Developing Inclusive Education
Inclusive Education is used in many ways. For the Disabled People’s Movement it means all
children and young people receiving their education together in the same school or college with the
support provided and teaching and learning varied so that all can make social and academic progress
to meet their potential.
Here are some views about inclusive education recently gathered by the Alliance for Inclusive
Education in their campaign- We Know Inclusion Works.
"…all I have witnessed (in the classroom) has led me to believe that children will always be
better off being educated with their able-bodied peers, and that furthermore, the non-disabled
children benefit just as much from sharing their classroom" (Teacher, Peterborough)
"I felt I had to write as I too feel there has been a downward turn in the people's attitude
towards total inclusion of people with disability in our mainstream schools and feel strongly
that now is the time to stop the rot." (Parent, Scotland)
"Inclusion for me, is about a society, which respects the humanity of its people." (Disabled
young person, Nottinghamshire)
"Inclusive education is a much more profound and deeper challenge to our schooling system
and the way we think about learning. The starting principle is that each and every learner,
irrespective of the nature or degree of their impairment should have the right to belong to their
local school and their local community, with meaningful and appropriate support, enabling
each learner to participate and contribute to such a learning community." (Inclusion campaigner
and ally, Bolton)
"Having gone through mainstream education, I have to admit that the idea of being shut up in
the box of a segregated school scares me." (Disabled young person, Ayrshire)
"As a parent of a disabled young person I have only ever had one real choice. Inclusion. There
has never been any doubt or questions in our mind that this was the right path for our child."
(Parent, Yorkshire)
"I don't think there should be special schools because all children must be together, and if we
are separated, we can't possibly know what different people in society are like. I feel no one
can live isolated from others. This is terribly painful and extremely unfair. Most of the people
are different and have some problem. If they could be classified and separated, they would be
assigned to different places. What kind of society would this be?"
Juan Cobeñas, Argentina August 2, 2006
Alliance for Inclusive Education http://www.allfie.org.uk/pages06/campaigns.html
.
.
Here are 3 recent definitions
The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation UNESCO
1. Inclusive Education –“UNESCO sees inclusive education as a process of addressing and
responding to diversity of needs of all learners through increasing participation in learning,
cultures and communities, and reducing exclusion within and from education. It involves
changes and modifications in content, approaches, structures and strategies, with a common
vision which covers all children of appropriate age range and a conviction that it is the
responsibility of the regular system to educate all children.”
Gary Bunch Professor of Inclusive Education York University, Toronto, Canada
2. “Inclusive Education refers to the educational practice base on the philosophical belief that all
learners, those with disabilities and those without, have a right to be educated together in age
appropriate class groups, and that all will benefit from education in regular classrooms of community
schools. Within these settings teachers, parents and others work collaboratively using appropriate
and sufficient resources to interpret and enact the regular curriculum in a flexible manner in
accordance with the individual abilities and needs of all learners.”
3. Parents for Inclusion say INCLUSION IS:
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
More than integration.
Young people being taught together in ordinary classrooms.
Specialist support being brought to the child.
Ordinary schools changing.
Focusing on a child's strengths and abilities.
All young people learning about the history of disabled people.
Accepting difference as ordinary, and not an excuse to dismiss, reject or ridicule.
Young disabled people never being forced to lead separate lives away from their
families and communities.
o Young disabled people getting the full and effective education they need to lead full and
effective lives as adults.
o The views and opinions of young disabled people and children being valued and acted
on.
www.parentsforinclusion.org.uk
For the disabled Peoples’ Movement inclusion is the social model applied to education and
Integration and segregation is the ,medical model approach applied to education.
http://www.worldofinclusion.com/res/qca/Social.pdf
http://www.worldofinclusion.com/res/qca/Impair.doc
Inclusive Education
So what is Integration?
This is about being placed for some or all the week in a mainstream school or college, but not getting
your needs met. It is about having to fit into a school or colleges was not designed for you AS A
DISABLED PERSON. There are lots of different forms of integration.



Being most of the week in a separate class or unit most of the week and only sharing in
registration and one or two classes like art or drama.
Being withdrawn from your class for most lessons especially literacy anmd numeracy
Visiting the school for just one or two lessons a week from a unit or special school

Attending a separate unit or school on the same campus which is only attended by disabled
children/students.
So what is segregation?
Segregation
This is being sent to or placed in a separate school in a different place from all non-disabled children.
Over time once everyone had to go to school this was thought by many people to be the best place
for disabled children. They were with specialist teachers and other disabled children. These schools
were often only for children with a certain impairment such a blind, deaf, learning difficulty, autistic or
dyslexia.
Some parents and children still chose these schools and have a right to in English Law. They choose
this either because they think the school will meet their child’s needs or because they had a bad
experience of mainstream schools where integration rather than inclusion was happening.
The UK Government recently signed up to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People
with Disabilities (July 2009). When it came to education they wanted to keep this choice of
mainstream or special schools and also the right to send disabled children to boarding schools a long
way from where they live. However, the Government also signaled its policy was still to develop more
inclusive education.
“The United Kingdom Government is committed to continuing to develop an inclusive system where
parents of disabled children have increasing access to mainstream schools and staff, which have the
capacity to meet the needs of disabled children. The General Education System in the United
Kingdom includes mainstream, and special schools, which the UK Government understands is
allowed under the Convention.”
So what needs to change for schools and colleges to become inclusive?
The UK campaign, Every Disabled Child Matters, asked disabled young people in the
summer of 2007 what they wanted to tell the Prime Minister. Many children and young
people felt really strongly about their right to education and their right to be fully
included.
‘“Average” is all a disabled child is allowed to be. We should have the same rights as
the other children in schools.’ Christopher, aged 14
‘We should have the right to take our GCSE and other exams with full access to all
the language usually available to us (I need to use word prediction) … the examination
board will not come out to my school to assess my individual learning needs.’
Gregor, aged 13
‘Tackle issues such as disabled children being excluded from school trips.’ Josh, aged 17
‘Find meaningful activities for us to do during games and PE. Not timing others or
collecting balls up.’
Some children and young people told us they wanted more and better access to support
in school:
‘Make every single school – primary and secondary – in the UK accessible for wheelchair
users!’ Alex
‘It should be easier to get help at school, without going through lots of fights, and
before it’s too late and you have lots of catching up to do.’ Hannah, aged 16
‘I would have no school for a day. I have Asperger’s Syndrome and I hate school because
it is very noisy and I get annoyed … I find things very hard and I don’t get any help. I
would like the Prime Minister to come and talk to me – I can tell him how rubbish it is.
I hate school!’ Taylor, aged 9
Every Disabled Child Matters, www.edcm.org.uk/pdfs/if_i_could_change_childrens.pdf
What can a Council do about developing Inclusive Education.
Birmingham City Council carried out a consultation in 2005 asking children, young people parents
and teachers what needed to change to make nurseries and schools and the community to be more
accessible and inclusive of disabled kids and others who were excluded.
Look at these posters and make a list of the changes being suggested.
Activities
1. Look at these posters from Birmingham and make a list of the changes being
suggested.
2. Think about your own school. Make a list of the barriers there would be to include
everybody in the school.
3. Examine the definitions of Segregation, Integration and Inclusion. Explain in your own
words the differences.
4. Read the experiences of disabled children at school and discuss what should change
so their needs can be accommodated and they can be included.
5. Think about disabled children and young people attending special schools who often
complain that they feel lonely, isolated and bullied in the community. What could you
and your friends do to overcome these barriers?
6. Think of yourselves as parents who have chosen a special school for their disabled
child. Write a letter to the Local Authority giving all your reasons for this choice.
7. Thinking about the barriers you identified so that disabled children could be fully
included in your school