Who to support child or whole class

Bay liss (1995) describes how a middle school benefited from the adoption of whole class support in terms of opportunities for all staff to rethink their understanding of how children learn best. He reports that the students themselves were better motivated, and produced more positive outcomes, when receiving general class support than in individual or group withdrawal situations. 

Others concur on the need for whole class support rather than the supporter being restricted to one or two children (e.g. Bines, 1986 Thomas, 1992 Jordan, 1994). Indeed, Jordan sees the teacher who insists on the supporter working only with the designated individual as being wedded to a restorative approach to special education - in other words, an approach which sees the special supporter as someone who will restore the child to normal, in contrast with a preventative approach which is more consistent with inclusion. 

Putnam (1993) goes a stage further and says that there is no evidence for the benefits which are supposed to reside in withdrawal. She reviews a wide range of research which supports in-class support. This is consistent with the integrative thrust of special education policy there is little point in desegregating by reforming special schools, if thenew practices operated in the mainstream segregate even more conspicuously in the new environment (see also Thomas, 1986, for a discussion of this issue). 

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