What are some of the emotional support strategies put in place for children

What are some of the emotional support strategies put in place for children who have SEND in a secondary school in East London?

If a child has a learning difficulty or handicap that makes learning more difficult for them than most kids their age, they have special educational needs. They may be experiencing difficulties with education, communication, or behaviour. Specialists, instructors, and non-profit organisations can assist and advise parents. 'Special educational needs' is a legal term that refers to children who have learning difficulties or impairments that make learning more difficult for them than for other children their age (nidirect.gov.uk).

1. Social and Emotional Impacts of Students with Dyslexia in Secondary Schools

There are many aspects of understanding special educational needs and an educational institution needs to be mindful of the Special Education Needs and Abilities (SEND) children’s needs in order to ensure that they are getting the kind of quality education that they deserve. For students requiring support in this area, education dissertation help can provide valuable insights. A child or young person aged 0 to 25 years old has special educational needs or disability (SEND) if they have a learning challenge or disability that makes learning considerably more difficult for them than for other students their age, and if they require special educational assistance (dorsetcouncil.gov.uk). Dyslexia can be understood as a significant learning disability, which is included under SEND. Dyslexia is a learning disability that mostly impairs the ability to read and write. However, it has an impact on more than just these abilities. Dyslexia is an information processing disorder. Dyslexics may have trouble understanding and retaining what they see and receive, which can interfere with learning and literacy development. Dyslexia can also affect other aspects of a person's life, such as organisational abilities (British Dyslexia Association).

Other studies have shown that problems socializing do not exclusively manifest in the aforementioned psychiatric symptoms, but that in general, kids with learning disabilities have a lower chance of making effective social bonds such as long lasting friendships and relations much later on in life, thereby adversely impacting their mental health (Weiner, 2004). The social model of understanding dyslexia concentrates on the structural connotations of dyslexia and how it perpetuates some of the wrong perceptions associated with individuals who have dyslexia. The social model sees handicap issues as a result of universal structural obstacles to social involvement, rather than a dysfunctional illness.Proponents of the social model of disability say that while people may have limitations, they are only turned into disabilities by the society's negative attitudes. MacDonald, working on students with dyslexia in the UK that the social structure could possibly be more detrimental to the dyslexic student than the educational policies (MacDonald, 2019). From this perspective, the underlying dyslexia deficits have only become a serious problem as a result of the trend toward mass literacy and the negative connotations associated with being "illiterate." Because widespread literacy came hand in hand with mass schooling, the terms "educated" and "literate" have become intimately linked in many European societies, especially in the context of UK (Riddick, 2001).

While there has been several studies on the emotional and social impact of dyslexia on dyslexic children in secondary schools, not much has been researched on by academics from the perspectives of the students themselves. Hence, more research needs to be done on that.

2. Educational practices and provisions for children with dyslexia in a secondary school settings

Teachers who are familiar with dyslexia are aware of the difficulties students face with language skills, working memory, and fast naming. Students tend to value the employment of clear teaching approaches, slower work pace, and re-teaching of specific ideas. Some authors emphasise the necessity of direct and explicit education while trying to fulfil the requirements of dyslexic children (O’Brien, 2018; Rose, 2009).

In the light of this, there are several practices which have been found to be helpful in aiding the teachers in secondary schools. In special education, there has been a growing corpus of research that focuses on eliciting children's perspectives on problems that are important to them (Fielding, 2004). In July 2014, the Department of Education (DfE) released a revised Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Code of Practice: 0-25 years, which was later amended in January 2015. The Code takes into account the modifications made by the Children and Families Act of 2014. When making choices on students with Special Educational Needs or impairments, all schools must refer to the Code of Practice (SEND) (British Dyslexia Association).

A practical approach which can be taken in order to increase participation and retention of taught materials by dyslexic children is by using multi-sensory approaches. Because children learn in different ways based on the environment and their own learning profiles, materials should be given in a multi-modal format that allows them to pick how they want to access certain activities. Informational writings are frequently organised so that the opening sentence of each paragraph conveys the paragraph's substance or argument. We may educate students to read and mark these before moving on to the rest of the text. This gives a fair idea of the text's structure (britishcouncil.org). According to Smith and Barr (2008), who propose employing a "connective pedagogy" that helps kids draw links between what they learn in school and what they have encountered outside of school. While children with dyslexia should take a multisensory approach, this should not be mistaken with the promotion of multiple learning styles, which has been widely criticised (Reid, 2016).

There is also the possibility that children with dyslexia will study more effectively if their teachers employ a learning style which is recognised. Because there is substantial research addressing particular variations linked with dyslexia, it is necessary to pay attention to these variances rather than taking a generic approach to education styles, which effectively categorises students (Reiner and Willingham, 2010; Reid, 2005; Exley, 2003). Also, children who are labelled as having one predominant learning style may be hesitant to take on tasks that they believe to need other learning types, resulting in a loss of self-esteem and identity (Newton, 2015).

3. Challenges that teachers experience when teaching students with dyslexia within a school setting

A detailed overview of the training requirements of English teachers who experienced problems teaching dyslexic pupils in the mainstream classroom in elementary school was provided in the study performed by Lemperou et al. (2011). The pilot research enlisted the help of ninety-four EFL instructors working in northern Greece. The findings revealed that teachers in the EFL classroom had just a rudimentary understanding of how to deal with dyslexic students. They expressed an interest in participating in an in-service teacher education course to gain further information.

Lewis and Norwich advocated forcefully for the necessity for specific expert methods for some special education populations, such as children with dyslexia, in a paper published in 2004. In the class of the dyslexic kid, most teachers experienced academic, behavioural, or both sorts of problems. In a pre-determined, classroom-taught textbook course, the lesson format overlooks the students' unique requirements, putting anyone who differs from the model model student at a disadvantage. (Sukhnandan & Lee, 1998; Bas et al., 2014).

Some of the most pertinent problems which are faced by teachers are the lack of resources in the class room with dyslexic children. According to the findings, most mainstream baby instructors have a huge amount of work on their plates, which makes it difficult to effectively include dyslexic students. Teaching a variety of academic abilities, grading, improvising some learning materials, keeping up to date records, and attending meetings and employee development seminars are all part of the job. Participants believed that committing to all of these activities reduces the amount of time available for individual instruction of dyslexic students. At light of this, it has been discovered that the teacher-to-student ratio in some institutions is extremely high (Masalesa and Dube, 2019).

When instructors are actively involved in learning and teaching in the classroom, all students have the opportunity to engage in all learning activities and acquire subject matter that is relevant to their educational requirements. However, it becomes a hardship for dyslexic youngsters since they are unable to react better to those educational demands because reading and writing are difficult for them. Teachers may be perplexed by students who consistently underachieve and appear careless or unwilling to put out effort. As a result, classroom instructors should be considered as a major source of knowledge and must be able to reduce obstacles by designing curricular mechanisms that fit children's diverse requirements so that they may actively engage in learning (Byers and Richard, 2004; Olivier and William, 2008).

However, research indicates that there needs to be a better understanding of the perspectives of teachers themselves; in understanding the difficulties that teachers themselves face, it is imperative to use the unique experiences of teachers who work with dyslexic students in secondary schools in the UK from a qualitative perspective. In-depth inquiry will be most data rich in understanding and later framing policies about dyslexia-related education in the UK.

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