Description
This workshop explores individual and environmental factors impacting on the education of refugee children with special educational needs in England. The workshop will draw on current research and experiences from practice and follow an interactive format to encourage discussion and exchange of ideas and experiences amongst workshop participants.Refugee children in the UK are a highly diverse group in terms of country origin, language backgrounds and abilities, socio-economic background and prior educational experiences from their country of origin and transit. Teachers and other practitioners often report feeling uncertain of how to identify and, if relevant, assess refugee children who may also have a special educational need (Refugee Support Network/UNICEF UK 2018). Resources and guidelines in England tend to focus on helping teachers distinguish between language needs (EAL) and special educational needs. However, knowledge of other individual and environmental factors related to the children and their family’s experiences from countries of origin, transit and settlement may be equally important to distinguish different needs and best support the children.
The workshop will first present recent work by Jørgensen and Dobson on the education of migrant children with special educational needs and insights from Crook and Ross’ work on the IRC’s Healing Classrooms programme for teachers of refugee children. Following this, the facilitators will draw on Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory (1994) and Morton and Frith’s causal modelling framework (1995) to explore, discuss and begin to organise with workshop participants the many complex and interlinked individual and environmental factors influencing the education of refugee children, and together approach the question of how to identify and best support refugee children, who may also have a special educational need.
| Period | 8 Sept 2023 |
|---|---|
| Event title | SEBDA 2023: International conference |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Birmingham, United KingdomShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |