In light of the current SEND Review announced by the government, it is worth considering the effectiveness of your provision and the opportunities you provide for all pupils.
The movement towards inclusive education has been a global phenomenon as demonstrated in the fundamental philosophy and key practice of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The UNESCO Salamanca agreement makes it clear that ‘…ordinary schools should accommodate all children, regardless of their physical, intellectual, social, emotional, linguistic or other conditions’. And that all educational policies should stipulate that disabled children attend the neighbourhood school ‘that would be attended if the child did not have a disability.’
We know that disadvantage in all its forms builds multiple and systemic barriers that prevent young people from achieving all they can; this further emphasises the need for schools to be places of early action where barriers come down.
But how is this done in practice and how does an inclusive school appear? An inclusive school in the truest sense of the word is an organisation of early action without barriers. The Centre for Studies in Inclusive Education (2015) sets a framework for an inclusive school which:
- Puts inclusive values into action
- Views every person as of equal worth
- Supports everyone to feel they belong
- Increases participation for children and adults in all learning and teaching activities
- Reduces exclusion and barriers to learning
- Restructures cultures, policies and practices in ways that value everyone in the school
- Links education to local and global realities
- Learns from the reduction of barriers to benefit all children
- Improves school environments
- Emphasises values and achievement