At the fag end of my time in teaching I find myself as a substitute teacher at Pilrig Special School in Edinburgh. Quite the other end of the spectrum from mainstream education. For the first time, the priority is education rather than discipline. The latter is now by the way and such a minor part of the whole process that I can now focus on the children and the barriers they face. Of course, the levels of education are very low (but the strategies used to teach them are no less challenging than in mainstream) with few children able to express themselves. But they show respect, something I'm not used to. And bejeez, they respond to encouragement. A little bit of praise goes a long way.Yes, it's interesting. There are so many different levels of difficulty. But I've always thought that every child has special educational needs anyway. With 10 max in a class, I'm at last able to reach the less able, and they are really less able.
