Training materials for teachers of learners with severe, profound and complex learning difficulties

It is well established that those with severe learning difficulties find abstraction extremely difficult (Imray, 2006; Lacey, 2010) and that 'best practice' usually encourages using concrete teaching approaches. Certainly, this module urges teachers to teach independent living skills by actually going to the shops, actually getting dressed, actually cooking a pizza from scratch, actually smelling clothes to test whether they need washing. These are not things that will be learned easily by watching a DVD or filling in a work sheet or using plastic money in the classroom.

In these areas, we can teach problem-solving and thinking skills by setting up and establishing the routine and then deliberately 'sabotaging': leading pupils towards recognising, dealing with and learning by the problem.

Cahill (1992) talks of the arts as being an excellent vehicle for raising children's self-confidence, enabling them to achieve without writing in situations where there is no right and wrong. Another writer says the arts are essentially:

concerned with making and sharing meanings, and stimulate a process of personal growth. Arguably they give form and expression to an inner drive to externalise images; perhaps we all have some inner need to communicate, to find forms of expression and to symbolise or encapsulate our experiences; ways in which we may all find a sense of personal validation. In schools we need to ensure that they are achievable by ensuring that children of all abilities develop confidence and appropriate skills.

Peter, 1998

In a similar vein:

The capacity for all art forms to motivate, to encourage self esteem, to stimulate the imagination, curiosity, and encourage children generally to investigate, are major outcomes of any learning experience for a child with severe learning difficulties.

Carpenter and Hills, 2002

Peter also suggests that the arts improve thinking in terms of fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration. She argues that pupils tend to find the arts inherently motivating, perhaps because there is a 'strong notion of empowering pupils to take control and responsibility in the learning process'.

Andrew Cowries, of James Rennie School in Carlisle, was delighted with the boost to his pupils' self-esteem after they took part in the Shakespeare Schools' Festival:

the knock-on effect was profound. To be part of a national event, performing in a real theatre, in front of an unknown audience gave them a powerful sense of certainty and purpose

Lancaster, 2006

Potentially the arts offer all children the opportunity to integrate their knowledge, skills and understanding. A child will paint or draw what he or she has experienced, but will also experience what he or she paints, thus prompting further responses and making connections. The arts offer the potential to work in a multi-layered way, in contexts that are motivating, meaningful and energising. It is possible to capitalise on their inherent playfulness (the natural way all children learn).

Peter, 1998