitioners said about inclusion
and play.
This report is dedicated to all the children and practitioners who contributed in
numerous ways to the PLEYIn project.
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1. Introduction
Notions of ‘inclusion’ and ‘play’ in early years childcare and education are
contestable, uncertain and create challenges for those who work with children and
their families. In addition, it is recognised that a well qualified children’s workforce
promotes inclusive learning for children. However, variations exist in how inclusion and
play are constructed by early years practitioners within and across European countries
and beyond (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD 2006).
Such variations arise from social, cultural, political and historical landscapes specific
to each country, but each country faces common challenges in terms of sharing
professional expertise and making space for debates about ‘inclusion’ and ‘play’. The
aims of the PLEYIn project intended to create such spaces for communities of early
years practitioners with the needs of all children and their families in mind.
1.1 Partners and aims of the PLEYIn project
Four partners contributed to the formulation of the bid to the Leonardo da Vinci
Lifelong Learning Programme for Partnership funding for a two year project from
2009-2011. The partners were the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania, the
County Inspectorate for Education, Sibiu, Romania (silent partner), the College of
Humanities and Economics in Sieradz, Poland and Newman University College (NUC),
Birmingham, UK.
Other collaborative work had already been undertaken, prior to the bid negotiations,
between colleagues in the Sociology and Education Departments at the Lucian
Blaga University of Sibiu, the County Inspectorate for Education, Sibiu, and NUC.
The PLEYIn project co-ordinator had also undertaken a ‘Preparatory Visit’ to Sibiu
in October 2009 to explore project proposals. The final partner for the project, the
College of Humanities and Economics in Sieradz, was located through Leonardo LLP
partner search facilities. Email communication between partners established common
interests and shared expertise in the field of early years care and education, play and
inclusion.
The aims of the PLEYIn project were to:
l create networks of early years practitioners across partner countries sharing
vocational experiences and education opportunities
l identify and develop practice focused strategies that are play based and designed to
include all children and families within the communities where practitioners work ,
and from that, to
l establish common concepts of inclusive learning through play
l share and develop skills and expertise through training seminars
l promote the use of sustainable resources available in the communities where
practitioners are located, whether in rural or urban areas
l undertake research and dissemination activities nationally and internationally in
order to share and evaluate the partnership project.
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The project team has been successful in achieving most of these aims, but they were
ambitious. Creating networks, establishing common concepts and implementing
seminars demanded careful planning to be worthwhile for participants and the project
team had to be realistic in what it could achieve with the resources available. Table
1.1 shows the chronological order of key PLEYIn project events.
Table 1.1
Timeline of PLEYin project activities:
Month
Activity
February 2009
July 2009
September 2009
November 2009
Bid submitted to Leonardo da Vinci LLP
Partners informed of approval of bid
Official start of PLEYIn project
Launch of PLEYIn project at NUC; PLEYIn team meets for the
first time; planning for first series of seminars at NUC
First seminar series at NUC
Planning event in Sibiu, Romania, for second series of
seminars
PLEYIn website launched, www.newman.ac.uk/pleyin
Second series of seminars at ‘Lucian Blaga’ University of
Sibiu; PLEYIn Romanian website launched, https://sites.
google.com/site/seminareducatieincluziva/
Planning event in Sieradz, Poland, for third series of seminars
Third series of seminars in Sieradz, Poland
Planning and report writing for final PLEYIn project
Final PLEYIn project event at NUC; final report published
March 2010
May 2010
October 2010
November 2010
December 2010
March 2011
May 2011
July 2011
The planning events included field work in each country. The project team visited
a range of care and education settings for children and young people, some with
specific provision for children with special needs. The team met staff and were able to
develop an understanding of provision, policy and practice in the context of inclusion
and play in England, Poland and Romania. Discussions on these occasions returned to
issues of rights, both children’s and human rights, as these are fundamental in any
debate about inclusion.
1.2 Children’s rights and inclusion
Article 26 of the United Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) (1948) guarantees ‘the
right to education… directed to the full development of the human personality and
promot(ing) understanding, tolerance and friendship’ (Inclusion International 2009).
Of equal importance is the right of children not to be discriminated against, as
expressed in Article 2 of the United Convention of Rights for the Child (UNCRC)
(UN 1989). Logically therefore the implication is that all children have the
right to receive the kind of education that does not discriminate on grounds of
disability, ethnicity, religion, language, gender or capabilities and offers equality
of opportunities in terms of outcomes (United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization, UNESCO 2003).
10
The concept of human rights has evolved through advocacy for minority rights by
the United Nations (UN) in the interwar and post-war years. In response to the Nazi
persecution of minority groups during the Second World War, the call to respect
all human rights, first expressed through the UDHR in 1948, was enshrined in the
ethos of the UN. This placed an emphasis on ‘equality and human dignity and the
worth of every person’ (Smith 2010:25). The framework includes principles of equal
opportunities, dignity and self-determination, along with non-discrimination. Articles
22-27 address rights to work and a standard of living, health and well being to which
education is seen as the key (Smith 2010:317). By the end of the 20th century, mainly
due to lobbying by disabled people’s organisations, disability had become visible in
the arena of international human rights, and subsequently second and third generation
laws have placed more emphasis on the education of disabled children.
Article 23 of the UNCRC (1989) specifically addresses the right of children with
disabilities to enjoy ‘a full and decent life’ that promotes dignity, self-reliance and
active participation (Lansdowne 2009:16). Whilst not specifically referring to inclusive
education, Article 28 of the Convention states the child’s right to an education
provided on the basis of equal opportunity and Article 29 states that: ‘education must
be directed to the development of [all] children to the fullest potential.’
The development of inclusion and its position at the centre of education and social
policy worldwide derives from a common understanding that, in a world that strives
for human rights and equality, what existed previously is unacceptable. Historically,
children world-wide with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) have been
marginalized, either receiving no education at all or consigned to segregated ‘special
education’. Such segregated provision has historically been based on the ‘medical
model’ approach to disability identified by Oliver (1996) which explains children’s
needs in terms of ‘deficit’ and ‘cure’. It has, by its nature, been limiting in terms of
opportunities and outcomes, and perpetuated negative attitudes towards disability.
Continued segregation and marginalization of children with SEND will inevitably
impact on life chances and strengthen the already recognised links between disability
and poverty. The growth of the disability rights movement during the 1970s in the
United States, highlighted the right to participation of people with disabilities and
signalled a shift to what Oliver (1996) describes as ‘social model’ of disability, in which
social as much as physical environments are seen as disabling thus preventing full
participation.
The Salamanca Statement (UNESCO 1994) was a pivotal development in inclusive
education, bringing together the international political strands of disability and
education. It declared, among other things, that ‘regular schools with an inclusive
orientation are the most effective means of building an inclusive society and achieving
education for all’ (UNESCO 1994). Armstrong et al (2010:6) point out that: ‘a society
that values social justice and equal participation cannot, at the same time, justify
[segregated] special education,’ going on to describe inclusion as rhetoric that, on
principle, few would oppose. However Norwich (in Cigman 2007:71) points out that
‘..where disagreement lies is in the extent and nature of inclusion.’
11
Definitions of inclusion range from the ideological: ‘an attitude or a principle, a
means of promoting an ethos which redefines’ ‘normality’ as accepting and valuing
diversity’ (Jones 2004:13) to the pragmatic: ‘a system of education which recognises
the right of all children and young people to share a common educational environment
in which all are valued equally regardless of differences in perceived ability, gender,
class, ethnicity or learning styles’ (Armstrong 1999: 76). Definitions often describes a
process: ‘..of identifying, understanding and breaking down barriers to participation
and belonging’ (Early Childhood Forum 2003).
The European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education (EADSNE) (2009)
notes that the definition of inclusion has changed since first introduced to the
educational arena. Since the mid-1990s schools across Europe have been struggling
to respond to a more diverse student population in terms of race, culture, language
and family structure and consequently inclusion has broadened out to encompass the
inclusion of socially as well as intellectually diverse groups. Norwich (2008) highlights
disability as being just one aspect of educational vulnerability, and internationally
inclusion is becoming more about eradicating social exclusion among a range of
diverse learners including children from ethnic and social minority groups. Ainscow
(2007:5) sees the key to inclusion being about the process of ‘social learning’; valuing
and accepting difference, which then promotes a genuine ethos of equal opportunities
and encourages a problem solving approach amongst practitioners. This social model
approach challenges deficit views of difference, seeking instead creative solutions to
including children from a range of marginalised groups.
1.3 What about play?
The project intended to explore how play could be a vehicle for inclusive practice
in the three countries but, as the project developed, the emphasis shifted. It
seemed that the interrelationship between the two themes of inclusion and play
was difficult to disentangle for all involved in the project. Play is central to the way
in which the curriculum is shaped and delivered in England using the Early Years
Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory guidance (DfES, 2007) but nevertheless demanded
space and time for examination for all participants in the project across all three
countries. Therefore, consideration of ‘play’ in policy and practice is revisited in
each of the country sections in section 2. The team was conscious that inclusion was
troublesome enough let alone attempting to deconstruct play too.
Summary points
l Some aims of the PLEYIn project have been more successfully achieved than
others.
l A key aim of the project was to establish common concepts of inclusive learning
through play.
l It became apparent as the project progressed that ‘inclusion’ competed with and
dominated ‘play’.
l Issues of play and inclusion are underpinned by human and children’s rights.
l European countries have a shared history of exclusion and marginalisation of
children with special needs and minority ethnic groups amongst others.
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2. An international context
One of the aims of the PLEYIn project was to create networks of early years
practitioners across partner countries sharing vocational experiences and education
opportunities. For the project team to begin to create networks, it was essential to
share policy and structures for early years provision in each others’ countries. Table
2.1 summarises pre-school provision, inclusive provision and school starting ages in
each partner country. It demonstrates where there are common features of provision,
such as reliance on family care, and differences, such as the school starting age.
Table 2.1 Comparative Table of Early Years
Provision for England, Poland and Romania
Country
England
Poland
Pre-school provision
0-3 years: Public, voluntary, private,
independent mix including Children’s
Centres- level and mix of provision varies.
3-5 years: Public nursery schools and
nursery classes in primary schools (free)
private nurseries and independent schools.
Playgroups and other voluntary sector
provision in many areas (often only parttime).
Inclusive provision
School starting age
0-3 years: Child Development Centres;
4/ 5 years
inclusive provision encouraged in all
mainstream settings with appropriate
support; some specialist provision.
3-5 years: Inclusive provision encouraged
in all mainstream settings with
appropriate support;
some specialist provision, some
residential, other co located or working
in close partnership with local schools.
0-3 years: Public Nurseries included in
the healthcare system subsidised by local
authorities and partly paid for by parents.
3-6 years: Public nursery schools/
kindergartens and pre- primary sections of
primary schools. Independent pre- primary
settings- partly paid for by parents.
NGO pre primary settings (particularly
in urban areas), reliance on family care,
particularly for working parents.
0-3 years: No provision.
In larger cities parents have an
opportunity to use p rivate medical and
psychological services.
3-6 years: some ‘low level’ disabilities in
integrated nurseries and schools; Special
schools; Special groups ( particularly
those with medical needs) in hospitals and
sanatoriums.
6 years for ‘zero
class’ or
7 years (parents to
decide until 2012
when it will be
6 years for all
children
*Free nursery school place compulsory for all 5 year olds from September 2010
Romania
0-1 years: No provision other than
family care.
1-3 years: Public funded Nurseries
(cresa.)
3-6/7 years: Publicly funded
Kindergartens ‘gradinita’ short
schedule/ long schedule and
residential programmes designed
for those with challenging social
backgrounds; some additional
privately funded and NGO funded
provision particularly in urban
areas; reliance on family care,
particularly for working parents.
0-3 years: No formal provision
Some NGOs (very few and not in
every town) offer programmes for
children under three, but only in urban
areas. Parents can also have medical
consultations or private psychological
consultation, if they want to.
3-6/7 years
Children with moderate needs (mild
disabilities) are sometimes educated in
mainstream kindergartens, supported
by networks of specialist professionals
(particularly in urban areas). Children
with severe disabilities educated in
special kindergartens (usually privately
funded) or cared for by family.
Limited segregated provision.
6-7 years
Currently parents
decide but imminent
change in legislation
will change this.
More specific differences in terms of history, policy and legislative requirements in each
country are outlined in the following sections.
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2.1 England
Within the UK, England has a history of segregated provision for children with
disabilities that has evolved from medical and charitable institutions created during
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Prompted by international human rights
awareness, the Education Act (DES, 1970) brought children with disabilities from the
health service into education. This acknowledged for the first time that such children
can benefit from education, but a segregated system of special education continued
to develop, consistent with the medical model of disability. Progress towards a more
inclusive system was formalised by the Warnock Report (DES, 1978), which paved
the way for ‘integration’, supporting children with disabilities in mainstream schools
through individualised statements of need.
Shaped by the international human rights conventions of the 1970s & 80s (see previous
section), the concept of inclusion has been interpreted in the UK as meaning full
inclusion into mainstream. However, Lunt and Evans (2002) identify a move towards
‘responsible inclusion’ placing an emphasis on children’s rights to an appropriate
education, however that might look, and accepting that for some children mainstream
education might not be the best option. Farrell (2010:106) offers two positions,
that inclusion can be ‘a euphemism for mainstreaming, or it may be intended as
an encouragement to improving pupils’ participation in whatever setting they are
educated’.
Driven by national disability rights movements such as the British Council for Disabled
People (BCDP), and the Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education (CSIE), successive
governments have promoted policies to close segregated special schools. Policy has
been underpinned by disability legislation, the most influential of which is the Special
Needs and Disability Act (SENDA; DfES, 2001a) which makes it unlawful for schools
and settings to exclude children with special needs and disabilities without legal
justification. Increasingly the approach has followed the social model of disability,
pursuing whole school improvement. This is reflected in the government guidance
‘Removing Barriers to Achievement’ (DfES, 2004a), introduced as part of the Every
Child Matters initiative (DfES 2004b) to improve educational and social outcomes for
all children.
More recently in England there has been a growing recognition that the system is
failing to meet the needs of some children currently included in mainstream. In 2005
Mary Warnock referred to the ‘disastrous legacy’ of her 1978 report, arguing that
there are ‘limits to what can be achieved in mainstream schools, given the diversity
of children’s needs and the finite available resources’ (Warnock in Cigman 2007:xii).
Critics say that the idea of ‘full inclusion’ ignores the obvious ‘practical realities’
of disability and the rights of other children to an effective education (Hodkinson &
Vickerman 2009: 80). This has led to the growing belief that that inclusion should not
be about location, but about choice, and access to a high quality education that leads
to equal opportunities in later life, placing special schools within the definition of
inclusion as part of a ‘continuum of provision’. It is even argued that segregation
could be viewed as a form of positive discrimination for children with SEN (Low in
Cigman 2007).
14
This view has been embraced in the 2011 Green Paper, which seeks to ‘remove the bias
towards inclusion’ for children with SEND (DfE 2011) and underlines a lack of political will,
driven mainly by financial considerations, for the radical systemic overhaul that would ensure
that children with a broader range of needs are included in mainstream education. Cigman
(2007) however differentiates between presumption and assertion, advocating inclusion as the
default position, rather than the other way around. Despite the rhetoric of inclusive education
as a fundamental human right, ambivalence is evident amongst policy makers and advisors,
mainly due to lack of resources and negative attitudes.
In terms of fostering inclusion through play, Theodoru and Nind (2010) contend that active
involvement and participation in play is necessary as play is at the heart of early years
education. It allows children opportunities to encounter experiences which support their
emotional well being. However, although play has secured a role in children’s learning and
development within the EYFS (Moyles 2005), evidence suggests that the notion of ‘playcenteredness’ (Moyles 2005 xix) is variable within and across different providers (Children’s
Centres, Private Day Nurseries, Crèches, Local Authority Nurseries, Reception Classes) in
England. Whilst in some settings practice may be underpinned by the ideology of play ‘starting
from the child’ and supported by knowledgeable adults, this is not the case in all settings.
Play is often tempered by constraints such as curriculum overload, top down pressure from
managers, lack of resources and confusion around the contestable nature of play.
2.2 Romania
After the fall of the communist regime in 1989, Romania tried to move away from a traditional
social and school segregation of children with special needs and disabilities. In the communist
years, from 1945-1989, such children were either enrolled in special schools or not entitled
to formal education. For several years, Romania has been and still is undergoing significant
changes in this field.
Changes regarding inclusive education were developing against a background of reforms in
health, education and children protection fields. Since 1996, Romanian governments have
pursued various social, economic and financial changes to improve the performance of the
health and social protection system. In spite of these changes, health indicators are among
the poorest in Europe. This explains why the health sector is posing the biggest challenges
today and produces the highest dissatisfaction rates among the population. Romania has
also engaged in recent years in redesigning and reforming the childcare and child protection
system. The main emphasis was to change the priority from “institutional” to “family” care. As
well as the health and social care system, the educational system is also undergoing a dynamic
process of change and reform.
Since 1995, the most important process towards inclusion in Romania was the shift from
integrated education to inclusive education for children with special educational needs.
Inclusive education practice in Romania was initiated by two pilot projects implemented
jointly by the Ministry of Education, UNICEF and UNESCO. A significant contribution was
also made by the RENINCO network (National Network for Information and Cooperation in
Promoting Community Integration for Children and Youngsters with Special Education Needs),
an independent not-for-profit organisation which assumed many of the tasks for implementing
inclusive education in Romania. Also since 1995, a series of significant policy documents
regarding inclusive practice were published in Romania and were disseminated to the public,
15
along with legislative and administrative measures to foster inclusion. The first
Romanian law that explicitly defines inclusive education was a Government Decree in
2005. At the same time a large number of NGOs raised public awareness of inclusive
education by developing projects in the social services sector.
One of the problems of implementing inclusive education in Romania was confusing
and confused terminology even in official documents and legislative provision. Thus,
several terms were used such as: impairment, handicap, disability, integration and
special needs. They were used as synonyms and without being thoroughly defined. A
linguistic innovation was needed because in Romanian, ‘inclusiv’ is an adverb with a
precise meaning but it did not translate into the English word ‘inclusion’. A new term
‘incluziv’ was chosen for this purpose (see Vrasmas and Vrasmas 2007). Currently,
several terms are widely used in official policy documents and in practice, such as
‘special education needs’ (‘CES’ in Romanian), ‘inclusive education’, ‘integration’ and
‘strategies in inclusive education’ (Ungureanu 2000). Romanian literature in the field
acknowledges that achieving inclusion means challenging current attitudes, prejudices
and mentalities regarding children with special needs, as well as changing policy and
practice of exclusion and separation (Mara 2009).
In terms of integration, children with SEN can attend mainstream schools and can
follow the same curriculum as other children, but there are also specific rehabilitation
and intervention methods available for additional support. Two important instruments
for these children are the Individual Services Plan (ISP) and the Personalized
Intervention Plan (PIP). In this context, studying the development of children with
special needs in order to determine new educational strategies – better adjusted
to their needs and therefore more efficient – has become one of the priorities for
specialists preparing to work with these children (Vrasmas 2001).
Despite these efforts, implementing inclusive education in Romania is still progressing
slowly and facing difficulties. The most urgent challenge is to adapt and upgrade
mainstream schools in order to become a place for all children to learn, including
those with special needs. Adaptations have to be made in terms of physical layout
but also in terms of curriculum adjustment and social interaction needs. There is a
need for education and teacher training to accommodate these challenges though
additional professional development programs in this field.
An inclusive culture has to be developed in Romanian schools in order to be more
responsive to diversity. The link between school, family and community is currently a
very weak one and has to be encouraged; a community presence in school is almost
nonexistent. Measures for inclusion in education that have been taken so far are not
sufficiently articulated, indicating that there is not yet a unitary vision and coherent
approach for all levels of education and all types of learners. There is not adequate
focus on addressing the needs and reducing marginalization of some vulnerable
categories of children such as street children, Roma children, criminal offenders and
children from isolated areas.
16
Finally, it is worth returning to play at this point and its role in inclusive education
practice in Romania. Official documents (curriculum, syllabus, etc) as well as teachers
and parents recognise the value of play in early years practice, and that play is the
main activity enabling children to learn and to develop. Nevertheless, the traditional
model of play in kindergarten is a structured one: often children play at their
table, drawing or colouring, or with table games. The assumption for kindergarten
practitioners is that structured play is more valuable than unstructured play. The
layout of the classroom does not allow children to explore all types of play. Outdoor
play is also a challenge for most of the kindergartens, because they are not suitably
equipped for promoting children’s outside play.
2.3 Poland
Issues of terminology, provision, practitioner education and training recur in the
debates about play and inclusion in Poland.
Local authorities in Poland are required to provide kindergartens, healthcare units,
schools and other social support, but the quality of provision depends on the financial
status of districts (Fundowicz, 2005; Suwaj, Kijowski, 2009). Consequently, families
who live in relatively poor regions do not receive the help they need or as much as in
other areas.
In Poland there are several definitions of “social inclusion”. It is often considered to be
the opposite of “social exclusion” and translates as a process of ‘social re-adaptation’.
Literature indicates that social inclusion underlines a number of difficulties, but two
major problems appear to have an impact on other aspects of inclusion. The first is
that in Poland there is a lack of any organization or provision which has responsibility
for coordinating and monitoring children’s overall development. It is currently
devolved to individual departments, public services and institutions but their actions
are not coordinated or joined up. The second is that the system of teacher and caretaker education requires immediate changes as it is currently anachronistic and does
not consider fundamental professional values. Professional development needs to
encourage practitioners to have an open-minded attitude and to accept difference
and diversity. Currently it does not develop creativity and civil involvement, nor does
it build key competences for professional career self-planning and social-management
skills with reference to group/team teaching (Czyż, Falkowska, 2009: 5-6).
It is acknowledged that the first years of a child’s life are the optimal period for
intervention in emerging difficulties in learning. Such interventions can respond to
developmental delay or difficulties and plan for therapeutic treatment of disorders
if necessary (Okoń, 1987; Przetacznik- Gierowska, 1993; Gruszczyk- Kolczyńska,
Zielińska, 2004). Recent policy development has led to a reform of education in
Poland. The new curriculum (Ministry of Education, MEN: Core curriculum for nursery
schools and pre-school education, 2009: 23-25) focuses in particular on educating
pre-school children and young learners and emphasises the role of play as a natural
medium of education in this developmental period.
In theory children’s learning is based on their spontaneous play activities which are
stimulating for the child’s development. But despite its long history (Kabacinska, 2007)
and its vast popularity in Polish pedagogy, it is difficult to find an explicit definition
of the term ‘play’. Numerous teachers’ dissertations available on the internet
quote Huizinga (2008) and Szuman (1970). These authors claim that nursery school
teachers understand play to be every activity or action which is done for pleasure, no
matter what the final result. Play is entered into voluntarily, not by external force or
necessity (Huizinga 2008).
17
A similar approach to defining play can be found in other academic literature such as
Okoń (1987) and Przetacznik-Gierowska (1999) who claim that play is an expression of
the child’s creativity, is an indicator of their development, and, at the same time, a
measure of their level of functioning. This concurs with Klim-Klimaszewska’s (2005) idea
of nursery school pedagogy. In addition, Chauvel, Michel (1999) and Siedlaczek (2001)
discuss different typologies of children’s play. Constructions of children’s play in Poland
are more shaped by the practice of allowing play as a reward after non-play, or ‘work’
than by Rousseau’s naturalism of play (Przetacznik-Gierowska, Tyszkowa 1996).
One change as a result of the recent education reform in education is lowering the school
age to the age of 5 and financing children education. This is seen to promote children’s
educational chances, partly attributable to socialization opportunities. The process
of teacher education now requires review and development in terms of additional
knowledge about child development, inclusion and play and how to implement and apply
these in practice. Both are crucial in work with children. It is desirable that changes will
result in new constructions of children’s needs and creative opportunities for children’s
education.
Summary points
l Segregation has characterized education provision for children with special needs in
England, Poland and Romania.
l All three countries have undergone reform to move from segregation to integration
and towards inclusion.
l Terminology is confused and confusing; particularly definitions of ‘inclusion’.
l Attitudes, resources, professional development opportunities, policy and practice are
critical in promoting integration. Again, this is common to all three countries.
Children playing, by Izzie, aged 6
18
3. Methodology
3.1 Approach
The project partnership intended to create a network of early years practitioners
sharing knowledge, skills, expertise and educational opportunities regarding inclusive
education through play. One central issue of the networks created through the
partnership was to establish common concepts of inclusive learning through play.
For this reason, the main activity of the partnership was the seminars in each of
the countries involved, as a context both for exchanging ideas and knowledge and
for exploring the participants’ meanings of inclusion and play. The team decided
that seminars were both an opportunity to create networks but also to undertake
research. Therefore, the aim of the research within the seminars was to investigate
participants’ constructs of the notion of inclusion through the medium of
hypothetical and real life case studies.
To achieve this aim, an interpretive paradigm was employed (Denzin and Lincoln,
2006, Guba and Lincoln, 2006) with a focus on social constructivist, hermeneutic
approaches to data collection and methods of data analysis (Heywood and Stronach
2005). The method of data collection, that is, audio-video recording, allowed
the conversations to be scrutinised by the researchers for how ‘inclusion’ is
interpreted, understood and represented in discourse (Gillen and Peterson 2005). The
theoretical frameworks that underpin the research are located specifically within
Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) Model of Ecological Child Development; Vygotsky’s (1978)
social constructivist theories of child development and theories of reproduction,
habitus and capital (Bourdieu 1977, for example).
3.2 Research design
A complex design was chosen for the seminars. The structure for the seminars was
in two parts. The first part consisted of presentations by academic staff from each
of the partner universities, which provided an overview of inclusion and play within
their country. Longer times for presentations were allocated to guest countries within
each seminar, as local practitioners were not familiar with the policy contexts in those
countries.
The second part of the seminars consisted of group discussions stimulated by three
case studies located in each of the three partner countries. The method employed
in this second part was the focus conversation. It could be argued that a focus
group is being deployed as a specific method of data collection, but the term
‘focus conversation’ was preferred. A focus conversation acknowledges that there
is a willingness to participate in discussion of a ‘shared experience knowledge and
interest’ and also to explore statements and ideas’ (Clough and Nutbrown 2002: 78).
Participants had been informed of the aims of the project as well as the aims of the
seminars: the focus on inclusion, play and early learning had been made explicit. The
purpose of this research design was to generate qualitative data, commensurate with
the interpretive paradigm chosen.
For this second part of the seminar, participants were split at random into groups,
each to discuss the case studies. There were slight differences in the three seminars
19
regarding the number of groups for focus conversations and the number of case studies
discussed. Participants in each of the three groups in England seminar discussed only
one case study. Participants in seminar groups in Romania and Poland discussed all
three case studies. The change was made as a result of participant evaluations and
suggestions.
For research purposes, it was only the second part of the seminars that was to be
video-recorded, with participants’ prior approval and consent. Responses to the case
study questions (see Appendix 4) were also noted on a flip chart for future analysis.
In addition, evaluations from participants were sought at the end of the event. The
project team, as facilitators of the discussions, was also part of the participant group.
For the third part of the seminar, the groups came back together in order to share
conclusions and final thoughts in a plenary session.
3.3 Case Studies
The planning of the research design began months before the delivery of the first
seminar, and one of the tasks was to prepare the case studies. Romania and Poland
teams employed real life case studies (Maria and Dominik respectively).The England
team constructed the hypothetical case of Hassan, a child born in Afghanistan in order
to present a typical scenario for early years practitioners working in a large city in
England such as Birmingham. All case studies included aspects of the individual child’s
micro, meso and macro-experiences, such as interests, characteristics, family and
local provision in an early years context. All three case studies had the same four
questions for participants to respond to, aiming to provoke discussion and reflection
on a range of issues related to play and inclusive practice (see Appendix 4). Seminar
participants in all the three countries received the case studies, the questions and a
policy background describing the local context for each country prior to the event in
order to familiarize themselves with the materials.
3.4 Participants
The three country teams had some degree of freedom in deciding about specific
aspects of the research design, such as the number and type of participants invited
(see Table 3.1. As a result, a wide range of participants in terms of professional role,
responsibility, experience, expertise, social and cultural diversity received invitations
to the seminar.
Table 3.1: Participant numbers
Number of
particpants
Total
20
England
March 2010
Seminar
Seminar
1
2
35
19
Romania
November 2010
Seminar
Seminar
1
2
46
46
Poland
March 2011
Seminar
Seminar
1
2
22
39
54
92
61
In England, the research was undertaken with two different groups. Invitations
were sent to all students registered on the following degree programmes at NUC:
Post Graduate Certificate in Education, Initial Teacher Education, Early Childhood
Education and Care and Working with Children, Young People and Families. Both
full and part time students were invited. Invitations were also sent to a range of
specialists and professionals working in the early years sector, for example the
Walsall Traveller Education Support Service and local authority early years advisors.
In addition, invitations were sent to all NUC staff. The first seminar comprised of
participants who were students, most of whom had little or no experience of working
within the sector.
The second seminar comprised of more experienced practitioners. The first seminar
was held during the day in an attempt to attract as many participants as possible and
the second seminar was held during the evening for the convenience of practitioners
who had work commitments.
In Romania, the participants were early years practitioners and specialists from
kindergartens and schools, mostly women, from Sibiu city and also Sibiu County.
Overall there were 92 participants in addition to six facilitators who were academic
staff from the ‘Lucian Blaga’ University of Sibiu. The groups were different for each of
the two days of the seminar. Participants in the first seminar consisted of teachers and
managers from Sibiu County kindergartens. Participants in the second seminar were
specialists involved in inclusive practice such as psychologists, speech therapists and
support teachers.
In Poland, 20 of the participants in the first seminar were professionals with at least
ten years experience in social care institutions or primary and secondary schools as
teachers, therapists and social worker s for example. 17 were also academic lecturers
and researchers. This group is defined as More Experienced Practitioners (MEP).
Three groups of participants, 39 in total, took part in the second series of seminars.
All of them were degree students of Pedagogy. Nearly 80 % of them were practitioners
in early years education and social care with under five years professional experience.
For the purpose of the research this group is defined Less Experienced Practitioners
(LEP).
3.5 Ethical considerations
Prior to the three seminars a letter of consent had been sent to all participants,
explaining the aims and design of the research and requesting consent to audio-video
record seminar groups. This letter also informed them of their rights as participants
in research, such as the right to withdraw from the research at any time without
explanation etc. In England, ethical approval had also been sought from the NUC
Ethics Committee.
A reminder about confidentiality was also provided by discussion group seminar
facilitators at the beginning and end of each discussion group. Video footage was
only made available to the research team. The research team members had the
responsibility to ensure the safety and protection of the data files. All the reporting
activities of the research ensure anonymity and confidentiality (actual names are not
used, either of adults, children or families).
21
3.6 Project management
NUC had the responsibility to manage the project. Each country had a team involved
in implementing the project and also a project manager. The three countries shared
responsibilities, as detailed below:
NUC responsibilities included:
l initiating and maintaining regular communication between partners
l managing and updating the action plan agreed in consultation with partners and
ensuring the tasks and outcomes are congruent with the project aims and outcomes
and are on track throughout the project
l initiating, monitoring, editing written outcomes of the project
l reviewing risks to the project and responding to mitigate any threats to outcomes
being achieved
l ensuring the evaluation and dissemination process and ensuring these tasks are
completed
l implementing partnership agreements with all partners ensuring commitment to
the agreed tasks
All partners’ responsibilities:
l for lead tutors to identify a network of early years practitioners to target for
seminars in their own country
l travelling to partner countries, contribute to and participate in seminars and other
planned events and meetings
l planning with the team of lead tutors and implementing interactive, engaging
seminars for interested parties / networks
l being actively involved in dissemination activities and management process, and
providing requested reports on project progress
l hosting visits by tutors and seminars in their own country within the duration of the
project.
l supporting visiting tutors by making arrangements for field visits; sourcing
accommodation, helping with travel arrangements, providing opportunities for
cultural and social activities, facilitating meetings with colleagues working in the
early years sector to share practice and promote networking.
Each country project team will have further opportunity to evaluate actions,
responsibilities, outcomes and events as required by the National Agency in each
country, for example.
3.7 Data analysis
Following the seminars, each research team agreed a protocol for data analysis and
worked to undertake this stage of the research process. Again, specific aspects of the
research, like choosing the method of data analysis, were differently managed by the
research teams in the three countries.
In England, raw data existed in the form of audio-video recordings of the focus
conversations of participants in response to the four questions for each case study.
This resulted in three hours of audio-video recording. Three members of the PLEYIn
22
England project team met and watched the audio-video recorded data. As the audiovideo data played, they independently made notes on emerging categories from the
focus conversations, and then compared notes. Six potential common categories were
identified and agreed at this point (see next section). The second phase of the analysis
was designed to confirm, change or reject any of the six categories that had emerged
in the first phase. Each of the same three team members took the data relating to one
case study to re-examine the data carefully then select and arrange data by category
(Radnor 2002).
It is acknowledged that this process is fraught with subjectivity on behalf of the
researchers but it did confirm that the six original categories captured what
participants talked about in the focus conversations. Subjectivity arises from
variations in definitions and notions of inclusion, special schools, multi-agency
working, SEN, as they change from person to person and country to country. The
England PLEYIn team wanted to explore such subjectivities as part of the data
analysis process. Similarly, ‘social languages’ which ‘allow us to express different
socially significant identities’ (Gee 2005: 35), shape how participants constructed the
identities of the children, their families, their needs, their cultures and so on. This
process also resonates with Foucault’s discourse analysis or regimes of truth (Dahlberg
and Moss 2005: 141) whereby dominant discourses ‘come to be accepted as true’.
Discourses revealed dominant constructs around play and inclusion in the context of
each child case study in the data analysis. Data were organised as ‘headlines’ for the
six categories for the findings section in order to capture and present participants’
discourse instead of the researchers’ interpretations of it.
In Romania, the seminar delivery produced more than nine hours of audio-video data
for analysis and also written data on flipchart sheets. The audio-video data were
transcribed, resulting in a significant amount of written material. The transcribing
process respected categories such educators/specialists, countries and the case study
questions. The categories provided independent variables for comparing the data. The
main method used for analysing the data from the Romanian seminar was qualitative
content analysis (Babbie 1992; Mayring 2000; Ritchie and Lewis 2003; Pope, Ziebland
and Mays 2000), a method for inductively exploring the data in order ‘to generate
categories and explanations on social phenomena’ (Pope, Ziebland and Mays 2000).
From the many types of qualitative content analysis available, a conventional content
analysis (Hsieh and Shannon 2005) was used. The main approach is the careful
examination of data and constant comparison (Strauss and Corbin 1990). This process
consists of reading the text data repeatedly in order to compare each item with
the rest of the data and to index it to a category. Thus, a large number of themes
(or codes) emerged and an initial coding scheme was elaborated. This initial coding
scheme was continuously developed, as the rest of the codes were sorted into the
different categories and added to the coding scheme. Whenever a code was not
consistent with any of the existing categories, a new category was created. The final
result of this process was a complete coding scheme, containing all the data in their
analytical categories. As researchers moved along this process of analysing data, it
became self-evident that a summative content analysis approach was also needed
for interpreting the data (i.e. counting codes and then making comparisons between
23
categories). The summative approach in qualitative content analysis means going
beyond counting words and exploring the latent meaning of occurrences (Hsieh and
Shannon 2005).
In Poland, raw data consisted of transcriptions of six hours of audio-video recording
in addition to the notes taken during the seminars. The Poland research team used
qualitative content analysis and the same process of open coding as the Romanian
team (Babbie, 2005). More emphasis was placed on the search for ‘what’ (i.e. as a
risk factor or a protective factor) rather than the number of occurrences within the
discourse of the participants. Raw data in the Polish research, taking account of where
some concepts are subsumed into others or merge, were divided into two separate
categories: horizontal, determined by the discourse of the participants in relation
to inclusion and vertical, connected with the case study questions (risk factors and
protective factors). Moreover, sub-codes within the main codes were apparent and
indicated further variables for analysis (see Tables 6.1 and 6.2).
Similarly, the categorisation of the two groups participating in the seminar (more
experienced practitioners and less experienced practitioners, MEP and LEP, see Section
3.4) was identified as an independent variable in order to investigate whether this had
an influence on the categories.
The codes and categories facilitated a comparison of codes which emerged from the
data from each of the three countries’ seminars as presented in following sections.
Summary points
l The aim of the research within the seminars was to investigate participants’
construct of the notion of inclusion through the medium of hypothetical and real
life case studies.
l The seminars had a complex design of three sections, the second of which was
devoted to qualitative research.
l The main method of data collection was focus conversations centred around three
case studies located in each of the three countries.
l A wide range of practitioners participated in the seminars in the three countries.
l The England team’s approach to data analysis was to note the emerging themes in
the participants’ discourses regarding inclusion and play.
l The Romania team’s approach to data analysis was to apply qualitative content
analysis (conventional and summative).
l The Poland team’s approach to data analysis was also to apply qualitative content
analysis.
24
4. England Findings and Analysis
The order of presentation of findings, England,
Romania and Poland, has been decided on the basis
of chronology. As the report tells the story of the
project, so the reader can follow the sequence
and associated changes and development of the
research (see Table 1.1).
Processing of the data from focus group discussions
in England resulted in six themes or categories:
inclusion, family, practitioners, community,
Seminar in England March 2010
policy and play. Silverman (2007: 64) warns of ‘the
scattergram approach of simply quoting favourable instances’ in data analysis of
discourse but as data were sifted, sorted, coded and re-read, the risk of anecdotalism
was mitigated through repeating the process of comparison and checking for a match
of categories. Therefore, findings include direct quotes from participants presented
in boxes (Headlines) and additional discourse as a commentary to the boxes. The
team acknowledges that the discourse is often ambiguous due to a lack of context and
confirmation of meaning. Individual seminar group dynamics shaped discourse too,
such as relative contributions of quieter and more vocal practitioners and more or less
experienced practitioners, a variable pursued by the Poland team in Section 6.
Discourse related to inclusion is presented first as it was the most frequently
occurring category. Participants constructed inclusion as differentiation, as a means
of promoting consistency, a means to meet emotional needs, a way to cope with
SEN beyond the role and responsibilities of early years practitioners. They consider
inclusion to be shaped by the practices and beliefs of other professionals and parents
and to be determined by access to services. In the case of Hassan, inclusion was
conflated with English as an Additional Language (EAL).
Box 4.1: Inclusion Headlines
‘There is a need to measure behaviour; to move child away from others.’
‘SEN not the right thing for the child.’
‘Observed behaviour is the focus rather than the antecedents.’
‘They should be looking at the child’s behaviour to see if
there’s a problem, to put him in SEN.’
‘As he gets older he may miss more time from education
if there is a lack of early intervention.’
‘Teachers are resistant to change.’
‘They seem to have jumped onto the behaviour problems
rather than [looking at] the child’s background.’
25
In addition, participants noted how inclusion is challenged by labelling, stigma,
prejudice, social attitudes amongst children, families and practitioners. They
acknowledged that needs are explained by culture and life history, that difficulties
can be remedied by social inclusion in the setting, and that integration is better than
segregation.
How the case study children could be integrated into their settings arose from the
first question about risk factors and to some extent the second about protective
factors. It became evident that there was a wide variety of interpretation of the term
‘inclusion’ but there was minimum debate as to what is understood by ‘inclusion’; it
was frequently conflated with the term ‘integration’ and EAL needs. The influence of
policy underpinned the discussion about integration, for example relating to the EYFS
(DfES 2007) and the SEN Code of Practice (DfES 2001b), reinforcing the importance of
entitlements being explicit in statutory requirements.
The second most frequently occurring category was family with interesting variation in
how the children’s families in the case studies were constructed. Participants talked
about the case study families as being in need, being traumatised, being isolated,
being alienating (not alienated), being un-involved, being different, being together,
being resilient and being proud.
Box 4.2 Family Headlines
‘The family wants to be involved.’
‘Families have to seek out support to access it.’
‘Families do not have much to do with kindergartens.’
‘Practitioners should communicate with the family more and talk about what the
child is doing in the kindergarten.’
‘I think she travels on the bus, she attends the meeting for unemployed women, she
looks after the house- I think she is quite a strong woman’ about Dominik’s mother.
‘Parents’ own education [is important and their]
potential role in helping Dominik to learn…’
‘[The] child is not just alienated by agencies but by parents too….
[he is] just picking up things from his brothers and sisters at home
rather than being sat down and read to by [his]parents.’
The discourse tended to be dominated by a deficit model of ‘family’ and ‘parents’.
Protective factors written into in the case study of Hassan (see Appendix 1), such as
his bond with his sister and the willingness of his parents to contribute to the setting
were not considered to be as significant to Hassan’s integration to the setting as his
ability to speak English for example. Some participants recognised levels of resilience
within families, and how parents in the case studies were committed to supporting
their children in difficult circumstances. The variation in participants’ sensitivities
to the needs of families could be attributable to their own biography: experience,
26
training and education as well as attitudes and prejudices, as evident in Practitioners
Headlines, Box 4.3, too.
In addition, participants’ discourse noted that practitioners should be able to
differentiate, to research, to meet individual needs, to support the child holistically,
to understand the child’s life story, to understand EAL, to access other agencies and
services, to involve parents, to learn some words in home languages, to explain the
child’s background to the class but ‘not to scare them’, to establish a routine, to
undertake home visits, to be creative, to learn about the child’s culture and to be
empathetic. Participants also noted that practitioners have limited access to training.
Box 4.3 Practitioners Headlines
‘Practitioners do not have enough knowledge to manage or enough experience.’
‘Practitioners do not listen to the child.’
‘Their minds and their views need to be changed... the Early Years are the door
because this family does not have much information or knowledge ... it is not correct
to have judgmental views.’
‘But the child has no voice.’
‘[Practitioners] should provide a haven.’
‘[Practitioners] should explain the child’s background
to the class but not to scare them.’
‘[Practitioners] should explain to parents that their child’s behaviour is wrong.’
The discourse relating to practitioners suggests that participants, who are also
practitioners, set high expectations of themselves and of each other. Such
expectations could be argued to be unrealistic. They expect practitioners to be
experts in identifying the needs of all children but also individual children such as
those in the case studies. But there is a tension here between competing roles of
being ‘carer’ (providing a haven, being a nurturer), being ‘teacher’ (‘explain to
parents that the child’s behaviour is wrong’) and being ‘the early years professional’
(being reflective, being able to differentiate, being able to access agencies). Research
shows that early years practitioners in the UK struggle with competing roles and
identities due to the low status and gendered nature of early years work, a legacy of
past policies and social constructions of childcare (McGillivray 2011).
Participants’ discourse relating to policy was broad-ranging in terms of micro-,
meso- and macro-level policies. Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) Ecological Model of Human
Development is implicit in other headlines in how a child’s potential for growth and
development is shaped by family (Box 4.2) and community (Box 4.5) at the micro- and
meso-level. In Box 4.4, the impact on inclusion of policy is articulated by participants
as connections are made between government policy and inclusion in practice, ie,
macro-levels of influence. Some participants understood tensions between policy
and practice, and how ‘regimes of truth’ Foucault, in Dahlberg and Moss 2005)
are dominant in education to the extent that policy places focus on assessment
bureaucracy for example rather than the child in need.
27
Participants’ discourse around policy and the case study children noted how the SEN
Code of Practice was being implemented too hastily, but another participant felt it
was too slow. They talked about policy changes being too frequent, being too tightly
bound with national economy, being shaped by ideologies and national imperatives
(such as Health and Safety). They voiced a need for joined up services at a local
level, for key workers, for settling in policies (for child’s and parents’ benefit), for
signposting to services and specialist parent workshops.
Box 4.4 Policy Headlines
‘Look at the child, not the policy.’
‘Has to be top down.’
‘He played on the streets in devastated buildings.’
‘The old lady who often looked after him probably didn’t have any qualifications.’
‘What would happen to her (the child) after 18? Who would look after her?’
Researcher / tutor’s reply, ‘Well, this is a big problem. There is no caring [sic] for
children after 18 in Romania.’
‘Policy depends on what Government [party] is in power.’
The discourse about community was contradictory however; it placed obligations on
communities and was characterised by negative constructions of community. Discourse
suggests participants struggle to define ‘community’ and that they are uncertain about
the interface between children, families, early years settings and ‘communities’.
Participants noted that, for the case study children, community support is available
but also that the community erects barriers through racist attitudes and language and
that it is prejudiced against disability.
Box 4.5 Community Headlines
‘Co operatives [would help] - whereby the community helps themselves.‘
‘The community needs to be involved [with the children’s centre];
there should be images of the community so the child can see and develop his
understanding of people in the community.’
‘The child may be isolated in the school and the community
through language barriers.’
‘Racism in the community will cause him not to be a happy child.’
‘The community is diverse.’
‘The community is not diverse.’
Play was the least frequently occurring category aspect of the case studies, even
though they were designed to ‘flag’ its potential in supporting the needs of the
children in the case studies.
28
Box 4.6 Play Headlines
‘Creative activities can engage individual children.’
‘Play can channel frustrations.’
‘Children use play to express himself.’
‘Safe violent release play or rough and tumble play can be helpful.’
‘Play can be a type of therapy.’
‘Parents may not value play.’
‘Early Years education is about learning through play.’
‘Parents may need to be taught how to play with children.’
There are potential explanations for this: play is complex in itself, so is avoided when
there are other distractions in the case studies to focus on. Alternatively, the value
of play and its therapeutic properties are under-emphasised in all three countries; or
participants were not confident in exploring play-based activities and learning as a
means to overcome exclusion. Finally, facilitators may not have steered the discussion
to consider play as a means of including the children. Whichever it is, the team needs
to explore it.
A social constructionist paradigm recognises political, cultural, historical influences.
What is seen in one context as a ‘social problem’ may also be seen as a social problem
in another (poverty, behaviour, EAL, culture) but there are nuances and perspectives
that can be aligned to moralistic discourses, social justice discourses and / or social
integrationist discourses (Levitas 2005).
Summary points
l Data from seminars in England resulted in six categories: inclusion, family,
practitioners, community, policy and play, in descending order of frequency of
occurrence.
l Discourse suggests that participants are concerned about how to support children
and families, but that there are tensions created by policy imperatives relating to
SEN.
l Discourse was ambiguous and contradictory. This can be attributed to variability in
participants’ experience, expertise, professional and personal ideologies.
l Inclusion is often conflated with integration and needs arising from children with
EAL, for example.
l Participants had high expectations of practitioners as experts; competing roles
were implicit.
l Play featured least in the discourse.
29
5.Romania Findings and Analysis
Data coding was descriptive and thematic as described previously. Attention was given
to negative cases – situations when ideas shared between participants seemed to be
different to the majority of views expressed (Bowling, Ebrahim, 2005: 525). The final
coding scheme can be seen in Table 5.1. Ten main codes emerged from the Romanian
seminars: family, child, practitioners, community, education, inclusive education,
interventions, resources, play and collaboration/network.
Table 5.1: Coding scheme for analysing data in the
Romanian seminars
Codes
Code definition
Family References to the whole family or just to the
parents.
Practitioners References to the practitioners (teachers and
specialists) dealing with the child.
Community References to the community (or part of
community) in which family lives.
Example
‘involvement and support from Hassan’s
family’
‘instability of family environment’
‘education level of parents’
‘the fact that parents are accepting of
the child’s situation’
‘educators’ volunteering’
‘medical training for educators’
‘the lack of specialists (speech therapist,
psychologist, counsellor)’
‘poor neighbourhood’
‘the neighbour taking care of the child’
‘more involvement from the community’
‘law in this field should be improved’
(level 3)
‘the child is following a recovery
programme’ (level 1)
‘involving local authorities’ (level 2)
Interventions References to the interventions used (or that
should be used) in dealing with the child.
Three types of interventions emerged:
1. Level 1 - interventions from the family and
practitioners
Level 2 - Interventions from 2. community,
associations, NGOs
3. Level 3 – statutory interventions
‘more financial aid for this child’
Resources References to the financial (material) and
educational resources used in dealing with the ‘high number of children in the
child.
classroom’
‘insufficient space in the classroom’
ld’
Child References to the child in the case study.
‘encouraging Maria’s inherent skills’
‘Maria’s emotional deprivation’
Education References to education in general: activities lack of social and educational integration
(also extracurricular), practices, curriculum.
of Dominik’
‘treating the SEN children equally’
‘well organised inclusive education in UK’
Inclusive References to inclusive education: activities, ‘lack of social and educational
education practices, curriculum.
integration of Dominik’
Play References to play (settings, resources
‘play adapted to the child’s needs’
related to play, play activities).
‘ecological vision on play’
‘play suffocated by rules’
Collaboration/ References to collaboration or participation in ‘network of parents for helping them
network networks of all those involved in dealing with being informed about SEN children’
the child.
‘sharing responsibility between all those
involved’
30
It was evident in the analysis that codes varied in their number of occurrences and that
participants had preferred themes for discussion. We thus considered that a summative
approach was appropriate to understand participants’ preferred themes. The summative
approach in qualitative content analysis aims to explore the latent meaning of codes
occurrences (Hsieh and Shannon 2005). It was decided to use only the verbal content
of the seminars and to explore data with reference to three independent variables to
facilitate comparison:
1.The role of the participant as either early years teachers or specialists (speech
therapists, psychologist and support teachers). We will use ‘teachers’ and ‘specialists’
to differentiate between these two categories.
2.The three countries (England, Romania, Poland).
3.The four case study questions (see Appendix 4).
Table 5.2 shows the main codes in descending order by the number of occurrences and
also the rank each code received for the two categories of participants in the study (early
years teachers and specialists).
Several interesting conclusions can be drawn from the data presented in Table 5.2.
The ‘Family’ code is the most frequently used and is distanced from the second code
(Interventions) and the third one (Practitioners). Teachers in the study make more
references to family than the specialists and think more of their actions should be related
to family. For both categories family is mentioned more in response to the first question
of the case study (ie., concerns about the child and his situation) than the others. Most of
the utterances in this code acknowledge the difficulties that families face in their efforts
to meet their children’s needs, for example ‘I think the real problem here is the lack
of affection from the mother and the fact that she does not show emotional closeness’
(teacher, first day of seminar).
Table 5.2. Order of main codes for all the
participants and subcategories
Codes
Code occurrences
Rank
1
2
Order of codes
for teachers
Family
Interventions
Order of codes
for specialists
Interventions
Family
Family
Interventions
99
72
Practitioners
Child
Inclusive education
Education
46
33
32
25
3
4
5
6
Practitioners
Inclusive education
Community
Child
24
19
12
7
8
9
Resources
Education
Collaboration/
network
Practitioners
Child
Education
Inclusive
education
Resources
Community
Collaboration/
network
Community
Resources
Collaboration/
network
equal to Play
Play
7
10
Play
31
The second most frequently occurring code is ‘Interventions’. Participants in the
seminar frequently referred to who can/must have an active role in addressing the
child’s needs and in what way. They mentioned distinctively three types of agencies
that can or should intervene, as can be seen in Figure 5.1. One example of a level 1
intervention is captured in this comment: ‘In my opinion, teachers working with this
child have the responsibility to talk to other parents of children in the setting to raise
their awareness of this child’s needs’ (teacher). The overall interventions mentioned
are level 2 interventions (that either were already implemented or should be
implemented in the future): by NGOs, church, local authorities, neighbours, medical
institutions, etc. The specialists involved in the seminar made more references
to interventions than the teachers, and they referred much more to level 1 and 3
interventions, which are interventions made by the family and practitioners, and also
by the state.
Figure 5.1. Levels of agencies that can intervene
to address children’s needs.
LEVEL 3
LEVEL 3 = Interventions from the state
LEVEL 2
LEVEL 2 = Interventions from local community (NGOs,
LEVEL 1
church, local authorities, neighbours,
medical institutions,etc
LEVEL 1 = Family and practitioners working with child
For the third code, ‘Practitioners’, specialists and teachers make an almost equal
number of references and most of these are related to the third and fourth questions
of the case study. As expected, a difference was evident regarding the number of
occurrences for this code in relation to the country, in the sense that there were
fewer references to practitioners in the England and Poland data and much more for
the Romanian data. Reviewing all utterances here revealed some critical points for
reflection. First, the overall picture drawn by Romanian practitioners (teachers and
specialists) about themselves emphasises their emotional involvement in working with
the child. The emotional bond with the child is considered an essential quality of any
practitioner and necessary to help the child.
Second, another significant aspect was how practitioners’ privileged family status
more than age and experience. Thus, some participants placed less value on
experience in working with young children and more on young people being better
suited for the job as they can emotionally bond more easily with the child. The idea
that, if practitioners have children of their own, they can respond better to other
children’s needs was also expressed by some participants. This was mentioned in
relation to Maria and her foster mother: ‘Difficulties that Maria’s foster mother has in
dealing with her can in part be explained, I think, by the fact that the mother doesn’t
32
Seminar in Romania November 2010
have her own children and this is not a real family. I would suggest that Maria should
be transferred to a real family, with children’.
Third, a need for more opportunities for training and ongoing development of
practitioners was acknowledged and expressed by the participants. ‘Only with proper
training in pedagogy and in medical and psychological fields can we support those
working with children like Maria and manage such cases effectively’ (specialist).
The reason we chose to identify a fourth code separately as the ‘Child’ and not within
the ‘Family’ code, was its visibility in the participants’ discourse. The specialists made
references to this category much more: the ‘child’ category ranks the fourth for the
specialists and the sixth for the teachers. Many of the sub-codes mentioned here were
either psychological characteristics (like sociability or tendency to aggressiveness) or
physical features (like health status) of the three children in the case studies. Many
of practitioners involved in case studies discussions also stressed the potential of all
three children for development and the fact that this should be valued most.
The next two codes could also have been considered together as one category, but we
decided to assess them independently because of the need to understand the views
and constructs of inclusion and inclusive education: the aim of the research. The
summative handling of data indicates that the ‘inclusive education’ code apparently
has a more important place in the teachers’ discourse than in the specialists’ one.
References to inclusive education are made mostly for the Romanian case study
(probably because participants had more detailed knowledge about the inclusive
education system in Romania). The fewest references to inclusion related to the
Poland case study. There was much discussion here regarding what practitioners
could and should do for children with SEN. As negative points they mentioned
the discontinuity of the assessment process of children with SEN; the financial
obstacles which impede the deployment of more specialists; the fact that only
children with mild disabilities are included and delays in integrating children with
SEN in kindergarten and school. ‘Going to special school means the efforts made in
kindergarten for including Maria are negated and therefore it is regressive for her’
(teacher).
33
In the sixth category, teachers made fewer references to ‘Education’ than the
specialists. Generally references were made to curriculum, educational environment,
teaching activities and extracurricular activities that can enhance the potential
of children. It is noteworthy that discourse regarding ‘Inclusive education’ and
‘Education’ codes, compared with utterances in the ‘Family’ or ‘Practitioners’
codes, was expressed in a language shaped by pedagogical theory such as ‘curricular
adaptation’, ‘educational environment’, ‘diversity of educational offer’, ‘valuing the
potential of children with SEN’, etc. In other codes a less professional discourse was
evident, especially when talking about practitioners’ work difficulties or relation with
the families.
As for ‘Family’, community seems to closer to the teachers than the specialists,
maybe because they interact more with families and people from the local community,
while the specialists’ work is more focused on the child. The most frequent idea here
was ‘people from community should engage in helping the efforts of practitioners’,
but other various issues were also mentioned: community integration, tolerance/
discrimination from community, the role of the community church.
The last three codes, ‘Resources’, ‘Collaboration/network’ and ‘Play’ had the fewest
occurrences and they ranked almost the same for teachers and specialists. In the
‘Resource’ code we put together all contributions regarding either educational
or financial resources (intervention tools, methods, toys, money). There were
more references to financial resources and less to educational resources. Here the
participants’ accounts mentioned equipment in day care centres, lack or insufficient
financial resources (or the need to supplement these resources), teaching resources
and payment for education. Regarding the ‘Collaboration/network’ code, many
practitioners talked about collaboration as a necessity and a tool for achieving
inclusion. They talked about how collaboration between institutions and agencies
involved in the inclusion process should be mandatory and stipulated in official
documents (like education law) and protocols.
Participants noted there is no real communication between institutions or between
specialists working within them. They also suggested that a unique assessment form
which included relevant information about the child from birth would be a real
help for their work. The following testimony is significant in this context: ‘I have
worked with children with special needs about whom I knew nothing. They had a
disability certificate and a very brief assessment from the commission that issued
the certificate…and nothing else. I had to do a personal assessment of the child
all over again. Then I made a phone call to all the prior institutions the child had
attended to gather more information about him. But only because I wanted to, this
is not a mandatory requirement of my job.’ The participants gave much attention to
collaboration, but few of them conceptualised their ideas in terms of network. The
participants talked about the network of parents, or the support network surrounding
the child, but not in the sense of a formal network.
Quantitatively, it seems that play is not an essential issue in relation to inclusion for
the participants in the Romanian seminar. Only seven accounts in the two days of
seminars referred explicitly to play. However, interesting issues were raised in this
respect for practitioners in Romania. Practitioners invoked the ‘organised nature of
34
play’ in Romanian kindergartens or even that play is ‘suffocated by rules’. Accounts
of play varied by country, by case study and video material; they were conducive to
different types of discourse. Thus, for Poland the participants talked about ‘street
play’; for England they acknowledged that ‘play was well adapted to the child’s
needs’ and also that in England, compared to Romania, play is seen as more important
and beneficial for inclusion.
Summary points
l Ten main codes emerged from the Romanian seminars: family, interventions,
practitioners, child, inclusive education, education, community, resources,
collaboration/network and play.
l There were different rank orders for teachers and for specialists in each of these
ten codes.
l Different discourses were used by participants when addressing different themes of
the case studies.
l More theoretical and professional language was evident in the debate within the
education and inclusive education themes than for other themes.
l There was no recognition of benefits brought about by collaborative work within
formal local networks of practitioners and parents for facilitating inclusion.
l Similarly, there were no references to communities of practice among practitioners
working in the field of inclusion.
l Play does not feature in discussion about inclusion.
‘Me’ by Mara age 4
35
6. Poland Findings and Analysis
The process for analyzing the data from the Poland seminars was explained in section
3.7.Tables 6.1 and 6.2 show the research categories and variables that emerged from this
process.
Table 6.1. Vertical analytical categories determined by
analysis of the discourse of participants in relation to inclusion
Variables and their variants
Category:
Family
Support
Changes required
Family members:
- mother
- father
- child/children
Persons
- close family
- neighbours
-professionals
Level of knowledge and competences of:
- practitioners
- parents
- children
- other social groups
Strengths observed
Institutions
within the family:
- educational
- relationships between
- offering help
family members
- behaviours of family
members
- feelings
- family members’ attitude to the outside world
Law
- social
- local
- educational
Family life contexts:
- social and cultural environment of the family
life
- life perspectives (aspirations, aims)
Structure of social inclusion
help/support
-interdisciplinary/multi-professional networks
Tools
- algorithms of
interventions
- finances
- education
- knowledge
Table 6.1 shows data organized into in three vertical categories: family, support and
changes required. The analysis of participants’ discourse connected to ‘inclusion’
determined the variables in each of these three categories: family members, strengths
within the family, family life contexts etc. It is significant to note that practitioners
identified change as being important for inclusion, specifically in terms of
practitioners’ skills, knowledge and understanding; legislative change and structures
for inclusion. These categories inevitably overlap with those identified in Table 6.2,
which were determined by participants’ responses to the case study questions (see
Appendix 4) specifically.
36
Seminar in Poland March 2011
Table 6.2. Horizontal analytical categories determined by
responses to the case study questions and their variables
Category
Variables and their variants
Dichotomy of
variable level:
Family:
- history
- employment of parents
- level of parents’ education
Strengths observed within the
family:
- relationships between family
members
-behaviours of family members
- feelings
- family members’ attitude to
the outside world
Persons
- close family
- neighbours
-professionals
Institutions
- educational
- offering
Level of knowledge and
competences of:
- practitioners
- parents
- children
- other social groups
Law
- social
- local
- educational
Practitioners’
duties
Diagnosis of:
- child’s needs
- family needs
- risk factors
- protective factors
To build plan of actions:
- providing the needs
- supporting individual development of a child
- strengthening protecting
factors
- weakening risk factors
To set frames for
cooperation between:
- educators and parents
- professionals (network)
Broader
implications
Development on the basis
of achievement of various
science:
- healthcare system
- system of education
towards responding to child’s
developmental needs
- social regulations (pro-social
campaigns)
To build up practitioners’
knowledge about:
- social group dynamics
- the nature of tolerance
- tools of social inclusion of
a child
To train practitioners’ interpersonal
competencies
To increase practitioners’
level of social
competencies
Risk factors
or
Protective
factors
Table 6.2 also shows that the most significant risk factors in the Poland data were
related to ‘family’. This can be attributed to overlap within the data and / or the
significance of family for inclusion and to contribute to risk and protective factors.
Participants talked about paternal absence, parental health such as addiction and
illness, features of the child such as illness or disorder, the child’s level of social
functioning, features of the child’s neighbourhood such as poverty and isolation, the
child’s traumatic biography as being significant risk factors. The lack of coordination
of actions taken by statutory agencies and organisations as a risk factor engendered
very lively discussion among MEPs particularly.
37
Thus the data did not reveal new risk factors or categories for social exclusion but
they reinforced the importance of ‘social environments integration and cooperation’.
Protective factors are in general dichotomous with reference to the risk factors and
so they similarly concern ‘family’ as the most significant category. Participants noted
particular parental attitudes such as being involved in their children’s activities,
developing strong emotional relationships and being open-minded and features of the
child such as their health or level of social functioning. They also noted features of
the neighbourhood (proximity to big cities, access to medical and welfare services)
and the provision of adequate tools to support the child’s development (education,
integration, eating habits, health care) as essential protective factors.
The categories underlined the importance of professional competencies, the ability
of practitioners to identify the needs of children and families, to coordinate actions
and to gain relevant qualifications and competences. Discourse suggests that the
most significant implications for inclusion are to build protective factors and to
neutralize risk factors. However, the data did not determine play as a tool for
children’s inclusion. Play does not appear as a category or as a variable in the analytic
categories.
No significant differences were noticed between LEPs and MEPs perception of child’s
case studies although MEPs acknowledged the importance of formal legislative and
financial aspects on inclusion. In this respect participants look forward to essential
changes in Poland. LEPs, on the other hand, focussed on the development of their
skills and on increasing their level of knowledge and understanding of children’s
needs, growth and development. Both groups of participants unanimously postulated
the creation of specialist networks which can work together for children’s inclusion.
Summary points
l The search for single risk and protective factors did not bring any significant
findings in Polish research and concur with previous research (Rutter, 1987;
Ostaszewski, 2003).
l However, findings from Poland confirm the multifaceted, complex nature of the
risks and chances a child has for inclusion.
l Findings also confirm the legitimacy for creating networks of professionals to
cooperate together.
l The absence of play being perceived as a tool for inclusion calls for further research
into play and its role in children’s socialization, education and inclusion.
38
7.Conclusions
The PLEYIN project team agreed that any synthesis of findings from each country
should capture each country’s distinctiveness – we were not seeking homogeneity or
comparison. However, on examination of the findings from the three countries, there
are several points for reflection. First, the methods for data analysis evolved with
each seminar series, determined by the expectation, or not, within the academy
for each country that quantitative data analysis would feature in the research.
Second, there were common threads within all data, such as recognition of the value
of professional networks, the potential of the neighbourhood to provide support,
the need for early intervention and effective communication between everyone
concerned with the child, the lack of reference to play and the need for additional
professional development. Third, data from Romania and Poland both indicated the
need for legislative support for inclusion whereas data from England and Romania
both emphasised the nurturing, maternalistic discourses of early years education.
What we have learned from the project is outlined in the following section, but in
terms of synthesising data, the PLEYIn project outcome of a ‘statement of principles’
provided the opportunity for the team to undertake such a synthesis in a way that was
grounded in the discourse of the research participants and unadulterated by those
undertaking the data analysis. It is a summative outcome of the research process.
The statement of principles was constructed through a re-examination the data from
each country using a similar process to how data were processed from the seminars.
This required repeated reading of all the seminar data to elicit and compare
factors related to inclusion founded in each country. Each factor was compared
with the rest of the data and indexed to a category – these became the basis for a
‘principle’. Whenever a factor was not consistent with any of the existing categories,
a new factor, or principle, was created. The result of this stage of the process was
a statement of principles for each country. These were collated into a table of
principles for all three countries, presented in Appendix 6.
Therefore the final statement of principles (Box 7.1) was constructed from the
categories of network, diversity, family partnership, play, skills, knowledge and
understanding, advocacy, continuity, policy, early intervention and involvement in
community.
‘The playground
of joyfulness’
by Jake age 7.
39
Box 7.1 Statement of Principles from the PLEYIn Project
Inclusion is best supported when there are strong connections between practitioners,
specialists, families and agencies. This acknowledges shared responsibility, and that
these work in an integrated way to co ordinate activity in the interests of the child
and family.
Inclusive practice recognises that diversity of culture, language, religious belief, social
class and ethnic origin provide a positive resource that should promote the wellbeing
of all children and families.
Mutually respectful partnership with families is fundamental and that this is
underpinned by the need for well developed professional skills to enable respectful,
flexible and appropriate interventions that are sensitive to individual family
circumstances and promote inclusion
Play should be a key tool for inclusion in the early years, especially for children with
special educational needs. Practitioners should understand the value and potential of
the pedagogy of play and that education and training focus on developing knowledge
and understanding of play for inclusion.
All those involved in working with children and families are committed to continuing
professional development, reflective practice and have a sound understanding of the
factors that frame and shape their practice.
Practitioners have a key role in challenging stereotypes and prejudices and should
promote the rights of the child and the family in the setting and beyond.
Intervention and support, to be effective, requires continuity of provision, monitoring
and evaluation to allow for future provision to continue to support inclusion.
Organisations should be proactive in seeking to influence policy makers to sustain and
promote inclusive practices
Intervention for inclusion should begin as soon as possible.
Extra-curricular and community based activities are an essential tool for the inclusion.
40
In addition to presenting the Statement of Principles from the PLEYIn Project, the
conclusion is an opportunity to reflect on how well we have achieved the aims of
the project (see Section 1). The project aims were ambitious; it has already been
acknowledged how the complexity of ‘inclusion’ alone dominated the project
activities let alone grappling with ‘play’. Therefore, the aim of establishing common
concepts of play and to promote the use of sustainable play resources proved
unrealistic and needs to be pursued beyond the scope of the PLEYIn project.
The creation of networks of practitioners within the partner countries has taken place,
and the establishment of the PLEYIN project team as a network across countries is
an achievement we are proud of. The seminars were well received and dissemination
events are ongoing at the time of writing this report.
As the project draws to a close, it is important to offer some final reflections, as
presented in the next section, from members of the PLEYIn team in terms of what we
have learned from the project and from the research.
What have we learned?
We - the PLEYIn project team - think there is more work to be done about what both
‘inclusion’ and ‘play’ mean for practitioners, educators and researchers. We learned
that multiple definitions of play and inclusion already exist and that these potentially
add to confusion and uncertainty. The project has confirmed the need to tease out
what is understood by key terms such as educational inclusion and integration, social
inclusion and social exclusion. We learned about what is important to practitioners
and what their priorities are. We learned that children’s and human rights provide a
shared foundation for understanding inclusion but that the medical model of disability
can sometimes obscure policy and practice. We have come to appreciate that play
is a tricky concept and has yet to be unravelled. This is possibly the most significant
‘treasure’ from our work, that is, to explore the potential of play as a tool for
inclusion.
We learned there are challenges in international collaboration from linguistic
differences and from competing demands of day to day work commitments on team
members’ time. Also we learned that there are significant benefits of working with
others from different professions and different policy contexts. As a project team,
we learned about how history and policy shapes professional ways of thinking and
ways of doing our work. We have developed professional communication skills through
interacting with colleagues in other countries and acquiring and / or extending foreign
language abilities.
41
In all countries considerable progress has been made in recent years regarding
inclusive education, but challenges remain. A community of practice, consisting of
professionals within one field of work, allows opportunities to by share knowledge
and expertise through regular interaction and collaboration (Wenger, McDermott and
Snyder 2002). Such communities of practice exist in all three countries, but most
of these groups are small, composed of similar practitioners (i.e. only teachers)
and organised within the boundaries of the institutional setting or professional
organisations. Thus, the opportunity to really communicate between all those
involved in the inclusion process is largely absent. Participants did not explicitly
acknowledge in their discourse the need for a community of practice in their field,
or the need to be part of a formal network, but participants in Romania and Poland
indirectly mentioned the advantages of such a community. Also, many participant
evaluations written after the Romanian seminar delivery stated that the seminar filled
an emptiness in their practice and they expressed the wish to be part of more similar
events, where they can interact with their colleagues.
We learned about how the project provided the opportunity for participants in each
locality to meet and discuss themes related to inclusion and to strengthen the links
between them. Talking about the difficulties in their practice or sharing examples
of good practice were ways of raising their awareness of what a formal professional
network or a stronger community of practice could achieve for them. They embraced
every opportunity to learn a little more about examples of good practice, resources
and strategies used in other countries. Again, this aspect of the project directs
us as to what can be done in future work in our respective countries as well as
collaboratively.
Finally, in respect of future work to support ongoing professional development with
early years practitioners within and across Europe, Mohamed (2006:145) offers a
constructive point for reflection,
In this way an attempt can be made to move beyond a simplistic view of children
as innocent and harmless, towards discussion to address issues of race, class,
disability, ethnicity and gender.
42
Appendix 1
A CHILD BORN IN AFGHANISTAN: HASSAN’S STORY
By Karen Argent and Gill McGillivray
Hassan is four years old. He lives with his parents and younger sister aged eighteen
months in one room in private rented accommodation in a suburb on the outskirts of
Birmingham. There is a possibility that they may move to another area in the city in
the near future. They arrived in England a year ago as asylum seekers from Babaji in
Afghanistan. Both parents are well qualified, experienced teachers. The family was
initially refused leave to remain in the UK but with help from the Refugee Council,
they are pursuing an appeal and hope to achieve refugee status.
The family fled conflict in their home town where they experienced persecution and
violence. Some of their family had already been killed and others had disappeared.
The region had suffered bombing for a several months and most of the infrastructure
had been destroyed.
Hassan has been attending a local nursery school for four months within a well
established Children’s Centre (CC). The setting has a parent partnership policy and
values the relationship with all parents. There are no other children from an Afghan
background. He speaks fluent Pushtu and his parents have communicated via a
translator that he has very good use of his home language and is developing well.
They have explained to early years practitioners in the nursery that he relates well
to his sister. His parents use picture books and activities that they are able to borrow
from the CC toy library. Both parents would like to become volunteers in the setting
and are awaiting the outcome of a Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check.
Hassan enjoys creative activities but finds other parts of the routine and curriculum
very challenging. He refuses to participate in group activities and prefers solitary
play. He can be very disruptive and sometimes violent towards his peers. Staff are
concerned that he may therefore have emerging behavioural difficulties and, in
consultation with Hassan’s parents, staff are now initiating the process of the Early
Years Action stage of the SEN Code of Practice in order to address his individual needs.
Recently the family has experienced several racist comments from the local
community and there is an active British National Party presence in the area.
43
Appendix 2
A CHILD BORN IN POLAND: DOMINIK’S STORY
By Wanda Baranowska and Justyna Leszka
Dominik is the youngest of four children in this family. Dominik’s sister is 8 years old.
Her name is Agnieszka. She has special educational needs and attends a special school.
Agnieszka has some mobility difficulties so her mother travels to school with her. They
travel by public transport and have to take two buses to get there, and two buses back.
When the weather conditions are bad, Agnieszka doesn’t go to school. Dominik’s other
siblings are twins. They are 6 years old and they started to attend the nearest public school
last September. Dominik stays at home because his parents are not able to pay for nursery
education.
Dominik’s parents each have secondary education qualifications. His father worked as a
worker in a textile factory, which was closed down. Since then he hasn’t found permanent
work. He takes up some physical casual jobs, which are illegal with no registration and
without benefits. He has no rights to unemployment benefit. He also has had alcohol
problems since he lost his job. Dominik’s mother worked as kitchen assistant in a nursery,
which was privatized and she lost her job because of staff redundancies. Then she worked
as a cleaner in a public hospital, where she was also made redundant. She has rights to
unemployment benefit. Dominik’s mother attends meetings for unemployed women but
this has not yet helped her to get a job. When she goes to school with Agnieszka, she
takes Dominik with her or he stays at home with their neighbor, an elderly lady. The family
income comes from the mother’s unemployment benefit, the benefit for a disabled child,
some welfare benefits, and other profits from Dominik’s father’s casual work. Dominik’s
siblings have lunch provided, as do all children who go to school. This is financed by the
social welfare system. Dominik and his parents are provided with free meals from Caritas
(a charity organization supporting poor people run by the church). Dominik is often ill.
He is susceptible to infections of the upper respiratory tract. He is smaller and thinner
than his peers. He has a speech defect and occlusive abnormality. However, he isn’t under
the control of a specialist. Local children in Dominik’s neighbourhood have access to a
local day-care room after lessons (for 3-4 hours per day). This place is situated near the
church and it is the best place for children to learn and play together. They do not have
conditions to do this at home which is why they spend so much time there. What is more,
they get some help to do the homework, and they also have a hot meal. This provision
is free of charge, but the conditions and quality are not as good as they should be. The
environmental day-care room takes care of children with a variety of educational, social
and emotional needs. There is only one person to take care of those children each session.
There are also students, who work as volunteers.
Dominik’s mother struggles with staying at home and not working; in fact she is on the
verge of depression. Her husband doesn’t help her run the house. Because of the difficulties
they are facing, Dominik’s parents focus on current daily problems such as housing, heating
and feeding and clothing their children. They live day by day and have difficulty planning
for their and their children’s future.
44
The family lives in an old industrial part of an average size city. The district is known as a
very poor and quite dangerous part of the city. Children often play on the streets or among
devastated buildings. This is a typical family for this part of the city.
Appendix 3
A CHILD BORN IN ROMANIA: MARIA’S STORY
By Daniel Mara, Lucia Mara and Adela Popa
Maria was born in Medias, Sibiu County, on March, 2003. Her mother, Claudia, had a
normal pregnancy and delivery. There are not many things known about her family,
because at present, Maria is raised by a foster mother named Marilena. She is now
living in Sibiu, and has no relationship with her biological mother. Marilena, raises
Maria by herself (she is not married), in a climate characterized by rigidity and a well
defined system of rules. Marilena’s financial situation is satisfactory and she receives
monthly a payment for caring after Maria. The psychologist that sees Maria considers
that the level of her integration in the foster family is average.
Maria was diagnosed in early childhood with epilepsy, hyperkinetic disorder, and
mild mental retardation (the WISC-R test shows that her mental age is five). She has
medical treatment for her epilepsy –as well as vitamins. Once a year, Maria goes at
the Neuropsychiatry Department of Children’s Hospital for a psychological evaluation
and other tests (EEG, blood tests). Every year she has been reassessed, a disability
certificate has been issued.
Maria goes to a regular kindergarten in Sibiu, in a school-preparatory class. Maria came
to this kindergarten when she was two years and eight months old, and according to
her foster mother, she was pretty much “a wild child”, but now is a quiet girl. Her
group is formed of 24 children and most of them will go to school this September.
Her two teachers try to differentiate work as much as possible with Maria, in order to
adapt curriculum contents to her capacity. Maria often refuses to participate in tasks
carried out with the whole group of children, therefore the teachers are compelled
to find other activities to involve her. She has been seen drawing, whilst the other
children were working in their notebooks, doing graphics or mathematical exercises.
She shows restlessness during cognitive activities that require focused attention.
In the past Maria has had difficulties to adjust to the social environment, but currently
she has good social skills and she is integrated in her group. Her care takers consider
that her development is good. She demonstrates acceptable, good behavior; she is
communicative and friendly. Maria usually has a cheerful and optimistic attitude. She
is more easily motivated by external stimuli, in particular by material rewards. She
is very interested in free creative games and entertainment activities. She is very
affectionate towards her teachers and other care persons in kindergarten.
The psychological assessment states that Maria has difficulties in defining simple
concepts (like “family”, “house”, etc.) and in determining the concepts’ similarities
and differences. She can make classification of objects based on simple criteria
(shape, size or color), showing her low ability to make abstract operations. She also
has an unsystematic, low-capacity and mechanical memory. She has difficulties in
voluntarily maintaining and focusing attention for longer periods of time. Maria is
right handed, oriented in the physical environment, but has difficulties in graphic
orientation (on paper). Her time orientation is satisfactory.
In September, Maria will enter the Special School for children with disabilities, as
their care takers (the physician and psychologist) consider she cannot cope with the
requirements of a regular school.
45
Appendix 4
Questions for all case studies
What are your concerns about this child and his circumstances (risk factors)? Consider
what might be contributing to your concerns for the child and their family in terms of
inclusion / exclusion from access to support, education, well-being and so on.
Can you identify some aspects of this case study that indicate areas for development
(protective factors) to help improve inclusion and facilitate resilience?
What are the responsibilities of Early Years/kindergarten practitioners in relation to
supporting the needs of this child and family and why?
Are there wider implications for practitioners in terms of further reading and
research, pedagogical practice, liaising with other agencies, curriculum, routine,
policies and resources?
46
Appendix 5
BIOGRAPHIES OF THE PLEYIn PROJECT TEAM
Karen Argent
Karen has been a Senior Lecturer in Early Years Education Studies at Newman
University College since 2001. Prior to this, she taught in a wide range of educational
settings including special, nursery and primary schools. She has also worked in the
voluntary sector as an Inclusion Worker on one of the first Sure Start Programmes.
Her current doctoral research relates to how practitioners choose picture books with
a disability related theme to use in nursery schools. Other related research interests
include constructions of childhood, socially excluded groups, disability awareness and
children’s rights. Her aspiration for the project is to explore different definitions of
inclusive practice and how these are influenced by politics, history and culture.
Wanda Baranowska, Coordinator of Poland team for the PLEYIn project, Doctor
of Humanistic Sciences, pedagogist, family therapist, and cognitive- behavioural
therapist of children with neuro-developmental disorders. Wanda is a former early
years teacher with twenty years experience. Currently, she is a senior lecturer at The
College of Humanities and Economics in Sieradz, lecturing on the psycho- pedagogical
diagnosis of children’s developmental needs, therapy and support for children with
neuro-developmental disorders. She also lectures on methodology in social sciences.
Wanda is the author of numerous scientific articles and scientific monographs. Her
previous and current research interests include creativity in early years education,
early years education for social inclusion, pre-school and school support for children
with special educational needs, cognitive- behavioral therapy of children with neurodevelopmental disorders (ADHD, CD, ODD, Asperger’s syndrome), school functioning
of children with neuro-developmental disorders, mental disorders, chronic illnesses
and school disabilities, children’s self- esteem and the level of motivation to learning,
algorythms of early-years natural education, teacher’s personality as a factor of
children’s development and also constructs of ‘the family’ in Europe.
Jane Beniston
Jane is a Senior Lecturer at Newman University College and had previously worked
in the field of early years for twenty years in Birmingham as a teacher, Religious
Education co-ordinator, Foundation Stage Co-ordinator and Assistant Head-teacher.
Her first degree was in Primary Education from Birmingham University, followed by a
Masters of Education. Jane has been involved in projects in local children’s centres
such as supporting parents and early years staff in developing numeracy skills, barriers
to learning and the ‘Thinking Hats’ initiative. Jane’s research interests include the
concept and role of play, child development, thinking skills and cognition in young
children. Her doctoral work continues this interest with a focus on young children’s
problem solving skills. The PLEYin Project has provided an opportunity to continue to
explore the social construction of play in an international context and how this can be
used as a vehicle for inclusion.
47
Chris Collett
Chris is Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Education and Care at Newman University
College. After gaining a Bed (Hons) in ‘Mental Handicap’ in 1981, Chris taught in a
range of special schools, working with children with moderate to profound disabilities,
from nursery age to young adults. After a short time teaching adults with learning and
mental health difficulties she moved to the Birmingham Special Educational Needs
advisory service, initially teaching on the team for children under five, then as team,
and service, manager. Chris’s interest continues to be inclusion, SEN and disability; she
is currently undertaking literature-based research into inclusion within other European
countries, so is especially interested in this aspect of the project.
Dalvir Gill
Dalvir Gill is currently a Senior Lecturer at Newman University College in Birmingham.
Dalvir’s interest and understanding of Diversity and Equality issues is well-documented
in her career as an Early Years Practitioner, as a local government officer, the training
Director for EYE (Early Years Equality) and Research Fellow. She has been lecturing
nationally and internationally on these issues for several years. Dalvir is a working
group member of the European network DECET (Diversity in Early Childhood Education
and Training) working on the development of materials on diversity, and additionally
has undertaken a number of national research projects including the DfES (Department
for Education and Skills) Black and Minority Ethnic study, ‘Sure Start for All’. Dalvir
developed the innovative ENCO (Equalities Named Co-ordinator) training for which she
was awarded the 2002 Partners in Excellence Award for providing excellent services
for families and children. Since 2004 Dalvir has been managing the UK section of a
major 5 country, international study called ‘Children Crossing Borders’. This is a study
of how the early childhood education and care (ECEC) systems of five countries are
serving the children of recent immigrants and of what parents who recently have
migrated from another culture want for their children in ECEC settings.
Deborah Harris
Debbie is a Senior Lecturer at Newman University College and has worked in the field
of early years for twenty years in Bedfordshire and the West Midlands as a teacher,
Foundation Stage Co-ordinator, Advanced Skills Teacher in Early Years and Creativity
and more recently teaching at both undergraduate and post-graduate level. Debbie
has developed a module for Newly Qualified Teachers (QTS) which aims to develop
their continuing professional development through critical reflection on a range of
issues such as multi agency working, inclusion and parental partnership. This has also
included undertaking research around the way in which this work has influenced the
practice of NQTs. Debbie’s research interests include the role of music in supporting
children’s learning and the role of the pedagogue and listening to children. By
being involved in the PLEYin Project I hope that all participants will have a clearer
understanding of how issues such as inclusion and working with children and families
are addressed within three very different cultures.
48
Justyna Leszka,
Doctor of Humanistic Sciences, pedagogist, speech therapist. Justyna worked as an early years
teacher for ten years and has worked as a speech and language therapist with children with
special educational needs. Currently, she is a senior lecturer at the College of Humanities and
Economics in Sieradz as lecturer on special pedagogy, social pedagogy, speech therapy and
SEN therapy. Justyna is the author of numerous scientific articles and scientific monographs.
Her previous and current research interests include the integration and inclusion of children
with language and communication disorders into mainstream schools specifically children
with hearing loss, autism and delayed speech development. She is also interested in language
acquisition of young children with development disorders; early reading education methods;
family functioning for children with disabilities in their local community and advisory services
for parents with children with disabilities.
Both Justyna and Wanda share the same aspirations for the project which are to challenge
professional experiences and to seek universal solutions for children’s social inclusion in
recognition of social diversity in Europe.
Elena – Lucia Mara
Elena-Lucia has been a lecturer at the Teacher Training Department, ‘Lucian Blaga’ University
of Sibiu, Romania, since 2008. Elena-Lucia teaches a module on Didactic of the Romanian
Language to students in the Letters Faculty and also Pedagogical Practice in local schools.
Before that, Elena-Lucia taught the Romanian language at a College in Sibiu. Elena-Lucia
successfully completed her Ph.D in the Philology Sciences four years ago. Her interest in Early
Years education began with her teaching experience in a kindergarten centre for more than
five years before she started her undergraduate studies. From this project Elena-Lucia hopes
to extend her knowledge of issues of inclusion in young children’s education.
Daniel Mara
Daniel is an Associate Professor at the Teacher Training Department, ‘Lucian Blaga’ University
of Sibiu, Romania. He teaches Psychology of Education and Pedagogy to future teachers from
different faculties. Daniel achieved his Ph.D in Inclusive education in 2004, after completing
a Masters degree in the same domain in Italy at Bologna University. It is for these reasons that
Daniel is interested in inclusive education, and cognitive and meta-cognitive development.
Through the PLEYIn project, Daniel hopes to extend his understanding of the field of inclusive
education.
Gill McGillivray, co-ordinator of the Newman University College team for the PLEYIn project.
Gill is currently Programme Leader for the Early Childhood Education and Care programme at
Newman University College. Prior to moving to Newman University College in 2002, she was
a manager of Early Years and Psychology programmes in further education. Gill’s first degree
was in Psychology, and she completed the MA in Early Childhood Studies in 2004. Her doctoral
research focused on de- and re-constructions of professional identities in the early years
workforce in England. Other research interests include pedagogical philosophies and practice;
international perspectives on childhood and child development. Her aspiration for the PLEYIn
project is to create space for teams of early years practitioners to undertake research and
work collaboratively to explore and understand issues of inclusion from different cultural,
sociological and pedagogical perspectives.
49
Adela Elena Popa, coordinator of the Romanian team for the PLEYIn project.
Adela worked for five years in a kindergarten in Sibiu as a speech therapist with
children with special educational needs, particularly children with speech, reading
and writing problems. She studied different topics related to children in need.
Currently she is a lecturer at ‘Lucian Blaga’ University of Sibiu, in the Faculty of
Sciences, Department of Sociology and Social Work. She teaches several subjects to
students from the Sociology and Social Work Department, including Medical Sociology
and Sociology of Community. Adela’s current research interest is exploring the role
of community in contemporary Romania and involvement of community members
in implementing reforms in different fields (education, health, social policy). Her
aspiration for the PLEYIn project is to study the emergence of a community of practice
among specialists and practitioners in the educational field.
Allison Tatton
Allison is a Senior Lecturer at Newman University College and also runs a Foundation
Degree Programme for Teaching and Learning Support Assistants. She began
working at Newman in 2004 where she was employed as part of a European Social
Fund Research Team and undertook research into ‘Skills Gaps and Training Needs in
the Early Years Sector’. Having gained a BA (Hons) in Primary Education from the
University of Central England in 1997 Allison worked in several primary schools in the
Birmingham and Worcestershire area. She gained her Masters Degree in 2007 and
her current research interest are in the development of early literacy skills, the role
of the teaching assistant in supporting inclusion and ‘looked after’ children. Her
doctoral research focuses on the biological children of foster carers and how fostering
impacts on their lives.
Linda Treadwell
Lin has been working within the field of Early Years Education for many years; firstly as
an early years teacher and senior manager in a range of schools within the Birmingham
area (Foundation Stage), and more recently as a Senior Lecturer in Higher Education.
She has taught on a range of programmes and courses including the CACHE Diploma
Early Years, The BTEC National Diploma Early Years, Foundation Degree Early Years
and BA Early Childhood Studies, in both further and higher education. Lin has been the
programme co - ordinator for the Sector Endorsed Foundation Degree Early Years for
seven years. Lin is interested in aspects of young children’s learning and development;
emotional well-being, the role of play and the role of the adult in enhancing learning.
Her most recent research has examined how an Early Years setting has interpreted and
included learning from the Reggio Emilia approach into their provision.
50
Appendix 6
Principles collated from seminar data in each country
England
Communication Principle
Well developed skills in
communication and engagement
with children, families and other
agencies.
Networks principle
Awareness of macro level
influences at community and
societal level including structural
limitations and challenges of
integrated and multi agency
working, informed by particular
government agendas and
consequent resources.
Romania
Networks principle
It is important to establish or
consolidate inclusion networks
of practitioners, specialists,
families and other relevant
members of community, where
examples of good practice can be
properly disseminated.
Poland
Network principle.
The main condition for effective
family support is to create
a network of experts and
institutions. Identify individuals
/ groups / organizations, which
will coordinate the activities of
other.
Shared responsibility principle
The partnership between
education institutions,
practitioners, families and
community is a basic condition
for inclusive education. Inclusion
should be facilitated by efforts of
all the relevant social actors and
agencies in community, not only
by the efforts of practitioners/
specialists and families
Network principle
This principle proposes that inclusion is best supported when there are strong connections between
practitioners, specialists, families and agencies, that acknowledges shared responsibility, and that
these work in an integrated way to co ordinate activity in the interests of the child and family.
Diversity Principle
Diversity principle
Inclusion principle
Challenge stereotypes by
Diversity (cultural, ethnic and
Actions should take into account
recognising and disaggregating
religious) should be seen as a
the individual circumstances of
elements of identity and culture resource and not an obstacle for families and individuals such as
in relation to eg. language,
inclusion.
language, disability, and work
disability, ethnicity, religious
towards their inclusion in the
belief, class, experiences and
community. Children, regardless
perceived expectations.
of the family of origin, should
have development conditions
similar to the conditions for the
development of other children in
the same country.
Diversity Principle
This principle proposes that inclusive practice recognises that diversity of culture, language, religious
belief, social class and ethnic origin provide a positive resource that should promote the wellbeing of
all children and families.
51
England
Partnership Principle
Be sensitive to the rights
and needs of every family to
facilitate a mutually respectful
partnership that values
difference and diversity.
Romania
Family involvement principle
Family involvement is crucial
for the process of inclusion.
All actions of practitioners
(decisions regarding further
steps, educational activities
planning, etc.) should be based
on family participation and
engagement.
Poland
Depth diagnosis of the family
principle.
Well developed skills in family
diagnosis, thinking about all
the risk factors and protective
factors, treatment of the child’s
welfare as a supreme principle.
Environmental influence
principle
The family situation should be
analysed in the broad context
of environmental. The ability
to perceive the positive and
negative characteristics of the
environment, cultural, historical
and political. Flexible actions.
Be sensitive to individual family
circumstances.
Family Partnership Principle
This principle establishes that mutually respectful partnership with families is fundamental and that
this is underpinned by the need for well developed professional skills to enable respectful, flexible and
appropriate interventions that are sensitive to individual family circumstances and promote inclusion.
Play Principle
Play principle
Play principle
Challenge a predominantly
Play is one of the most important This rule was not formulated by
utilitarian discourse and promote tools for inclusion of children
the participants of the seminar.
the important of play as a tool
with special needs. Free play,
This is probably too little
for inclusive provision.
not constrained by rules and
experience in this field in Poland.
considering the creative and
It should be fun to develop as a
emotional potential of children, means of inclusion, especially
brings invaluable benefits for
young children and promote
inclusion.
a method for action in early
childhood education centres.
Play Principle
This principle proposes that play is a key tool for inclusion in the early years, especially for children
with special educational needs. Practitioners should understand the value and potential of the
pedagogy of play and that education and training focus on developing knowledge and understanding of
play for inclusion.
52
England
Romania
Poland
Knowledge and Understanding
Permanent skills developing
Principle
principle.
Sound knowledge and
Professionals working with
understanding of relevant
families must constantly
subjects that relate to inclusive
improve their skills. Train in the
provision eg. political, historical
new social risks and forms of
and cultural context, the impact
assistance. They should have a
of poverty, relevant frameworks
background in social skills, law,
for early identification,
education.
intervention and support,
cultural background, pedagogical
strategies that meet individual
needs and challenge barriers to
learning and ensures accessible,
flexible and responsive provision.
Reflective Practice Principle
Professional values and attitudes
towards working with a wide
range of individual needs that
are informed by ongoing CPD,
reflection and awareness of
reflexivity.
Skills, Knowledge and understanding Principle
This principle requires that all those involved in working with children and families are committed to
continuing professional development, reflective practice and have a sound understanding of the factors
that frame and shape their practice.
Advocacy Principle
Tolerance principle
Promote the rights of the child
Practitioners working with
and the family in the setting and children with special needs
beyond
have the most important role
in encouraging the tolerance
towards these children. Together
with families involved, they
should take actions for changing
stereotypes and prejudices
against these children.
Advocacy Principle
This principle proposes that practitioners have a key role in challenging stereotypes and prejudices and
should promote the rights of the child and the family in the setting and beyond.
Continuity principle
Principle of continuation
Inclusion efforts should be
After giving the family/child
continuous, not fragmented
support they should not be alone.
and interrupted. Only this way
It is necessary to monitor the
the benefits provided by the
fate and actions. Help in further
actions meant for inclusion can
planning the development of life
accumulate and have positive
effects.
53
Continuity Principle
This principle proposes that for intervention and support, to be effective, requires continuity of
provision, monitoring and evaluation to allow for future provision to continue to support inclusion.
Early intervention principle.
Changes at the central level
The intervention for inclusion
principle.
of children with special needs
Institutions, NGOs, local
should begin as early as possible, governments should influence the
not only when the child is
government to make necessary
enrolled in the educational
changes in the law. Lack of
system (kindergarten or school). regulations or bad regulation
causes that aid is ineffective or
not feasible.
Extracurricular activities
Individual strengthening
principle
principle.
Involvement in extracurricular
Activities of professionals must
activities of the children
be directed at individuals. It
with special needs completes
should invest in more manpower
and supports formal steps to
than the support material.
inclusion.
Relation to children should be
used with individual curriculum.
Policy Principle
This principle proposes that organisations should be proactive in seeking to influence
policy makers to sustain and promote inclusive practices
Early intervention principle
This principle proposes that intervention for inclusion should begin as soon as possible.
Involvement in community principle
This principle proposes that extra curricula and community based activities are an
essential tool for the inclusion.
‘Pillow fight’ by Charlotte age 9.
54
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Additional Resources
There is an extensive collection in
Newman University Library that has
been purchased specifically to support
students / researchers interested in
the PLEYIn project. The collection
includes fiction, non-fiction, DVDs,
poetry, for example, connected to the
three countries involved in the PLEYIn
project as well as wider European
context.
‘A little boy and his
boat’ by Tudor age 4.
58
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60

PLAY AND LEARNING IN THE EARLY YEARS FOR INCLuSION

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