Learning difficulties can affect all families, regardless of race, class or gender. Therefore the audience of the project is very diverse. However because it is specifically for the use of teachers and parents of children with learning difficulties it cannot be released to the general public for review and feedback. The idea should instead be introduced to the audience who would be the users of the app. To do this I published the pitch of the project concept to two learning difficulties discussion forums.
The Choice Forum https://goo.gl/dArzxa
Since 2000, the Choice Forum has been the place to discuss issues affecting the lives of people with learning disabilities in the UK. Members include people with learning disabilities, parents, friends, relatives, people working in the field, national and local policy makers, service providers and commissioners.
Netmums http://goo.gl/F6PBc1
Founded in 2000 Netmums is the UK’s fastest-growing online parenting organisation with over 1.7 million members and 8 million unique users each month. They have a Special Needs & Disabilities Support
The following is some feedback I received and my responses…
Is this app to be used in the classroom? I wouldn’t think any teacher would have time to use this app during class time. Is this for primary or secondary schools?
– Regards Sue Jenner
What a fantastic idea. I am the parent of a young woman of 28 who has profound and complex learning disabilities and also I used to work as SALT. Such an app would help us, as parents to communicate with professionals in a variety of setting.
– Friendshipsmatter
I have some concerns about this. An app cannot replace empathy, experience or expertise nor appropriate training. With a combination of the change in the SEN system in England and austerity cuts schools have been put under pressure to assertively avoid the identification of children with SEN in order to avoid the cost of having to make provision for them. This is having a devastating impact on the children, their families, peers, teachers, etc but many people seem to be in denial or unaware of what is happening which in turn is contributing to the increase in the number of children, especially with SEN, developing mental illness or colliding with the criminal justice system. However well intentioned, an app is not going to solve our broken political system that is quite happy to spend billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on warfare, nuclear weapons or subsidising the failed nuclear power industry but cannot fund the basic services, provision and infrastructure the country needs including meeting the needs of children with SEN. I am in despair at the state of the UK in general and what is happening in education in particular.
– Geordie
“My second daughter fits your description to a “T”, although I suspected 5 years ago she had Auditory Processing Disorder it took until October 2015 to get a diagnosis. The Primary school insisted she had no difficulties, although she had lots of support and was then diagnosed with profound ADP. I feel there are other undiagnosed problems such as Dyscaculia but getting anyone to listen to us (parents) is impossible. Now after being in secondary education for almost 6 months her grades as slipping, Maths SATs results were at level 4 and are now at level 2. SENCO at her school is brilliant, but this doesn’t help with the worries for my daughters future as she has always disappeared into the background. Although we are trying hard to support her we really are doing it blind as we know little of what goes on at school. I think the app would be so helpful and would love to know more.”
“This looks a really interesting and informative app, however, I have some reservations about will it actually be used? Already in most special schools there is a home/school diary systems, this is often filled in by LSA’s not the class teacher and only give a very broad view of the pupils day. For this to effectively work there need to be real trust between teacher and parent and total honesty about how the day has been. I supported a lad with challenging behaviour and we rarely told mum exactly what happened during the day with his behaviour as we didn’t want to paint too black a picture.
I also think there is an awful lot of demand on teachers particularly where students with additional needs are concerned such as paperwork etc, will they honestly fill these in on a daily basis. This would be amazing if everyone was committed to giving it the right amount of time.”
A consistent theme in the feedback that I received is that people are worried that:
– Teachers will not have enough time to fill in the required data about the student on the app and that it puts too much pressure on the teacher.
– That there would have to be significant honesty, trust and confidentiality between the teacher and the parent for the app to be successful.
– The app will not be enough to help the bigger issues that are wrong with the government system.
I will take this feedback into consideration when developing my app to try and address as many of the problems highlighted as possible to create a highly coherent and functional final app design.
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