TY - JOUR
T1 - Classroom contexts for learning at primary and secondary school
T2 - class size, groupings, interactions and special educational needs
AU - Blatchford, Peter
AU - Webster, Rob
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors are grateful to the Nuffield Foundation for funding the two projects reported in this article. They also wish to thank the fieldworkers, the school staff who helped secure informed consent from families, and the expert group of professionals, practitioners and researchers with whom we shared our emerging findings and reflections.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 British Educational Research Association
PY - 2018/8/11
Y1 - 2018/8/11
N2 - The inclusion of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in mainstream schools can result in difficult decisions regarding classroom organisation and management. The premise of this article is that these are likely to be affected by the classroom context, specifically the number of pupils in the class, the size and composition of groups and classes, and the presence of additional adults, but that there is very little systematic information on these features. A systematic observation study was conducted involving 48 pupils at Year 5 (9–10 years) and 49 pupils at Year 9 (13–14 years) with Statements of SEND, along with 115 comparison pupils at Year 5 and 112 at Year 9 who were typically developing. There were nearly 70,000 observations (data points) in total. Results showed that pupils at Year 5 with SEN were being taught in larger classes than at Year 9, and that, compared with typically developing pupils, they were much more likely to be separately taught in small, low-attaining groups at Year 5 and small, low-attaining classes (sets) at secondary. The study raises worrying questions about the appropriateness of classroom contexts for pupils with SEND and the heavy reliance on teaching assistants.
AB - The inclusion of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in mainstream schools can result in difficult decisions regarding classroom organisation and management. The premise of this article is that these are likely to be affected by the classroom context, specifically the number of pupils in the class, the size and composition of groups and classes, and the presence of additional adults, but that there is very little systematic information on these features. A systematic observation study was conducted involving 48 pupils at Year 5 (9–10 years) and 49 pupils at Year 9 (13–14 years) with Statements of SEND, along with 115 comparison pupils at Year 5 and 112 at Year 9 who were typically developing. There were nearly 70,000 observations (data points) in total. Results showed that pupils at Year 5 with SEN were being taught in larger classes than at Year 9, and that, compared with typically developing pupils, they were much more likely to be separately taught in small, low-attaining groups at Year 5 and small, low-attaining classes (sets) at secondary. The study raises worrying questions about the appropriateness of classroom contexts for pupils with SEND and the heavy reliance on teaching assistants.
KW - ability grouping
KW - class size
KW - special educational needs
KW - within-class groupings
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85050469783&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10053907/
U2 - 10.1002/berj.3454
DO - 10.1002/berj.3454
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85050469783
SN - 0141-1926
VL - 44
SP - 681
EP - 703
JO - British Educational Research Journal
JF - British Educational Research Journal
IS - 4
ER -