This blog post looks at how a recent pilot of an ITAP experience for our Year 2 BSc/BA Secondary Education trainees has impacted on their practice and enhanced their readiness to handle diverse and challenging classroom environments.
The concept of ITAP stems from the ITT Market Review Report (2021) which recommended incorporating Intensive Training and Practice elements into all Undergraduate and Postgraduate ITT courses. This became a requirement for all ITT courses from September 2024: an ITAP experience should focused on one of the pivotal aspects that is covered the ITT Core Content Framework (CCF), allowing trainees to consolidate their knowledge of evidence-based principles by supporting them to critically analyse, apply, and reflect on a pivotal areas of practice.
The Importance of Special School and Alternative Provisions Experiences in ITT
The DfE (2023) acknowledges the value of diverse training environments in effectively preparing trainee teachers for the profession and consequently, accredited ITT providers are being encouraged to consider more placements in special schools. Special schools cater for students with complex learning and communication needs and disabilities, as well as those who cannot access education in a mainstream setting. However, given the current capacity and funding constraints, many students who would typically attend special schools are still in mainstream settings. Therefore, exposure to special school environments is vital to help ITT trainees become more confident in addressing the diverse needs of their students, thereby contributing positively to the challenges of inclusive education in mainstream schools.
NIE’s ITAP Cycle
The ITAP cycle we used for our own ITAP experience was informed by the five-element framework developed by the National Institute of Teaching which they used in their own ITAP pilot (2023). It also builds on the work of Grossman (2018), who identifies three key activities that support the integration of theory and practice:
- Representation: Making practice visible to trainees.
- Decomposition: Breaking down a practice into its constituent elements.
- Approximations: Providing practice opportunities that are proximal to the profession.
Using these frameworks, key NIE colleagues developed the NIE ‘ITAP Cycle’ which consists of 5 key areas; Introduce, Analyse, Prepare, Enact and Assess:
Planning, Implementation and Feedback
We decided to focus our Year 2 UG Secondary ITAP on the concept of ‘adaptive practice’ and in particular, point 5.7 of the CCF: “Pupils with special educational needs or disabilities require additional or adapted support. Working closely with colleagues, families, and pupils to understand barriers and identify effective strategies is essential” (DfE, 2019). Working closely with Senior Expert Practitioners within the Esteem Multi-Academy Trust, we designed a 5-day intensive programme that we hoped would provide our trainees with the experience and confidence to work with SEND students by allowing them to:
- Develop an understanding of policy and guidance for teachers in SEND provision and inclusive practice;
- Build on their understanding of the principle of ‘high expectations for all learners’;
- Recognise the importance of collaboration between colleagues, families, and pupils in understanding barriers and identifying effective strategies;
- Learn how to adapt and respond to individual needs including how to modify their communication strategies to support SEND learners.
Trainees spend the first morning in university being introduced to key knowledge and policies associated with special school settings. This was followed by an induction afternoon in their allocated special school before coming back to university on the Tuesday morning to ‘unpack’ and ‘process’ their experiences from the previous day. Trainees then attended a practitioner led session at one of our participating special schools on the importance of understanding ‘Complex Communication Needs’ before spending the next 2 and half days out in their allocated special schools engaging in professional dialogue with SEND expert practitioners, observing and engaging in classroom practice, deconstructing their experiences and preparing to work as a ‘communication partner’ for a designated student in which thereafter, they would receive valuable expert feedback.
Katie Willshaw, Rachael Webster and i are so proud of the commitment, resilience and overall level of engagement that our trainees showed throughout the week. Feedback from both school-based staff and trainees was extremely positive and by the end of the week: trainees felt better prepared to communicate with and adapt their teaching for SEND learners. One student stated that they enjoyed it more than her mainstream experience, while another expressed that it was an overwhelmingly positive experience. You can hear more about what our trainees thought of the experience and the impact it will have on their future practice by listening to our podcast (Episode 3: Special Schools, Special Stories).
What have we learnt?
The main thing we took from this experience is that all ITT trainees should spend time in a special school setting as this experience provided an invaluable foundation of inclusive practice and has started to equipped trainees in handling the diverse needs of their own students in a mainstream setting.
We are intending to make the following changes to further enhance what was already an extremely impactful experience for next year’s trainees:
- We want to incorporate more specialised and in-depth knowledge on supporting SEND students in special schools into the current Year 2 ‘Pedagogy, Progress, and Practice’ core module which our trainees complete. We feel that this would better prepare them for their ITAP experience and allow them to settle into their special school settings quicker;
- We also want to look at increasing the duration of the time they spend in the special schools to four days as we feel that this would allow trainees to fully immerse themselves in the environment;
- Develop some ITAP specific documents, including focused observation forms and induction checklists, so that trainees can elicit the key information and knowledge required working in SEND settings quickly.
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