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4.4 Staff development and support
Staff development is a cornerstone of North Lanarkshire's Strategy for inclusion, and partnerships formed with Tapestry and other bodies ensure that NLC staff in schools and support services are able to access a diverse and innovative range of learning and teaching strategies. The rollout of the Canadian 'Co-operative learning' programme, with a view to training all members of teaching staff and other educational professionals over a five year period, is seen as particularly helpful in building inclusive classrooms and schools. Co-operative learning is by its very nature inclusive, in that it involves all students, no matter how diverse their need, and maximises the skills they are able to bring to the task by careful structuring of groupings, tasks and roles. In the co-operative learning classroom, the role of the teacher changes as pupils quickly learn to take responsibility for helping each other. Social skills are actively taught in tandem with academic skills, and collaboration between pupils is critical to the success of tasks set. Learning is active and experiential, and the curriculum is thus made more relevant and accessible. Although the training programme is in its early stages, co-operative learning is already being recognised by teachers as making a major contribution to classroom management and to creating a more inclusive learning environment.
4.5 Flexibility in the curriculum
In recent years, the school curriculum has been released from many of the restrictions placed upon it by Government guidance. Schools now have greater freedom to develop structures and deliver courses which are more attractive to individuals as more relevant to their needs, abilities and aspirations. This approach reflects the Council's advice in relation to time allocations within the 5-14 programme and the curriculum of the secondary school. The Scottish Executive's advice on age and stage relaxation also reflects the Council's thinking. Vocational education provides another avenue where some students may wish to exercise choices in Secondary Schools and the encouragement (& funding) provided by Determined to Succeed places Enterprise Education at the centre of the curriculum in all sectors. Cluster arrangements will provide a greater number of opportunities for young people to achieve their potential in a wider range of settings and courses.
4.6 Out of school hours learning
Out of school hours learning offers many opportunities to increase the learning and participation of students and minimise the barriers that exist. As part of the Raising achievement for all policy, funding is targeted to help break the links between disadvantage and underachievement. This gives schools the capacity to respond to pupil diversity by including a range of activities which take account of specific needs of pupils within the school at various stages in their school career. The allocation of places to schools, based on a deprivation weighting are used as targeting criteria for Summer schools, GOALS, Summer academy @ Strathclyde, Easter schools and Outward bound. All secondary schools, mainstream and special, are involved in the Outward bound personal development programme. Some of the special schools are timetabled along with mainstream schools and others have increased resources to meet the range of pupil needs. For many initiatives schools are given specific selection criteria for student places to make it more possible target effectively and to help to include hard to reach groups. By intervening at critical stages some of the barriers to participation can be removed, preventing isolation and exclusion from the curriculum and the school community.
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