ABSTRACT
The organization of the classroom environment plays a central role in teaching and learning within schools for children with severe learning difficulties. If a teacher believes in the importance of encouraging independence in pupils, the classroom will be arranged to allow open access to all resources. In the High/Scope classroom, children are encouraged to help make deliberate choices about their activities, to carry out their own plans, and then to discuss the outcome with adults and peers. Classrooms, too, can be arranged in a variety of ways to provide sensory areas. Longhorn gives classroom plans which include areas for specific sensory stimuli. Controlling the environment is a key to working with pupils with severe learning difficulties. This does not, however, imply that all control is necessarily in the hands of the teacher. Questioning is a very important part of a problem-solving environment for pupils with severe learning difficulties and it can present useful challenges.
