This brief account from Yann Bouremel (e2025, Science PGCE) gives a flavour of the particular and striking benefits of spending two days in an alternative provision placement.
Honestly, doing a 2-day AP placement has completely transformed how I work with SEND students, and I’d 100% tell any other trainee to give it a go. It’s taught me how to adapt my teaching to genuinely bring the best out of them. The biggest lesson? Relationships are everything. They need to feel safe and comfortable with you before any meaningful learning can happen. You could argue that’s true for any student, fair enough, but the next bit was completely new to me.
Here’s the thing I picked up at my AP placement that I’d never have tried otherwise. You might call it ‘different task, same success‘. In a practical last week, instead of having my SEND student do the standard practical with everyone else, I gave him his own set of challenges and told him I’d pop back in a few minutes to check on him. You’d think pulling him out of the main task would switch him off even more, right? Total opposite. He was pumped. Other students actually came over to help him with his special tasks, and he loved getting the answers right with people cheering him on. Every time I came back to check his work, I’d throw in one extra question on the spot, just to make sure he really understood. This barely took any of my time during the practical but made all the difference.
The AP placements are available to all trainees on the PGCE Secondary programme at the University of Manchester. They are provided by our partners in special schools and PRUs and are deeply appreciated by almost all the trainees who participate.