In Portugal SEN go to regular schools. If they can follow the curriculum, they are taught like all the other children. If they can’t follow the curriculum, the teachers made significant curricular adaptations. 

 

In my country we have special schools and regular school for students with disabilities. In regular school,  a group of specialized  teachers organizes the schedule of several  activities,  such as hipotherapy, hydrotherapy, bocia among others. They also prepare the orientation for other teachers that will work with the students in a regular class. In the classroom, the teacher usually works with all the students. In some cases, it’s allowed to have another teacher to co-work and collaborate helping the SEN students in a more individual way. As we are working in PBL and group work, usually, SEN students work with their colleagues. Government is aware of the inclusive measures, so this year, all students started their school  with their classes. I still think there’s a lot to do, in order to prepare teachers that don’t usually work with SEN students.  At my school we have a crew of teachers that are working to help colleagues in order to program the activities inside the classroom providing the inclusive moments and make it a constant reality. 

In regular school we also have some students who are not SEN but have minor learning difficulties, teachers have to adjust their techniques of teaching  and it's called 'individual approach/ programme'.

 For SEN students with major difficulties teachers have to adjust both the curriculum and the teaching techniques.We call it 'adjusted programme' and these students sometimes have assisstents.They have all obligatory subjects as other students (including a foreign language). The number of students in a class depends on whether there is a SEN student or not. If there is 1 SEN student max. numbers of students can be 28, (2 SEN Ss -26Ss  , 3 SEN Ss – 24 Ss)

There are also special classes in regular schools ( if there are enough students with similar major difficulties and if it is possible to organise it) in which children have special curriculum.The number of students in these classes is very small and they don't have all school subjects  the regular classes have.

There are also special educational institutions for  children with extensive difficulties.

 

This new legislation reinforces the right of each pupil to an education commensurate with their potential, which provides all pupils with participation in conditions of equity.

 

This legal framework abandons the categorization system of students with educational needs and the model of special legislation for special students; focuses on educational responses rather than student categories; and focuses on a continuum of actions, strategies and measures organized at three levels of intervention: universal; selective and additional.

 

The universal design for learning and the multilevel approach to curriculum access are methodological options.

 

 At the same time there are guidelines at the curricular level in terms of autonomy and flexibility and in the mobilization of resources and strategies that promote and ensure the full educational inclusion of each and every one of the students.

 

All this implies a paradigm shift before the school and its structuring, from the importance of collaborative work, differentiated pedagogical practices, flexible curricula, curricular autonomy, methodological options, holistic view of the school, ...

 

The publication of this legislation requires a shared vision of co-responsibility and collaboration among all stakeholders (school, family, community) so that education is an effective right of all and not a privilege of some.

 

However, there are many uncertainties, anguishes for all teachers and parents! Surely it will not be easy but we are at the beginning of a journey ... And the way is done walking!

In regular schools, they can be fully integrated into a class with students of typical development, they can take part in classes with students of typical development or they may have a special class department for students with disabilities in a regular school. They get the support of experts from the mobile expert team or special education teacher who works in the school. They also often have a personal assistant who works with them.

Pupils with greater difficulties attend special education centers where they have a support of special education teachers. 

1) Situations of disability. They are supported by special education teacher (not all the time they are in school: it depends to the grade of disability). Class teachers and support teachers are both in charge of the whole classroom.  There should be a reduced class with a maximum number of pupils, but it's possible to have a derogation so there are sometimes lot of children in the class. 

2) Specific learning troubles (dyslexic) - no SEN teacher required or  the introduction of smaller classes. 
3) Other learning trouble’s situations,  about SEN. No SEN teacher required or  the introduction of smaller classes.

Pupils with special education needs attend comprehensive schools. Special committees decide whether such pupils should attend extra special classes with special education teachers (learning disabilities), whether such pupils should have an extra special education teacher in classroom as well (autism spectrum), exclusively oral examination (not written examination) for pupils with dyslexia. Some pupils with special education needs attend the current curriculum, whereas some other pupils attend a personalized one.The problem is that more special education teachers are necessary, especially in secondary education.

Although the past years a lot of things happened in Greece, with regard to pupils with special education needs, a substantial amount of other things should be done as well. 

Before integration in Italy, there were special classes and schools for ‘handicapped’ pupils. There were also separate classes, attended by ‘nervous, unstable pupils who would not fit in regular classes, for whom common discipline and teaching methods would be unsuitable and who could only improve through special teaching methods’ (1953).

Integration started in 1971, when, under Law 118, compulsory education had to ‘take place in regular classes, except in the case of mental deficiencies or physical impairments so severe as to prevent learning or integration in common classes’. The same Law also solicits municipalities to make school buildings accessible for everyone, according to national standards.

Then legislation promoted the principle of integration and the right of pupils with disabilities to receive specific support and be included in all the subsequent legislation that regulates general aspects of the education system, such as enrolment, class size and pupil assessment, as well as curricular teacher training and support teacher training. This means that pupils with disabilities generally attend mainstream schools, in the ordinary sections and classes at all educational levels with their supporting teachers and assistents. After that Law 170/2010 has also recognised dyslexia, dysgraphia, dysorthographia and dyscalculia as specific learning disorders. This Law has stated that pupils with learning disorders do not need special teachers, but a new way of teaching, involving an individualized learning pathway. The new legislative decrees approved on 7 April 2017 has introduced important novelties, in particular each school draws up a specific Inclusion Plan within the framework of a Three-Year Educational Plan (PTOF).

Unfortunately,decrees do not change practices and real life experiences overnight. In my view, the bulk of the transformation is still to be undertaken. Too many schools, administrators and teachers are confronted with the impossibility to implement the recommended changes and adjustements due to the lack of material and human resources, as well as the facilites that may be required. There are some schools which are well-known for accepting and working with disabled children. The latter are members of SEN classrooms and their curriculum is adjusted to their needs.There is, however, no room for inclusion in the classroom. Other schools are on the way to inclusion, but are confronted with the fact that a SEN teacher may have to support more than thirty students in secondary education during the course of the same year; in classsrooms as large as twenty-seven students. Still others totally refuse to have SEN students in their classrooms.

While there seems to be awareness with regards to inclusive education, there are still many obstacles to be overcome and mentalities still  have to be changed. To agreat extent schools and teachers are still trying to assimilate the changes proposed, even when they acknowledge that it may mean an importante change and an undeniable boost as far as inclusive education is concerned.
Graça.

In Estonia, teaching students with SEN is based on the principle of inclusive education. Every child has the right to study at a school near home. Some children are integrated into the regular classroom. Some learn in small groups. There are also special schools. The study activity is selected as needed. 

Some of those students might get a personal assistant. Teachers usually do not have right support, education and equipment. Also, there are a large nuber of students in classroom. To sum up, it is mainly up to a teacher to adjust teaching methods and strategies.

The decrees implementing the Good School have been published in the Official Italian Governament Gazette:
 
 On May 16th, eight legislative decrees implementing the Good School were published in the Official Gazette, which concretize the provisions of the law in the delegations to the government. Among them, the D.LGS. n. 66/17, Rules for the promotion of the scholastic inclusion of students with disabilities redefines many of the procedures foreseen for students with disabilities, reforming many aspects of L. n. 104/92. The decrees will come into force on May 31, even if the changes foreseen by the decree n. 66 will in fact only be introduced starting from 1 January 2019. The only exception concerns the regional and institute working groups that will start from 1 September 2017.

I think that the way we are doing is the most adequate for our reality, although we should have less students in a classroom. I  think that in a class with special needed student we should have 10 students at most. And with special cases like the ones i work with you have to have one teacher per student.

 In the current school year, a new legislation was published, that regulated Inclusive Education. This normative aims to respond to the diversity of the needs and potentialities of each students, increasing the participation in learning processes and in the life of the educational community.

In Italy there is an inclusive education system, I think.

In fact since 1976 children with special needs have the right to attend the same school as the others, with the help of a support teacher, where necessary.

There are different kind of special needs.

Students with physical disabilities only have supporting equipment and people that help them physically. 

Blind and deaf persons have specialized support teacher that can help their specific disabilities.

In case of students with mental problems, support teachers work with social services psychological team.

When students have cognitive problems, the support teacher has to adapt the content to their learning style in order to study the same content of the class, as much as possible. If the student can’t reach the minimum objectives decided, the classroom teachers will adapt the objectives, in an individual educational plan, but in this case the student will study less than his mates and he will only have a final certification, but not a degree.

If students have Dyslexia, they don’t have a support teacher, but classroom teacher must allow them to use technological devices, as a PC with a writing program, an electronic calculator, or similar, especially during test. Students with Dyslexia also have more time for their written test. They can make oral tests instead than written. 

The recent laws also introduced a new kind of students with special needs: students without diagnosed problems, but with particular difficult situations that require special educational measures. For example foreign students with integration problems, students with heavy familiar problems, students with personal psychological transitory problems and so on. This kind of student is identified by classroom teachers. Then they can decide to concede to these students some facilities or the same rights as dyslexic students.

I think the real problem for people with disabilities will arrive after school time.

There’s a law that facilitate them in finding a job, but the people that are not able to work remain charged to their families because social services are insufficient.

The perspective proposed by recent Italian legislation is the “bio-psycho-social” model in the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF, 2001), according to which “every student, continuously or at certain times, can develop special educational needs for physical, biolog-ical, physiological, or even psychological and social reasons, for which it is necessary for the school to provide an adequate and individual response”, (Ministry of Education, University and Research,Directive, 2012, p. 1).The “bio-psycho-social” model (ICF, 2001) calls for various forms of “certification” of difficulties according to the special educational needs of the pupil.
"Working from this perspective, however, is complex and involves a detailed organizational sys-tem that is influenced by the interplay of factors both internal and external to the school system.These factors include not only national policies, the social-cultural values that are promoted, refer-ence laws and contributions from the relevant authorities (school boards, local authorities, local health authorities, etc.) but also teachers’ training, core values and experiences, and the personal attitudes of all those involved in the process."Every person involved should feelco-responsible and cooperate, depending on their own specific professional expertise, in order to co-construct an educational community in which everyone can learn according to his or her own potentialin a mutual relationship built on respect.

In my country, there was a recent change in the law that supports Especial Educational Needs, which schools are still implementing, trying to understand and incorporate, and dealing with. Its based on the multilevel approach. It made Education more inclusive, I agree, because allows several changes in the way of curricula presentation, evaluation, beyond a health or medical diagnose.