Room 3 - Delivery Room (Section 4 of 12)
Section 4 – Programme design
Description of programme design
Following an assessment of the child, the next stage is to design a programme that will address any needs identified. Programme design is an important process and many aspects of it are also implicitly discussed in other sections of the report (e.g. content is discussed in the Curriculum room and in the next section, Intervention).
Issues to consider
An M&I programme should:
- Overlap with the National Curriculum.
- Be relevant and sensitive to the child’s background.
- Provide rich experience.
A mobility and independence programme can be explicitly related to, reinforced by, and overlapped with the broader school curriculum. This will make mobility and independence relevant to the child and may endear head and class teachers to mobility and independence, enabling easier negotiation for withdrawing children from other classes for M&I sessions.
Activity 12
Prior to reading on, write down three National Curriculum subjects that overlap with or reinforce activities in an M&I programme. You can then compare your list with subjects identified within the M&I research project.
Examples from the research include:
As PE relates to mobility lessons, the Mobility Officer works closely with a QTVI who was trained as a PE teacher. DUDLEY
The Mobility & Rehab Officer tries to relate mobility lessons to activities that the child is doing in other subjects – like Geography (e.g. studying Africa – so went to place where they could touch an animal, etc), and Maths (handling money). SALFORD
In Food Technology lessons, children need to be taught useful skills like making tea, toast, using a microwave, and so on, skills which the child can use at home. RHONDDA-CYNON-TAFF
On wet days the RO teaches children how to dress/undress for PE lessons, which also reinforces this skill at home. NEWCASTLE
A mobility and independence programme should provide children with a visual impairment with rich ‘everyday’ activities which they may not have experienced, thus compensating for the lack of incidental learning experiences which are often associated with severe visual impairment. Examples of everyday experiences might include going to the shops, posting a letter in a post box, using an escalator in a shopping complex, experiencing different types of public transport, and so on.
This ‘experiential curriculum’ is particularly important for children who may have fewer opportunities for such experiences, including children from rural areas, different cultural backgrounds, and socio-economic backgrounds.
Programmes also need to take into account the ‘lifestyle’ of the child. Some children who receive less support from their parents may need to be very ‘streetwise’, so the aim of a mobility and independence programme should be to equip the child with the skills necessary to enable them to be as safe as possible.
Programme design should also seek to promote the inclusion of the child within the school and their community.
Activity 13
Before reading on you should note down at least three elements which might be considered to be ‘good’ practice in terms of programme design. You can then compare your list with those identified in the M&I research project that are presented below.
Recommendations based upon good practice
- Programmes should have directly relevant/useful outcomes for the child.
- The background of the child should be taken into account, to ensure they are equipped with life skills that are relevant and necessary.
- The child should have some input into the type of skills or activities included in a programme.
- Mobility and independence should reinforce and relate to other curricular subjects where possible.
- The integration of age-appropriate activities into the programme is a useful ‘rule of thumb’ for children in mainstream, though may not be appropriate for all.
- There should be short-term targets, which are achievable.
- Individual sessions should not be too long, and should be made as enjoyable for the child as possible.
- Programmes should promote inclusion.
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