Introduction
Special education needs and disabilities (SEND) can influence the ability of children or young people to learn, including behaviours and socialisation skills, reading and writing, the ability to understand things, physical ability, as well as concentration levels (Carroll et al., 2017). Around 20% of the general population and 1.3 million students in the United Kingdom have SEND, which calls for the need to increase the awareness of both teachers and parents in regard to strategies and practices used for supporting the learning of such pupils (Snowdon, 2019). This presents a challenge to teachers who will have to provide high levels of support and guidance to such students. Effective support is possible through interactions and collaboration between teachers and the parents of students (Ritchie, 2015).
Therefore, there is a need to delve deeper into the study of relationships and communication between educators and parents of SEND children in for developing a cohesive framework that would guide decisions of relevant parties on this issue (Australian Government, 2006). It has been found that effective work with parents is imperative for facilitating the education and development of children who have special and educational needs (Freeman, 2016). Current guidelines for all SENCO practitioners are derived from the ‘Special educational needs and disability code of practice: 0 to 25 years’, which provides statutory guidance on the duties, policies, and procedures that relate to the Children and Families Act 2014. (UK Government, 2015). These guidelines are comprehensive but practical evidence suggests that SENCOs require a certain degree of autonomy to address the unique and individual educational needs for each SEND student and develop appropriate frameworks for the institution. Countries such as New Zealand where SENCOs have high levels of autonomy and flexibility, demonstrate higher motivation as well as maintaining a strong agency in regard to government policies and initiatives at all levels for developing inclusive education (Kearney et al., 2017).
The central research question for the current study is the following: “How can the school Special Education Needs Coordinator (SENCO) develop strategies of communication between teachers and parents to support the learning of SEND students?” The research question implies direct interactions with teachers and the parents of students with SEND to reveal any barriers that may exist in their collaboration as well as identify best practices that have shown to have a good influence on the learning and development of students. The question was formulated based on the rationale associated with limited research on how parents and teachers communicate to facilitate appropriate learning among SEND pupils (Darling-Hammond et al., 2019). The value that teachers and instructors will place on parents is expected to have a proportionate influence on the practices set in place to benefit the education of the target group of students. Thus, there is a goal to reveal how the exchange of knowledge and skills between teachers and parents will impact the success of SEND pupils within the educational setting (Efthymiou et al., 2017).
In the current study, the researcher is the Special Education Needs Coordinator, who will collect data in the school in which the SENCO operates, a mainstream primary school in London, UK. The choice of the research setting is attributed to the need to explore the problem in the general educational context that does not specialise in providing targeted education to SEND students. Moreover, a non-specialised educational setting will reveal the limitations in the interactions between teachers and parents who have children with SEND.
Literature Review
The term ‘SEND’ and ‘inclusion’ have become closely linked with the help of policy interpretation, professional development, personal experiences, as well as the public view of the problem (NASUWT, 2008). Recently, there has been significant attention to reach holistic outcomes for individual students through emerging policies that place schools and teachers in a period of change in which existing interactions with local services and authority are being re-examined, thus challenging assumptions regarding the role of educational institutions and the role of staff within them.
Developments in both policy and practice in SEND and inclusion have developed simultaneously with other national educational goals. Universal access to education among children with disabilities or special needs would not come until the 1970s in Wales and England because of the higher costs for special education (Cowne et al., 2015). Only in 2014, the UK government enforced the Children and Families Act that placed an increased focus on involving parents as active participants in the process of decision-making that concerns children with SEND (“Children and Families Act 2014,” 2014). In Section 68 “Special education provision: functions of governing bodies and others,” the “appropriate authority for schools must inform the child’s parent or the young person that special educational provision is being made for the child or young person” (“Children and Families Act 2014,” 2014).
An important change that requires further analysis is associated with the development of the SENCO role. The move from a “traditional, operational middle-manager role to that of strategic leadership for SENCOs led to a significant change in their working practice” (Packer, 2014, p. 23). In England alone, there are approximately 23,000 schools, which means that there is at least the same number of SENCO practitioners that require comprehensive guidance associated with the new and changing role (Hallett & Hallett, 2010). As suggested by Edwards (2016), there are questions concerning the changes in society’s perceptions about SEN and their implications, the impact of the new Equality Act on students with disabilities, the issues associated with underachieving learners, the narrowing of the achievement gap to ensure good progress for all, and the impact of staff roles and responsibilities on SEND achievement. Edwards (2016) pointed out that the most important question that SENCOs must answer in their practice is, “how can schools harness the enhanced roles of parents and pupils in order to achieve maximum success for learners with SEND?” (p. 2). The interplay between pupil and parent power is seen as a way to transform the balance of family and professional relationships.
Parental roles and perceptions are key to communication strategies. Staples & Diliberto (2010) suggest that parents should be directly involved in creating an educational plan for SEND. Shared decision-making along with parent membership are guiding principles towards effective communication. Teachers report challenges in getting parents to attend meetings, assuming parents’ lack of interest. However, parents may feel uneasy or frustrated with structure of meetings or discussions of ‘needs’ for their child rather than strengths. This is supported by Marschall & Shah (2016) who determined that parental involvement may depend on a variety of socioeconomic factors that prevents their participation. However, when desiring to participate, they are unable to do so due to lack of understanding or inadequate information regarding expectations. The researchers note that schools should not rely on voluntary actions of parents, but actively pursue parent involvement through communication, invitations and other forms of outreach, which evidence finds to have a positive effect on parental abilities to help.
Rispoli et al. (2018) found that parent-school interactions explain the relationship with at home involvement in the education of SEND. Parental perceptions of parent-school interactions impact opinions on how well they are being supported by the school and receiving appropriate information, thus fostering the necessary type of educational involvement. Fernández et al. (2017) determined that parents may differ in their perception regarding the role in education, as some rely on the school to coordinate all education, while others see it as a collaborative effort between parents and educators. The level of parental engagement has been debated between scholars, with many institutions practicing school-centred approaches, but without parental participation, there is a negative perception of instructional quality and teachers lack high-quality feedback. Staples & Diliberto (2010) emphasise that school, teacher, and student initiate creates greater parent involvement, which is more important than any family characteristic in determining participation, and further impacting elements such as school-level governing, participation in learning activities, and parental assistance at home.
With the help of the change management theory, it is possible to facilitate consultations between SENCOs and parents in regard to the provision and distribution of supportive resources for SEND pupils. The power and influence of parents should be acknowledged as a component of collective action that would stimulate a comprehensive change in education (Maher, 2016). It is important to ensure that the actions and opinions of parents do not constrain the responsibilities of SENCO and adversely influence what occurs at schools (Department for Education, 2015). Through guiding the process with the help of the change management framework, it is possible to establish positive relationships between parents and SENCOs (Hayes, 2018). If new situations and concerns emerge, positive relationships will enable the best possible position in order to work with relevant support parties. It is imperative that both parents and educators understand their responsibilities for reaching the needs of SEND pupils (“Special education needs,” n.d.).
Lewin’s change model consists of three stages of unfreezing, changing, and refreezing – a simplistic and practical model to organisational change. Unfreezing is the step of preparation, meant to create a level of awareness that the current status quo needs change or hinders the organisation, thus helping to mitigate natural resistance to change. The changing step is the transition stage with the change being implemented and new processes, behaviours and policies are established, the most difficult step. Finally, there is refreezing, which is meant to reinforce the change and stabilize the organization in a new status quo, ensuring that people avoid reverting to the old ways. A large criticism of Lewin’s model is that in modern-day, there is a continuous need for change and such rapid evolvement in organisations does not match well with the ‘freezing’ approach as people are likely to revert to old ways since refreezing would be overlooked in anticipation of future changes (Hussain et al., 2018).
Meanwhile, Knoster, Villa & Thousand (2000) propose the Knoster Model for Managing Complex Change. This framework identifies five key elements to effective change which are vision, skills, incentives, resources, and actual plan. Without one of these in place, the change will fail due to different circumstances. For example, without incentives, there will be resistance and without vision, there will be confusion in the organization. It is an effective model in identifying missing pieces to change management that create the negative outcomes, and only by directly combining all of these elements can the change be achieved. The framework is simple as well, but its potential criticism is that it lacks the depth in identifying more complex factors. Some factors needed for change cannot be attributed to one of these categories while others may encompass several which creates confusion surrounding implementing change with this approach.
The five steps of the EEF, the Education Endowment Foundation (Blatchford, 2017), will also be drawn upon as use as a school improvement cycle, with these five steps being: (1) to decide what is wanted to be achieved, (2) to identify possible solutions, (3) to give the idea the best chances of success, (4) to evaluate its impact, and (5) to secure and spread change. The EEF follows a 4-step Implementation Process which consists of exploring, preparing, delivering, and sustaining (Education Endowment Foundation, 2019). EEF is believed to be the best framework to this research as SENCOs currently have no clear vision and may require a degree of experimentation and adaptability when it comes to change implementation. EEF allows for a flexible but structured approach that encompasses evaluation and adapting strategies based on the existing context as well as after the fact. It is also a school improvement cycle as a model, thus taking into consideration continuous evolvement of change initiatives based on their success and effectiveness.
Methodology
The current research is concerned with applying the qualitative design, particularly the practitioner research approach. The qualitative approach toward this study implies the understanding of a research query as a humanistic and idealistic method (Pathak et al., 2013). Generating non-numerical data, qualitative research will be used to understand participants’ beliefs, experiences, attitudes, interactions, and behaviours. The practitioner research approach is associated with the improvement of the current practice, the informing of teaching as a profession and serving as a model for other teachers to become practitioner-researchers to meet the needs of the students in question (Campbell, 2013).
For this study, the process of data collection will occur within a primary school setting. It is expected to involve 16 teachers who teach two classrooms for every year from nursery to year 6. 14 parents will be interviewed for the study as the selected school has 14 SEND students for the year of 2019/2020. The researcher is a SENCO at the school, which aligns with the practitioner research approach chosen for this study. The rationale for the chosen sample of research participants is concerned with the need to reveal the perspectives and opinions of both parents and teachers that deal directly with SEND students. However, it is important to note that the choice of the sample and the setting was based on convenience sampling, which is associated with the selection of research participants based on availability to the researcher. Such a method of sampling has the potential of limiting research results (Jager et al., 2017). In addition to the barrier associated with convenience sampling, the sample of participants is relatively small. However, such an issue is not expected to have an adverse effect on findings and can be addressed in the future by the study being replicated in the future with a larger sample.
All appropriate ethical guidelines will be adhered to in this research according to the official BERA ethical guidelines for educational research (2018). Participants will be informed of the research purpose and study involvement with consent being received prior to participation. Participants will have the right to withdraw from the research at any point and privacy of information will be ensured by assigning numerical indicators (i.e. Instructor/Parent 1) to each individual. The school administration where the research is to take place will be informed and all permissions will be acquired prior to investigation. Approval from course instructor, school administration, and potentially an ethics committee that have examined all aspects of the research and methodology should be acquired to ensure proper adherence to ethical as well as legal regulations.
The interviews will be semi-structured in nature, which will offer the researcher a flexible approach to the data collection process. While a set of pre-determined questions developed by the researcher will be used, there will be room allowed for unanticipated and responses emerging from open-ended questions. The chosen method of data collection is flexible and permits the exploration of spontaneous and unexpected topics during the conversation between the interviewer and interviewees (Knapik, 2006). The wording of the questions will bit be rigid to allow the emergence of different levels of language that may be used for clarifications and general information exchange (Frances et al., 2009). Issues raised during the semi-structured interviews will be explored from the individualistic perspective.
Advantages of the interview method is that it is valuable approach to collect insight into people’s opinions, understandings and experiences associated with the phenomenon at hand and can add to in-depth data collection. The one-on-one interviews with study participants will offer the researcher the opportunity to interpret non-verbal cues by observing body language, eye contact and facial expressions that would enhance the interviewer’s understanding of how the participants approach the subjects being studied. The chosen method of interviewing both teachers and parents of SEND students is expected to facilitate the collection of richer data compared to formally structured interviews. Disadvantages to semi-structured interviews are mostly logistical. Open-ended interviews require more time from researcher and interviewee and may potentially lead to discussions that are off topic. Other aspects which negatively affect all types of interviews is that pre-written interview questions are subject to bias as the researcher may use leading questions. Furthermore, from a data collection standpoint, interviews provide a broad spectrum of responses, thus requiring a significant number of subjects to draw conclusions and determine common themes (DeJonckheere & Vaughn, 2019).
A proposed alternative method is to use questionnaires which are more structured in nature and provide time for respondents to reflect on responses. Questionnaire surveys are commonly used in sociological and humanitarian research. Questionnaires can include a mixture of open-ended and close-ended responses as well as scales which allows to evaluate different aspects and derive concrete themes. Furthermore, questionnaires are capable of providing some level of quantitative data as well that contributes to validity of responses and identified outcomes (Wernicke & Talmy, 2018).
Data collected from the semi-structured interviews with teachers and parents will be analysed with the help of thematic analysis. The chosen data analysis method that entails the identification, analysis, organisation, description and reporting of themes found within a given data set (Vaismoradi et al., 2016). The primary objective of thematic analysis is to identify themes (patterns of data) that are relevant or interesting and use such themes to address the research or make conclusions about an issue that is being studied (Maguire & Delahunt, 2017). The thematic analysis offers an adjustable approach that can be changed to fit the needs of the current study without requiring detailed technological knowledge on the part of the scholar (Braun & Clarke, 2019). As argued by Nowell et al. (2017), thematic analysis is a beneficial method for exploring the perspectives and opinions of different research participants, revealing any possible links between them, as well as generating insights that were not pre-planned. In light of recent developments associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and schools being in lockdown, data was not collected.
Findings
The findings of the study were derived from the thematic analysis of the qualitative data. The data was collected with the help of semi-structured interviews with parents and teachers. The experience from SENCO perspective research is expected to reveal aspects regarding quality of communication and collaboration between parents of SEND children and teachers working at their schools, the barriers and issues occurring during such communication, whether the needs of SEND students are met, the role of SENCOs in developing strategies of communication between parents and students, as well as the role of school leadership in guiding the decision-making regarding appropriate collaborative practices between parents and teachers. It is expected that teachers will mention workload limitations as barriers to effective collaboration with parents (Choudhury et al., 2018). This is due to the schools not accounting for the large workload that is placed on educators when it comes to addressing the needs of SEND students (Smith & Broomhead, 2019). On the part of parents, it is expected that many will demonstrate limited understanding of the needs of their SEND children within the educational setting. Some parents said that “they did not know how to get involved and did not want to interrupt the educational process.”
The findings of the present research will show that the experiences of parents of SEND children and teachers can greatly vary, even in the same school setting. While some parents are more engaged in the learning of their SEND children, others are reluctant to get involved. Under the Children and Families Act, participation has gained increased importance, but the experiences of different teachers and parents vary (Brassard & Boehm, 2008). The education process should be equitable and supported for all involved stakeholders including the schools, teachers, parents, and the SEND pupils themselves. The findings of the data collection are expected to show the SENCO working at the school setting, which strategies will benefit the collaboration between parents and teachers. The research experience will likely demonstrate the importance of SENCO in managing appropriate strategies and change management in schools to facilitate the optimal teacher communication, parent involvement, and outcomes for the student.
Action Plan
The statement of the problem for this study is the following: “for a SENCO to develop strategies of effective communication between teachers and parents to support the learning and development of students with SEND.” The research is needed due to limited evidence available on the topic of collaboration between teachers and parents of SEND children despite the need to develop practical solutions that would facilitate educational and developmental progress among the target population of students (Davis & Florian, 2004). With the help of semi-structured interviews, opinions and perspectives of teachers and parents will be collected and analysed with the help of thematic analysis. EEF has been determined to be the most effective change implementation model that will be used for the action plan.
The expected outcome is that there will be a dissonance in communication strategies between teachers and parents for SEND students. As discussed in the literature review, there will be certain assumptions and expectations on both sides. However, as determined by Fernández et al. (2017), the educational process should be a collaborative effort, but ultimately teachers and schools should take the first steps in establishing communication and involving parents. Some potential barriers may be the fundamental resistance to change. In the research context, parents, and particularly educators, may be highly resistant to the proposed changes that the interview will imply. Many teachers have taught for many years if not decades, establishing practices which work for them and it may be difficult for them to implement changes based on new guidelines or research. This can be addressed by providing support and guidance as well as demonstrating research and practical evidence on effectiveness of new communication strategies to facilitate learning for SEND. During the research process, a potential issue of lack of common themes may emerge during the interviews. It is suggested to mitigate this by follow predetermined questions that can elicit some common responses and drive the interview process in the direction that can explore key elements in the SEND educational environment.
The action plan entails not only the research component of the project but also the implementation of the findings in practice. As a SENCO professional, the researcher will use the findings of the qualitative interviews to work on a strategy that may be used in the school at which the teachers-respondents work. The strategy is expected to affect both teachers and parents because of the involvement of interactions between the parties. For example, a schedule for teacher-family meetings will be created to allow them to meet in person and discuss the latest issues and developments affecting SEND students (O’Connell et al., 2009). Teachers may encourage parents to give their children some extra-curricular activities while parents may have suggestions for teachers on what their children lack in terms of learning or concentration. Overall, the ultimate goal of the study and the action plan is to allow SENCOs to have an in-depth understanding of the opinions and perspectives on improving the education and development of SEND students.
Conclusion
The area of education that addresses the needs of SEND students has undergone some changes for the better. With the introduction of the Children and Families Act, an increased focus on involving parents as active participants in the process of decision-making that concerns children with SEND was placed. While the collaboration between parents and children is important in theory, evidence on how such collaboration works in practice is limited (Phillipson & Garvis, 2019). Therefore, there was a need to reveal the perspectives of parents and teachers on how to improve their mutual work for SENCOs to develop strategies benefiting the learning and development of SEND children. While strategic change is complex, the use of the change management theory has shown to be an appropriate approach for managing the improvement within the educational context.
Taking the qualitative research approach, this study involved the collection of data with the help of semi-structured interviews that allowed to reveal insights of participants on the topic of addressing the needs of SEND children within educational settings. As the research will include the Participatory Action Research framework and the scholar interviewing study participants is a SENCO at the same school, there are opportunities for developing a set of strategies to facilitate parent-teacher collaboration, which is the ultimate goal of this research. The findings of the current study can serve as background for further studies that would test the effectiveness of strategies developed to facilitate the collaboration between parents and students to improve the learning and development of students with SEND. There is a broad range of opportunities for future research because the needs of SEND students to continue expanding while the numbers of such students are expected to grow. For field of school education, studying the impact of different strategies that enhance the role of parents in the educational process of SEND students will reveal best practices that could be employed in a great range of schools around the country.
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Appendix A – Interview Consent Form
Derived from Interview consent form for University of Edinburgh:________________________________
Research project title:______________________________________________________________
Research investigator:______________________________________________________________
Research Participants name:__________________________________________________________
The interview will take (enter amount of time). We don’t anticipate that there are any risks associated with your participation, but you have the right to stop the interview or withdraw from the research at any time.
Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed as part of the above research project. Ethical procedures for academic research undertaken from UK institutions require that interviewees explicitly agree to being interviewed and how the information contained in their interview will be used. This consent form is necessary for us to ensure that you understand the purpose of your involvement and that you agree to the conditions of your participation. Would you therefore read the accompanying information sheet and then sign this form to certify that you approve the following:
- the interview will be recorded and a transcript will be produced
- you will be sent the transcript and given the opportunity to correct any factual errors
- the transcript of the interview will be analysed by (name of the researcher) as research investigator
- access to the interview transcript will be limited to (name of the researcher) and academic colleagues and researchers with whom he might collaborate as part of the research process
- any summary interview content, or direct quotations from the interview, that are made available through academic publication or other academic outlets will be anonymized so that you cannot be identified, and care will be taken to ensure that other information in the interview that could identify yourself is not revealed
- the actual recording will be (kept or destroyed state what will happen)
- any variation of the conditions above will only occur with your further explicit approval
Quotation Agreement
I also understand that my words may be quoted directly. With regards to being quoted, please initial next to any of the statements that you agree with:
All or part of the content of your interview may be used:
- In academic papers, policy papers or news articles
- On our website and in other media that we may produce such as spoken
- presentations
- On other feedback events
- In an archive of the project as noted above
By signing this form I agree that:
- I am voluntarily taking part in this project. I understand that I don’t have to take part, and I can stop the interview at any time;
- The transcribed interview or extracts from it may be used as described above;
- I have read the Information sheet;
- I don’t expect to receive any benefit or payment for my participation;
- I can request a copy of the transcript of my interview and may make edits I feel necessary to ensure the effectiveness of any agreement made about confidentiality;
- I have been able to ask any questions I might have, and I understand that I am free to contact the researcher with any questions I may have in the future.
Printed Name: _____________________________________
Participant’s Signature: __________________________ Date: _______________
Researcher’s Signature: __________________________ Date: ________________
If you have any further questions or concerns about this study, please contact:
Name of researcher:_____________________________________________
Full address:__________________________________________________
Tel:_________________________________
E-mail:______________________________________
You can also contact (Researchers name) supervisor:_________________________________________________
Appendix B – Interview Questions (Parents)
- How often do you communicate with the primary teacher of your child? Do you find that communication satisfactory?
- What methods are used to communicate with the teacher? What is your preferred method of contact, face to face meetings or digital communication?
- How often do you initiate contact in comparison to the teacher? Do you find an adequate response when initiating contact?
- Do you feel like you are an active part of your child’s education? Do you prefer to do more or less? What can be done to make the process more inclusive for you?
- Do you feel uncomfortable when there is an ongoing discussion around your child’s special needs? What can educators do to be more sensitive or forthcoming?
- Do your at-home activities or help with homework reflect techniques and strategies proposed by instructors or SENCOs? If no strategies are given, would you like more to be provided?
- Describe the most effective teacher-parent communication strategies or methods that you have found to be helpful?
- Describe your general satisfaction with special education at your school and what potential improvements can be made?
Appendix C – Interview Questions (Teachers)
- How often do you communicate with parents of your SEND students? What methods do you commonly prefer to use?
- Do you find face-to-face meetings to be more effective than digital communication? What are the differences in approaches to communication that you utilise for each method?
- How often do you initiate contact with the parents and vice versa? Is there a reason as to why you may initiate communication more or less often?
- Do you wish parents were a more active part of the child’s educational process? How do you view the concept of collaborative effort in a child’s SEND education.
- How do you approach discussing the special needs of SEND students? Are parents uncomfortable or frustrated with your comments? What role do parents play in your evaluation of the students and their needs or academic performance?
- What common strategies do you use for SEND students in the classroom? Do you relay these to parents so that they are aware of their child’s progress? Do you encourage parents to use these methods at home?
- What methods or strategies do you find most effective in involving parents or communicating with them?
- Describe your general satisfaction with special education at your school and what potential improvements can be made?