ACCESS TO THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM FOR HEARING-IMPAIRED CHILDREN WITH ADDITIONAL HANDICAPS - A RATIONALE WITH REGARD TO THEIR LEARNING-PROCESSES

For teachers working with hearing-impaired children with additional di fficulties the Education Reform Act and ensuing documentation set a ma jor challenge. Initial responses were to explore the avenues of disapp lication from the National Curriculum, and the use of coding systems t o show children had experienced the government targets of statements o f attainment-such avenues transformed more into cul-de-sacs than route s to any goal. Teachers were still faced with recording progress for c hildren who may be working within NC Level 1 for their whole school li fe. For many children with multiple needs and hearing impairment, acce ss to the NC has been determined through the hard work of committed te achers in writing performance/skill based steps for all Programmes of Study and Statements of Attainment in different subject areas. The wor k involved has been immense and generated very weighty documents recor ding progress for each child. A pertinent criticism is that so much of the teaching of these children is cross-curricular and it is impossib le to determine whether developmental skills, such as ''sorting object s'' are Science, Maths or English. An alternative framework for record ing a child's progress within level 1 for all Attainment Targets is pr oposed. The ''Steps of Complexity Rationale'' is based on an understan ding of the development of children's cognitive ability. There are sta ges in a child's learning process whatever the skill or knowledge bein g developed. Each of these stages have been identified, and can be inf erred from a child's performance at activities. Thus a child can be as sessed on each Attainment Target and related Statement of Attainment ( SOA) using the same scale of steps which allows for a qualitative meas ure of their access to the NC comparison across subject areas, and a m eans of recording the progress of a child as curricular areas are revi sited. It also becomes possible to differentiate between children's ac cess to the National Curriculum in a meaningful way and plan future ta rgets accordingly.