You Need
May Report
May 2002
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We are setting up a similar operation: Inclusive TLC, Inc. in the United States. Again sales are well up on our projections and I am now expecting $2 million in our first full year of operation (year ending June 30th 2003). This is bringing Läramera and new SwitchIt! software to the United States for the first time, while VariTech adjustable computer tables roll out of our New Jersey warehouse like marbles from a jar. |
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Our training and
exhibitions outfit Inclusive and Consultancy and Training completed a
successful Special Needs IT exhibition in Bolton yesterday. Our other
events Special Needs Islington in October/November and the Special Needs
Fringe in January will struggle to find space for exhibitors given the
current interest in the Communication Aids Project (CAP).|
We are in the middle of our busiest time for Severe and Complex SEN training under NOF. As we speak over 3000 teachers are being "NOFed" by the fifty expert trainers from the Inclusive Consultancy and Training Syndicate. We have completed the training of 2,445 teachers and 1,167 are still to start. |
 Another pallet of NOF units unloaded. So far we have distributed over 21 tonnes of ICTS distance learning materials. |
It
is great to see Assistive Technology software and access devices so much in
demand and the high level of interest now in three major SEN/IT exhibitions a
year. But it is the Government's New Opportunities Fund training programme for
all UK teachers which is having such a huge impact on the learning of pupils
with special needs.
All of the 6,500 teachers we are training work with pupils with the most severe difficulties - we reckon that this is about 0.5% of the school population. These learners need very different staff ratios than mainstream learners. In Northern Ireland we know we are training every teacher for whom ours is the right training. The ICTS syndicate has no competitors in Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland's Special Needs Inspectors know their schools backwards. So the 1.8% of the Northern Ireland teaching force ICTS has trained probably represents 100% market share.
In Scotland we have achieved 1.9% of NOF registrations - more even than Northern Ireland. But in Scotland LEAs take a coordinating role that is not present at all in the other three countries. Perhaps for this reason registrations in general are behind the rest of the UK. It may be a universal truth that special educators enjoy less LEA coordination than their mainstream colleagues.
In Wales ICTS scores 1.7% of all teacher registrations (remember we are dealing with the teaching of 0.5% of pupils). Here we were proud to offer tuition, distance learning material and on-line resources in Welsh as well as English.
In England we were one of six Severe and Complex SEN training providers but we are still training 1.3% of the entire English teaching force, just over 5,000 teachers.
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The quality of the distance learning units (where we were competing with the Open University) is a tribute their editor, Trish Hornsey, her assistant editor Simon Melhuish and her teams of Unit writers from the Oxford ACE Centre, ACE North, the Advisory Unit, the CALL Centre, Cenmac, the Downs Syndrome Association and the RNIB together with such luminaries as Dr Janet Larcher, Tina Detheridge, Chris Hopkins and our own Roger Bates. The ICTS on-line resources, designed by Helen Melhuish and Deborah Crook, have also been very well received and certainly stand comparison to those provided by huge outfits like RM. These resources are passworded and we now need to decide when to make them open and freely available to everyone. The world of low-incidence disability is going to benefit from the carefully designed assemblage of resources, resource sharing and discussion threads. |
 Bernie Henderson |
 Caroline Gray |
 Janet Larcher |
 Roger Bates |
 Sally Paveley |
 Sally Millar |
 Simon Bloor |
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The ICTS tuition has been praised often by special school teachers pleased, relieved even, to have someone from their world - someone they may have known already by reputation. |
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Scotland has been allowed to extend recruiting for NOF until 28 June 2002. Elsewhere registration is over. Training the whole of the UK teaching force, more than 450,000 teachers, in the effective use of information technology was a huge project; a brave thing for the Government and the National Lottery to attempt.
In the area of Severe and Complex SEN, we started a year later than our mainstream colleagues and with a tougher brief that included the extensive world of assistive technology too. Yet the specialist SEN training was consistently highly rated by assessors and participants. I pay tribute to colleagues in ICTS and the other five specialist training providers for making our special part of the NOF programme a particular success.
Martin Littler
May 2002
P.S. This site now receives 11,000 hits a day and 1,100 user sessions of 8 minutes average length. Our most popular download, Talking Faces, was downloaded more than 700 times last month in 31 countries including: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Estonia, Greece, Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, Lebanon, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA.