In keeping with international trends in education, South Africa has embraced inclusive education as the means by which diverse learners, including those who experience barriers to learning, should be educated. Premised on the need for schools to change and become responsive to diverse learners by offering the support necessary for access and participation, inclusion is beginning to be realised in South African schools. Independent schools comprise a small but significant sector in South African education, and, despite not having access to state resources, are implementing inclusive education. This study investigates the schools belonging to the oldest and largest independent schools' association, the Independent Schools' Association of Southern Africa (ISASA) to establish the extent to which learners who experience barriers to learning are included in ISASA schools and the practices that facilitate their inclusion. Data gathered from a self-administered questionnaire completed by principals of ISASA schools reveals that the majority of ISASA schools include at least some learners who experience intrinsic or extrinsic barriers to learning. The most common intrinsic barriers are AD(H)D and learning disability and the most common extrinsic barriers are family problems and language barriers. Support for these learners is provided at school-wide and classroom level through the implementation of various inclusive practices that have been described in the international literature on inclusion and in local policy and guideline documents. These include developing policies that guide the support of learners who experience barriers to learning; ensuring that personnel are available to provide appropriate support; harnessing support for learners, their parents and teachers both from within the school and from the wider community; ensuring wheelchair access and employing classroom and other strategies that facilitate access and participation. ISASA schools differ in the extent to which they are inclusive. A few are not inclusive at all, but most are showing progress and commitment to inclusion. In so doing, these schools are implementing ISASA's Diversity and Equity Policy that requires member schools to be inclusive of learners who experience barriers to learning wherever this is feasible educationally, and also realising Constitutional values of equality, dignity and freedom of discrimination. / Educational Studies / D. Ed. (Inclusive Education)

Teacher self-efficacy for teaching in diverse classrooms is an important factor in the successful implementation of inclusion. Quantitative examinations of teacher self-efficacy have found the construct to be correlated with both contextual and teacher-related factors. In-depth qualitative exploration into type, quality, and nature of experiences that shape teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs is scarce. This research aimed to qualitatively examine potential sources of teacher self-efficacy and generate an explanation for the complex growth pattern it follows during the early years of practice. Seventy-eight beginning teachers across Canada (i.e., graduating teacher candidates and new teachers who are in the first three years of their practice) participated in 139 semi-structured interviews conducted over four years to address questions regarding the factors and experiences that influence their self-efficacy or confidence to teach in diverse classrooms. Ten factors which either had a positive or negative connotation emerged from a qualitative content analysis of their interviews. The Positive-Negative Experiences Balance (PNEB) model was conceptualized to understand and represent how these ten factors interactively, simultaneously, and collectively influence the development of beginning teachers’ self-efficacy for inclusive practice in the initial years of their careers. Through a comparison of frequency counts of codes, it was noted that beginning teachers differentially relied on experiential factors to enhance their self-efficacy when they were graduating, or were in the first three years of their teaching. The results are discussed in light of the relevant extant research. Implications of these results for teacher education programs and school leadership are also shared. / Graduate

Dans cette étude qualitative descriptive/interprétative, nous cherchons comment des enseignantes réputées expertes au deuxième cycle du primaire au Québec prévoient la différenciation pédagogique en résolution de problèmes mathématiques. Pour comprendre les contraintes et conditions de cette prévision, nous avons utilisé le modèle de Verschaffel, Greer et De Corté (2000) qui un modèle didactique crée pour comprendre les différentes phases de la démarche par laquelle passe l’élève pour résoudre un problème. Nous avons couplé ce modèle avec les dispositifs de la différenciation pédagogique de Tomlinson (2000) à savoir la différenciation des processus, la différenciation des productions, la différenciation des structures et la différenciation des contenus. Dans chaque phase de la démarche et chaque dispositif évoqué par les enseignantes, nous avons décrit les adaptations en général et les adaptations pour un ou des élèves en particulier. Il en ressort que prévoir comment différencier en résolution de situations-problèmes mathématiques relève d’un défi. En effet, même si les enseignantes rapportent prévoir utiliser un grand nombre de gestes de pratique pour tenir compte des besoins diversifiés de leurs élèves, elles semblent vouloir garder prise sur la plupart des explications avant de laisser les élèves se lancer seuls dans la résolution de la situation-problème mathématique. Cela s’explique par les contraintes nombreuses à gérer ainsi que leur perception de l’étayage à mettre en place pendant la recherche des élèves. Cela a pour conséquence de ne pas toujours exposer les élèves à risque au travail avec leurs pairs -bien qu’ils bénéficient alors grandement des rétroactions immédiates de l’enseignante- et a tendance à laisser de côté les besoins des élèves avancés. / In this qualitative study in a descriptive/interpretative model, we look for how teachers, supposedly experts in second grade in primary school in Québec predict differenciated instruction in solving problems. To understand the constraints and conditions around this prediction, we used Verschaffel, Greer and De Corté’s model (2000) wich is a didactic model to understand the different steps of the student to solve a problem. To complete this model, we used the differenciated devices of Tomlinson (2000) : differenciated process, differenciated productions, differenciated structures and differenciated contents. In the five phases of the process and in each device evocated by the teachers, we explained adaptation in general and adaptation for one or several students. It shows that predicting how to differenciate in solving problems is a challenge. Indeed, even if the teachers say they predict to use a certain amount of adaptations to take in consideration the needs of all the students, they seem to wanting to keep hold on most of the explanation before letting the student to start to try and solve the problem on their own. We explain this by the constraints to deal with and their perception of the scaffolding to be put in place during the search of solving. As consequence, it does not expose enough the at risk students to the work with their peers – altough they get great advantage of the immediate retroactions of the teacher- and has the tendency to left on side the needs of the advanced students.

Research has indicated that offering support and services for people who experience mental health problems and their families is a complex and contested area. Despite the controversies surrounding therapeutic interventions with families, it has now been recognised that relatives and other supporters of people with mental health problems should be included in their care. Whole- family interventions and partnership working with carers and families is now central to secondary care UK mental health policies and clinical practice guidelines. However, for many families/ carers this remains an aspiration rather than a reality. The way in which we successfully developed family focused mental health practice, as well as specialist family interventions (FI) for people who have been given a diagnosis of psychosis, has therefore aroused considerable interest. The Somerset Partnership NHS Foundation Trust has adopted a Strategy to Enhance Working Partnerships with Carers and Families, developed best practice guidance and has established two complementary workforce development projects - the development of specialist family intervention services and the widespread training of mental health staff to create a ‘triangle of care’ with service users and their families. This has resulted in widespread adoption of systemically informed, ‘whole-family’ practice. In response to the widespread difficulties experienced following other staff- training initiatives we developed specialist family interventions (FI) services by means of an innovative one-year course delivered in partnership with Plymouth University. This training initiative has been widely acknowledged for its novel integration of psycho-educational and systemic approaches and the effective in-situ, multi-disciplinary service development model. An advantage of this approach is that by the end of the course a local FI Service has been established and staff experience fewer difficulties in applying their new skills than people trained in other programmes. We then ensure the continued development of clinical skills by means of a service structure that emphasises on-going supervision. Regular audits of the service and in-depth research studies clearly indicate that the service is effective and highly valued by users. Our ‘cognitive-interactional’ approach, which integrates systemic therapy with psychosocial interventions (individual- and family-CBT) within a collaborative therapeutic relationship, enables us to meet the needs of families in a flexible, tailored manner. The FI teams are able to deliver early interventions for people with first episode psychosis, as well as meeting the NICE guidelines for people with longstanding symptoms. Recognising that many families do not require formal family interventions/ therapy, we also have been designing ‘stepped-care’ family intervention services. We have developed, and extensively evaluated, short training packages to enhance working partnerships with families throughout our mental health services. We have used this three-day package to train a range of community and inpatient teams. We have also encouraged family- inclusive practice with the establishment of a trustwide steering group, practice guidelines and the establishment of ‘family liaison’ posts to facilitate family meetings on inpatient units, as part of the assessment process. Both training initiatives explicitly focus on developing systemic thinking, by integrating CBT and systemic therapy. The involvement of families/ carers in the design and delivery of both training initiatives is also crucial.