Focus groups write up notes

 The experience of teachers and those who support learning spanned from 18 months to over 10 years, including input from two assistant head teachers. Schools were from within one geographic county and large multi academy trust (MAT) in the UK, with schools chosen across the MAT to represent an inner city school, outskirts of a city and a rural location to offer a diversity of settings and contexts. Also offering a broad representation of those who support teaching and learning across the Upper Key Stage 2 (UKS2) context, making the data grounded in sustained practice and from a range of teaching and learning viewpoints and locations.

Focus groups were organised directly through a key contact and gatekeeper at the MAT to deliberately represent a range of different schools, size and locations.

The schools had limitations of availability, time and classroom cover, therefore most focus groups were conducted with 3 participants from each school, with one having 4 participants.

The full profile of focus group participants was made up of:

3 x assistant head teachers 

8 x UKS2 teachers 

3 x teaching assistants specific to UKS2

Focus groups were conducted face to face at participants schools to enable the most neutral and relaxed environment to focus an in-depth discussion. Two schools requested a meeting prior to the focus groups to check the requirements and get more information due to the unfamiliar nature of the topic. Meetings such as these were offered to all schools, but many felt more confident to participate after reading the e-learning and reviewing the matrix worksheet and overview in advance. Sending all information and tasks in advance was in line with a UDL approach (ref) and also helped to build an early report and trust prior to conducting any of the data gathering activities.

Prior to the focus groups participants were also sent the person information sheet and e-learning to engage with as a preparation task. They were sent an outline of the expectations and tasks and asked if they had any questions prior to signing the consent forms and before any recording began.

The initial questions on the CoRe matrix worksheet were directly related to the e-learning content to orientate participants into the topic and discussion, and to also ask them how confident they felt repeating what they had learned in the e-learning to their pupils. This led to a discussion about the type of professional development needs and resources they would need in reality beyond the e-learning package.

Once the 5 key ENABLED learning components had been initially discussed from the perspective of their comfort and confidence, the matrix worksheet continued onto the planning aspects of the focus group activities in relation to teaching their own learners.

Teachers were able to collectively write notes on the worksheet to support and scaffold their thought processes.

It was also explained that the wider discussion and transcript would be used to fill in any blanks on the worksheet and these finished versions of the worksheets and a checked transcript would be made available to them for checking or adding to should there be anything not covered (ref). They were also offered the opportunity to add any further details to the worksheets they felt they hadn’t covered in the focus group discussions (ref). Worksheet photos are available in Appendix??. Tables of each school response are also available in Appendix?? As well as a table combining the collective points raised.

The rest of this chapter will discuss each learning component in turn from the perspective of subject knowledge, knowledge and suggestions of teaching and learning strategies, the learner response and the wider school teaching arms learning requirements, support and infrastructure needed by teachers to implement or build upon their ideas in practice.

Disability awareness:

Teachers spoke of this concept being covered on the existing curriculum through the subject of PSHE, but the type of teaching and learning strategies to do so are not explicitly outlined on curriculum guidance.

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They also offered examples of disability awareness covered in their schools including disability awareness in existing lessons.

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They also referred to school wide initiatives towards inclusion such as awareness days, assemblies and visiting speakers.

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They also referred to peer learning due to pupils in class with disabilities, who have challenges of that nature.

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They mentioned, as a concept, it was easier for learners to understand physical disabilities as they are more visible to observe, but invisible disabilities were not as easy to articulate despite some pupils having challenges of that nature.

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Teachers didn’t specifically refer to existing teaching in reference to inclusive design principles or assistive technologies, but felt learners would be interested and engaged should these concepts be presented to them. However, a couple of teachers did make reference to some professional development they’d had in reference to assistive tools that could read or take pictures and read content out loud for learners on the iPads.

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Overall, teachers felt a level of confidence in this learning component due to already having to support young learners with disabilities and the coverage that the PSHE curriculum requires, stating that learners are open to supporting their peers and others in society. They also felt the permanent, temporary and situational model used in the e-learning was a way to make digital accessibility relevant and important to support everyone.

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Wider and environmental:

Time

Bitesize resources work best in limited time contexts - on-demand 

Infrastructure and technology 

Guidance and repository of resources with explicit examples- like Jigsaw and other resource platforms 

Curriculum guidance is vague

Outcomes for learning e.g. at the end of year 5 they should have covered this, year 6 cover this

MAT has central repository, so useful to have a central source of materials 

Teachers need resources they can use and adopt to the context and learning, make them flexible as a pick and mix to use across different curriculum context

Need lesson content to emphasise important aspects to highlight barriers and solutions as teachers wouldn’t know exactly what to look for.

Other places they already refer to inclusive design e.g. colour contrast and why it’s important on a poster or book cover.

Legal and guidelines:

Technical guidance like WCAG would be too overwhelming 

POUR and SCULPT more bitesize and simple conceptual principles that could be demonstrated and understood 

PSHE refers to Equality Act as an understandable points of reference 

Checklist from simple models with examples of what principles mean in practice 

Explain there are laws specific to the digital world but keep it to established connections such as Equality Act

Examples of jobs that might use these laws and how they are used

Visual map of laws in computing - UK/International 

Accessibility in the physical space and the extension within digital society.

Socially constructed knowledge:

With digital accessibility as a multidisciplinary teaching subject that encompasses the conceptual understanding of disability awareness, procedural knowledge and technical skills, it also parallels across different stakeholder groups to be able to co-construct knowledge.

Teachers are a crucial aspect for the teaching of digital accessibility awareness, however, their input needs to be complemented with input from stakeholders such as the disability and professional community to be able to promote appropriate resources to represent the knowledge and resources needed.

However, with teachers said to lack knowledge and experience related to teaching digital accessibility they need other stakeholders input or knowledge offers to scaffold and support their learning, development and the resources needed.

In this research context, teachers are best placed to understand the pedagogical needs of the learners at UKS2 in schools. This contextual knowledge allows for the provision of specifications for the disability and professional community to respond and identify and plan the contributions needed. This dependency of an initial specification makes this study multiphase and sequential.

Diagram from notes - three circles