Child abuse prevention programmes, enacted at primary school level, are common across Europe and beyond (Baginsky and Macpherson, 2005; Baginsky, 2008; Coppard, 2008; Wurtele and Kenny, 2010). As protective instruments for health and wellbeing (Barron and Topping, 2013; Walsh et al., 2018), their objective is to empower children with the knowledge and skills for reducing the likelihood of abuse and/or making a disclosure (MacIntyre and Lawlor, 2016). Children with special educational needs (SEN) are more susceptible to abuse (Putnam, 2003; Davies and Jones, 2013), with some evidence indicating that the risk is three-to-four times that of their typically-developing peers (Sullivan and Knutson, 2000; UK Department for Children, Schools and Families, 2009). In Ireland, the Stay Safe abuse prevention programme is taught as part of the Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE) curriculum (MacIntyre and Lawlor, 2016). It is mandatory for every primary and special school in the state and is structured to match the typically-developing child’s age and class level. Recently, the enactment of the programme has become subject to external evaluation, raising the stakes for teachers (Government of Ireland, 2019). Questions have arisen, however, in relation to how children with SEN can meaningfully engage with Stay Safe, in particular where their developmental age is very far behind their chronological age (Morrissey, 2021). The purpose of this paper is to shed light on that question by illustrating the enactment process for Stay Safe in three special schools.

Shawer’s (2010) theoretical framework for curricular approaches underpinned the study, which formed part of a broader doctoral inquiry. In essence, it is postulated that teachers enact child abuse prevention programmes in three different modes – as transmitters, developers and makers (Shawer, 2010). This paper aims to illustrate the complex processes informing each mode and will show how teacher experience, severity of pupil need and school leadership all have a bearing on the enactment process. While focused on one particular child abuse prevention programme, this paper explores the broader ‘dilemmas of difference’ (Norwich, 2010, p. 113) that teachers and researchers with an interest in SEN are familiar with and grapple with:

• If children with a learning difficulty are afforded the same learning experiences as other children, are they likely to be denied the opportunity to have learning experiences relevant to their individual needs?
• If children with a learning difficulty are not afforded the same learning experiences as other children, are they likely to be treated as a lower status group and denied equal opportunities?

Although rooted in Ireland, this paper will interest scholars in other European jurisdictions given the prevalence of child abuse prevention programmes across the continent (Barron and Topping, 2013; Walsh et al., 2018). All of these jurisdictions have to cater for children with SEN, with teachers facing the same challenges as Ireland in catering for a group that are identified as more vulnerable. In addition, this paper will showcase the role of school leadership and external inspection on how teachers engage children with curricular content in the health and wellbeing sphere. This adds significantly to the paper’s relevance from a European perspective, as teachers and schools across Europe are subject to greater levels of regulation in order to operationalise, at the microlevel, policies that are introduced at the macro level (Priestley et al., 2021). This paper offers insights into how that operationalisation process takes place at classroom level, in relation to one particular child abuse prevention programme.

This inquiry was situated in the qualitative sphere and took the form of a multi-site embedded case study, with three special schools selected as cases – a Mild General Learning Disability School, a Moderate General Learning Disability School and a Severe-Profound General Learning Disability School. A non-probability, purposive sampling technique was utilised. There were four units within each case: 1. Documentary analysis of the school’s SPHE policy; 2. Interview with principal teacher; 3. Interview with Health and Wellbeing Coordinator (part of the In-School Management Team); 4. Focus group of three or four teachers. SPHE policies went through a rigorous linguistic and content analysis process, so that comparison could be made with the lived experiences of teachers in relation to how Stay Safe was enacted in practice in classrooms. The recorded interviews with a cross-section of the teaching personnel (those who were in formal management positions and those who were not in formal management positions) facilitated an exploration of the extant ‘layers of positional leadership’ (MacBeath et al., 2018, p. 105) and their influence and interplay in relation to the curricular approach utilised. It enabled a probing of how leadership operated in relation to the child-safeguarding curricular component and how management and non-management leadership levels operated and dialogued within a broad framework. Participants provided insights on parent and pupil wellbeing factors that also impacted heavily on their approaches to this sensitive curricular area. To enhance the trustworthiness of interview data, member-checking took place, with participants re-reading their interview transcripts to ensure that they accurately reflected their views (Denzin and Lincoln, 2011). Data collected from the different units in each case were inputted to Nvivo data analysis software. Braun and Clarke’s (2021) updated step-by-step guide for thematic analysis was used to structure the qualitative analytical procedure. Data coding was used to ascribe category labels to each piece of data. The resulting codes were then separated on the basis of their substance. Some codes were removed from the dataset because they ultimately proved either irrelevant or insignificant to the research objective. Other codes were combined and/or renamed on the basis of the fully coded dataset that emerged. When the codes were reaggregated according to the key points they addressed, six themes emerged, which were developed and further refined to illustrate the various modes of enactment in this health and wellbeing curricular area.

The research findings illustrated that special schools exercise significant autonomy over the curriculum they enact in the health and wellbeing sphere, even in mandatory curricular areas such as child safeguarding. There was no evidence whatsoever that teachers in special schools were ‘curriculum-transmitters’ (Shawer, 2010, p. 173), administering Stay Safe as laid out in the official document. Rather, the study established that the majority of special school teachers were at the very least ‘curriculum-developers’(Shawer, 2010, p. 173), adapting the official curriculum as they saw fit, in order to optimise its applicability for children with SEN. The greater the SEN, the more adaptation engaged in by teachers. The SP school in the case study eschewed the curriculum entirely because it was deemed unadaptable for children with the greatest level of need. In this way, teachers therein were operating as ‘curriculum makers’ (Shawer, 2010, p. 173), devising their own content based on professional experience and the availability of other supplementary programmes that were adjudged more suitable and which they took material from. Teacher leadership, leadership from the Health and Wellbeing Coordinator and leadership from the principal were important determining factors in the curricular approach taken. However, the level of power exerted by the Health and Wellbeing Coordinator was dependent on their position on the management hierarchy and their ‘access’ to the principal. This power dynamic and its associated effects offer interesting insights in relation to how the Health and Wellbeing Coordinator role might be optimally undertaken at school level – adding to the body of knowledge available, on what is a relatively under-researched curricular leadership position.

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