English and Children with Special Educational Needs in Key Stages 1 and 2

Summary

With the increased inclusion of children with significant special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream primary classrooms, it is essential that teachers’ knowledge and skills are adequate to meet children’s needs. At the heart of the English National Curriculum and the National Literacy Strategy (now called the Primary National Strategy) are twin notions of literacy acquisition and ‘range’. Primary teachers bear the main responsibility for the literacy progress of significant numbers of children with SEN of different kinds, alongside all other children in the class. It is important to consider therefore whether for children with special educational needs (SEN), who may spend longer on acquiring literacy skills at a slower rate than their peers, literacy skills should take precedence over ‘range’. Or, should encounters with a wide variety of texts as speakers and listeners, readers and writers be seen as an entitlement for all children, including those with SEN and/or literacy difficulties? And further, in what ways might such encounters contribute to the development of literacy skills? If classrooms are to be truly inclusive, the starting point must be that a continuing involvement in the breadth, range and depth of the English curriculum is as important for children who have SEN as for all children. The relationship of children’s special educational needs, the PNS and the English Curriculum is complex and changing. These pages address three main aspects: the needs of children who have difficulties in acquiring literacy; the needs of children with SEN working within the NLS/PNS which is the main method of teaching the English NC in primary schools; access to the English NC for children with a broad range of special educational needs (SEN).