ABSTRACT

Strong relationships with low expectation pupils and a commitment to the school as a whole could be seen as complimentary aims of a co-ordinated approach to special education. However, it has to be recognized that what seems to staff a kind of support can inadvertantly function as a form of social control. Whilst seeming to allow the possibility that disciplinary problems, including those associated with school failure, may reflect on the organization of the school as a whole, such a suggestion sidesteps the issues raised by ten years of previous sociological work on delinquency and truancy. Many remedial teachers, including the author, have become involved in counselling children with emotional or behavioural difficulties, whatever their educational attainments. The chief value of Transactional Analysis training courses, so far as a co-ordinated/view of special educational provision is concerned, is that it allows groups of staff who have been on them together to develop more open, trusting relationships among themselves.