ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that including the views of children has highly practical benefits for all pupils, but especially those who have special educational needs (SEN). It projects its potential for whole schools and the teachers within them. The legacy of child-centredness, whether in mainstream education or generic special education, provides a means of validating its extended use in SEN, by actively promoting advocacy and self-advocacy. The chapter validates the strategies for pupil-involvement. Any strategy which ensures greater involvement of pupils, either in the formal taught curriculum or in the hidden, social curriculum, results in both specific and general educational dividends. Children who have learning difficulties respond well to cooperative teaching and learning strategies. The Plowden Report represented a landmark in the movement for child-centred learning. Many of the Plowden proposals were viewed as revolutionary, demanding changes in attitude and understanding by teachers and significant alterations to the way in which schools and classrooms were organised.
