CLDD Project

Complex Learning Difficulties and Disabilities Research Project: Delivering meaningful pathways to personalised learning

At Bettridge the project is being led by Teresa Spencer, Assistant Headteacher

PROJECT STATEMENT

Why is the project taking place?

The Department for Education have identified through feedback from schools that educators are finding it difficult to find effective teaching and learning strategies to meet the needs of children with Complex Learning Difficulties and Disabilities (CLDD).   This concern is articulated in the Government’s White Paper, Your Child, Your Schools, Our Future: Building a 21st Century Schools System. In response to their concern, the Department for Education commissioned this research to create a framework for developing teaching and learning practice for these children within the framework of Every Child Matters.

New generation pedagogy for new generation children  

(Carpenter 2009, 2010) For more about New Generation Children and Pedagogy go to Professor Barry Carpenter’s ‘Think pieces’ papers at http://blog.ssatrust.org.uk/thinkpiece/.

Schools want every child to succeed, and aim never to give up on any child. Children are now coming into our schools whose needs are more complex than we have seen before. Many present with previously unknown disabling conditions or permutations of special educational needs unfamiliar to teachers. They struggle to engage and learn in our classrooms, and cannot respond to familiar approaches or strategies of support. Their difficulties demand that we re-engineer our curricula so they can have the same opportunities as other children to make choices, lead a valued life and for their voice to be heard.

Excellent educational practice with this new group of children with CLDD is evolving within schools building on existing differentiated teaching strategies. But there is not yet the framework within which educators can shape and justify their approaches in a systematic way. Excellent practice needs not to remain in one school, but should be shared among many. A framework that will signpost effective ways to identify the best practice, approaches and resources which teachers can use to improve the educational experience for these children can promote this.

Complex Learning Difficulties and Disabilities Research Project: Delivering meaningful pathways to personalised learning

The Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT) research team for this project is working together with teacher researchers in 12 research schools and 50 trial schools for children with CLDD (including children with PMLD) to explore and identify excellent practice in supporting these children.

The project will not be able to cover all possible difficulties that may arise when educating children with complex difficulties, nor will it carry the answers to all problems that may arise, but, through the framework, it will aim to provide a series of structured and systematic responses that will enable professionals supporting that child to follow a clear route.  

The CLDD Inquiry Framework for Learning will aim to recognise and share the ‘new generation pedagogy’ (Carpenter, 2010) which schools are developing. It will include elements such as:

• Personalising learning pathways
• Development of ‘Engagement profiles’
• Multidisciplinary target-setting with families and therapeutic professionals 
• Transdisciplinary practice
• Promoting emotional well-being
• Acknowledging, enabling and listening to the voice of the child.

The Framework will reflect a collective perspective, highlighting and sharing good practice and thinking to provide a holistic pedagogy and increase consistency when supporting children with complex needs. This will help develop and deepen knowledge and ensure that every child can still receive a personalised education within a common framework. It will be shaped by the Every Child Matters outcomes for all children – that they should be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution and achieve economic wellbeing ¬– and involve children’s key messages from Every Disabled Child Matters.  

Researching with schools

The CLDD project research team is working alongside highly skilled teacher researchers in schools which:

• Have high expectations of their children
• Promote children’s skills and confidence to support a pathway to adult life
• Promote inclusive learning practices
• Work with families and therapeutic professionals to evolve holistic, personalised learning pathways for children
• Want to share knowledge and experience with other schools.

Together, we are working to answer the following key questions:


First, for the children participating in the research, how do they learn, how do they engage, how can we personalise their learning pathways to engage them as learners?

And then, what are the principles, and the questions educators ask, which lead them to develop such strategies?

The research partnership

In having been asked to create an educational framework for children with CLDD, schools and the SSAT have been given an unparalleled opportunity to make a difference for the children who most challenge our pedagogy, our thinking and our practice.

The desire to achieve the best possible research outcome for these children will be at the heart of this project.

So that together, we can create the best possible framework, guidance and resources the project will rely on:

• The wisdom and insight of all educators – including teaching assistants, families, therapeutic professionals, as well as teachers
• Acknowledging, enabling and listening to the voice of the child
• Everyone sharing their ideas – however small they may seem – whether something completely new or how to make a new intervention better 
• Trialling ideas by doing – some things will work and some will not. Whether they do or do not, they will be valuable to the project.
• Project outcomes being manageable and sustainable in real classrooms. It may be that small changes to an approach may make the difference.
• Constructive comments delivered with sensitivity and honesty and received with openness among everyone involved in the research will improve outcomes for children with CLDD.