Mainstream schools

The first strategy is to rmdertake a superficial scan of mainstream textbooks that everyday situations have been connected to cormnon school chemistry textbooks. For example, student-exercises may contain informatiorr, about contaminants in a river such as lead salts, about acid-base indicators in plants or about food additives for the preservation of wine. However, implicit confusion may (and frequently will) occur when the textbook and the teacher aim at reaching the right answer, for example the correct calculation of the concentration of an additive in gram per litre or parts per million (ppm). Students may still pose questions such as How many glasses of wine can I drink before 1 will get sick What is the effect of alcohol on my body Why is the addition of sulphite to wine important Is the same fact tme for red wine Or even further Shouldn t the government prohibit the addition of sulphite In this way students can become personally involved in subjects that can be related to their learning of chemical substances, and even to atoms and molecules. But, the student-activities in mainstream school chemistry textbooks often are not focused on this type of involvement they do not put emphasis in the curriculum on personal, socio-scientific and ethical questions that are relevant to students lives and society. 

The responses of a forum of experts in chemical education in the 1990s (Van Berkel, De Vos, Verdonk, Pilot, 2000) were analysed in terms of the curriculum framework outlined above. According to this analysis, the mainstream school chemistry curricula at that time, to be called dominant school chemistry , can be characterised as follows. With respect to the relation between the philosophical substructure and the pedagogical substructure, school chemistry often claims to position itself as an introduction to chemistry. The student is seen as a future chemist. However, the forum of experts in chemical education disagreed with this claim. The next quote epitomises the view that in fact this school chemistry gives an incorrect pichtre of chemistry as a science ... 

Mason, A., Banerjee, S., Fapen, V., Zeitlin, H., and Robertson, M.M. (1998) The prevalence of Tourette syndrome in a mainstream school population. Dev Med Child Neurol 40 92—296. 

The fact is that, if educated in mainstream schools, many such children are not included at all. They suffer all the pains of the permanent outsider. No political ideology should impose this on them (p. 45). 

Since 2002, heads and governors have been liable to a criminal charge if they exclude a disruptive child from a mainstream school against the wishes of the parent. Yet it seems clear that disruptive children frequently hinder teaching and learning (ibid, p. 14). 

The House of Commons Education and Skills Select Committee (2006) also noted the frustration caused to everyone by the growing number of children with problem behaviour in mainstream schools ... 

I did not think that the answer to [Jenkins , Lib Dem] qnestion was clear. He asked whether having a special unit in a mainstream school would count as mainstreaming of youngsters with special needs. Could you give me a shorter answer to that question (Monteith, Cons, Scottish ParhamenL 2000a, Col. 1101). 

Equally we have also received a large number of memoranda from parents whose children have been placed in a special school and they have had to fight to allow them to be included in a mainstream school (p. 44). 

The Scottish Parliament Inquiry into special needs, unusually, heard from, and learned a great deal from, children and young people who had experienced exclusion, in both special and mainstream schools. One individual described herself as having escaped from special school with her dignity just about intact another young person used the same phrase, but was referring to his escape from the mainstream. For this student, mainstream schooling amounted to a refusal of his deaf identity and an attempt to assimilate him, which had led to his exclusion ... 

I was shoeked the college was so different from mainstream schooling. I had not realised how good it would be for me. I thought that it was just the equivalent of mainstream sehool, but in fact it was the opposite. At the mainstream school I was bullied, but that never happened to me at Donaldson s College. 

Although this young person had finally been able to attend a mainstream school, he had encountered further obstacles within school, for example by being denied the opportunity to go on a foreign exchange trip with his peers or participate in afterschool activities. 

We are a group of disabled and non-disabled young people and supporters who believe we should all have the right to go to our local mainstream school. 

We feel that children in special schools miss out on a decent academic and social education and those in mainstream schools, who hardly ever see disabled people, miss out on the opportunity to learn about and appreciate differences, rather than only seeing disabled people through the patronising view of the media. 

Halpin, T. (2006). Mainstream schools can t manage special needs pupils, say teachers. Times. Retrieved on September, 25 from http //www.timesonUne.co.uk/article/0 2—2184133,00.html Halsey, A. (1992). The decline of the donnish dominion. Oxford Oarendon... 

Retrieved July 10, 2004, from www.hmie.gov.uk/documents/pubUcation/cui-03.html Her Majesty s Inspectorate in Education. (2004). How good is our school Quality management in education. Inclusion cmd equality. Part 2 Evaluating education for pupils with additional support needs in mainstream schools. Retrieved March 10, 2006, from http //www.hmie.gov.uk/documents/ publication/hgiosasnms.pdf... 

As not all pupils needs will be met in mainstream schools, close links should be made with local authority officers, Special Schools, statutory and voluntary groups and services both locally and regionally. 

Staff need to understand that the Inclusion Team are not miracle workers. There are pupils who have such deep-rooted problems which need such specialist support that they cannot survive in mainstream schools. Learning support units cannot change behaviour overnight. Some staff feel that there should be an immediate change on exit, rather like pupils taking a pill which makes them a different person. As inclusion is a process, so is the way which the services impact on pupils. Pupils difficulties could be as a result of a range of problems such as ... 

If it is a mainstream/Special School bid, how does it improve opportunities for outreach work and develop stronger links with mainstream schools. 

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