Jacqui and Sally are retired Co-Headteachers – they explain how their school had become one of the most inclusive in the UK. To learn more about Peer mediation and how to set it up in schools, see our video tutorial or learn at your own pace via our online school.
Category: Video
The Inclusion Think Tank Podcast is presented by New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education (NJCIE). This podcast features conversations with inclusive education experts and advocates to discuss the impact of inclusion in schools. It serves as a resource for educators, school administrators, and families who are seeking additional knowledge about topics related to inclusive education.
NJCIE is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that serves parents and educators in New Jersey. Established in 1989 by professionals and parents, it is the only nonprofit organization in New Jersey with the sole focus on inclusive education and provides needed expertise to schools and educators on how to include students with disabilities into school communities and classrooms with dignity and equality. NJCIE supports inclusive education for all students as a fundamental civil right and views inclusion as a means to creating an equitable, socially just democratic society.
Listen to all 13 episodes in the playlist below:
Category: News
The Welsh Government is fully committed to the principles and practices embedded within the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Disabled People (UNCRPD). The Convention requires signatory countries to protect these rights and to monitor progress. Welsh Government are keen to promote the Convention – to help ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights by disabled people.
Working with Richard Rieser, Disability Wales has been commissioned by Welsh Government to produce and pilot curriculum ideas and activities on disability and the UNCRPD to be introduced at Key Stages 1, 2, and 3. These curriculum ideas will be cross curricular, complementing the new reforms: Relationships Sexuality and Religion, Values and Ethics. These curriculum ideas will cross cut the 6 Areas: Expressive arts, Health and well-being, Humanities, Languages, literacy and communication, Mathematics and numeracy, Science and technology and Information Technology and Access.
Category: Projects – UK
In 2019/2020 a number of highly critical reports were published on the UK Government’s approach to education for Disabled children and Young people, and those with Special Educational Needs (SEN). These highlight the extent to which things have got worse under the Conservative government, as well as due to COVID-19. They include:
Since these publications, there has been no review published. The COVID-19 pandemic has massively impacted on all children’s learning, but especially Disabled children and Young people. COVID-19 has led to a worsened mental state for a majority of Disabled children, according to a survey of the Disabled Children’s Partnership in March 2021, which found that 29% of Disabled children were shielding, and 54% of parents (of 507 responders) felt that their Disabled child had lost confidence over the previous 12 months. This included life skills, such as being out and about (53%), communicating with others (49%), interaction with strangers (47%) and familiar people (38%).
The government has talked about ‘catch-up’ but, as we can see from the reports above, the system was not working well for the majority of Disabled children and their parents before lockdown. Now the review, when it comes in late spring, will need to address building back better for the whole SEND system.
The SEND Review appears to be led by the HM Treasury looking for quick wins to claw back money, rather than providing long-term solutions to the chronic under funding of SEND. There are now 390,109 pupils and students with an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP), (an increase of 10% on 2019 and 62% on 2015), far more than anyone anticipated. Because the system cannot cope with the increased number of pupils with EHCPs, greater numbers are being educated in inappropriate settings.
In the past year there has been a 15% rise in the number of pupils with EHCPs attending independent schools, which are not independent special schools. National Education Union analysis indicates that, in order to address the shortfalls, the ‘High Needs Block’ should be £2.1 billion a year higher (assuming the 2020/21 number of EHCPs were funded at the 2015/16 rate). The government has acknowledged the issue and increased funding, (from £350 million for 2019-20, £780 million for 2020-21, to the announced £730m for 2021-22). But this isn’t enough, given the scale of need. The government needs to increase funding in the planned Comprehensive Spending Review for 2023-24. The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the financial situation for many schools, who have incurred additional costs. The failure to keep up in real expenditure terms is putting increasing pressure on school budgets (non-ring-fenced), leading to widespread cuts in vital inclusion support, and subsequently impacting the 1.1 million Disabled students on SEND school support.
The NEU Conference at Easter 2021 voted strongly for policies supporting inclusive education, including restoring funding, and was a great day for the NEU, Disabled people, parents of Disabled students and education in general, to achieve unity on such a wide-ranging motion. It highlighted how a range of government policies on curriculum, assessment, privatisation, real-term funding cuts, disproportionate exclusion rates, and failure to implement disability equality duties under the Equalities Act, has meant Disabled children and Young people have been let down by the mainstream school system. When combined with other intersectional identities, for instance class and gender, these outcomes have led to multiple failures. Meanwhile, the growth in local authorities (LAs) placing Disabled children in expensive independent schools is causing a great financial strain on LA budgets. The Conference agreed to, “build a widespread campaign for better treatment of Disabled staff and students and to achieve a well-resourced mainstream inclusive education system, sufficiently funded with trained staff, where all can thrive.”
We know the money and solutions exist. This is a political issue and we have set out the following demands for the UK Government to implement in the SEND Review:
To achieve the above demands and reorient the English education SEND system toward inclusion, parents, teachers, school students, trade unions and the community need to work in solidarity over the coming months. Please get involved and do all you can to spread these ideas.
This article is reproduced from Inclusion Now Issue 59.
https://www.allfie.org.uk/news/inclusion-now/inclusion-now-59-summer-2021/
Category: Blog
Last Thursday 8th April the largest Education Union in the UK, the National Education Union voted, with only 1 abstention and none against, to build a broad based campaign to address disability in schools in England and Wales for both students and staff. The motion was moved on behalf of the Disabled Members’ Conference by Richard Rieser, a veteran disabled campaigner, teacher and consultant who runs World of Inclusion and is the Equality Officer in the NEU Hackney District.
Richard said:
“This is a great day for the Union, disabled people, parents of disabled students and education in general to achieve unity on such a wide ranging motion. Clearly a range of Government policies on curriculum, assessment, privatisation, real term funding cuts, disproportionate exclusion rates and failure to implement disability equality duties under the Equalities Act have meant that disabled children and young people are being let down by the mainstream school system. These outcomes, when combined with race and poverty, lead to multiple failure.
Meanwhile the growth in Local Authority’s placing disabled children in expensive independent schools is causing a great financial strain on Local Authority Budgets.
The Conference agreed to build a widespread campaign for better treatment of disabled staff and students and to achieve a well-resourced mainstream inclusive education system, sufficiently funded and trained staff, where all can thrive”.
The motion was strengthened by an amendment from Colleen Johnson, Executive Member representing Disabled Members, to develop a framework of Disability Equality to challenge stereotypes, negative attitudes and feed into the curriculum and for this to have a high profile launch.
See motion below Addressing the Crisis of Disability Equality in Our Schools
On Friday 9th April the NEU also adopted a near unanimous vote a strongly worded motion on SEND Funding and Mental Health from Stockton and Durham prioritised by many Districts across the country. The motion reproduced below notes the bleak position on SEND budgets with Local Authorities at breaking point; that schools are struggling to fulfil their commitments to children and students with SEND under the Code of Practice; that schools have no specific funding allocated to them for students with SEND, with more inclusive schools penalised; that for many of these students COVID 19 has disadvantaged them further; that real terms cuts have disproportionately hit support staff and are undermining schools’ abilities to meet SEND and mental health; that Higher needs funding is insufficient, leading to top slicing of schools’ budgets and an Education Health and Care Plan if eventually agreed does not automatically lead to the funding required to meet needs.
The motion then instructed the national Executive to urge the government for an immediate increase in funding to all schools and colleges; to ensure sufficient trained therapists and professionals are available to support all those needs;
to carry out an evidence based review for higher needs funding to support all with SEND and Mental Health; to ensure support for members, parents and other campaigns for proper SEND funding, campaign for the further development of good SEND provision in mainstream and alternate provision; that all EHCPs are properly funded and end the transfer of funding from one Block to another by properly funding all SEND and mental health needs. A successful amendment moved by Emma Parker from Durham set up a SEND organising forum and highlighted the underfunding of post 18 students with EHC Plans, so preventing them achieving their legal entitlement to training and education up to their 25th birthday.
See Policy on SEND and Mental Health below.
These two progressive policy outcomes together with successful motions for a moratorium on exclusions, especially for black students and those with SEND (interpreted by the General Secretaries of NEU to be for all students apart from those accused of serious violence to staff/students or sexual harassment), means adequate training and support to prevent exclusions; the revision to a broader based child friendly curriculum which is more recognising of diversity, replacing narrow league tables and tests with teacher assessment, replacement of OFSTED and replacement of GCSEs and A Levels with more flexible assessment suited to a wider variety of students. The National Education Union now has a full range of coherent policies to support SEND and Disabled students which can lead to the development of a progressive, egalitarian and inclusive education system capable of meeting the needs of all our students. All the narrow government education policies were challenged at the NEU Conference. If the above alternatives were implemented the barriers would be removed which are increasingly making our mainstream schools uninhabitable to children and young people with SEND.
Now we have to build a broad based campaign with parents, other unions and the community to get a fully funded and inclusive education system where all children and students can thrive. The publication of the Green Paper on the SEND system in May will be a first opportunity to build this mass unity.
1. With concern the unfavourable treatment of disabled staff during the Covid-19 pandemic, including failures to make reasonable adjustments for those at high risk of infection. This treatment reflects an ongoing failure to eliminate discrimination and harassment against disabled staff.
Carried 801 For 6 Against , 1 abstention
Category: News
Watch the online sessions which took place during NDTi’s Inclusive Education Festival, 15-19 March 2021. During the week, there were eight sessions to showcase great stories where inclusion really works and what needs to happen to ensure a more inclusive society.
Category: News
Some excellent films on Inclusion in British Columbia and Finland made about the visits of two Early Years educators from Singapore seeking alternatives to the rigid, assessment driven high stakes testing of Singapore by the Lien Foundation. I recommend them highly.
Richard Rieser CEO World of Inclusion Ltd
Inclusive education values children as individuals and enables them to belong, participate and achieve their full potential regardless of their learning differences. It is the basic building block of an inclusive society.
Schools are places where we need to start cultivating skills such as social sensitivity, collaboration and the ability to work with others who are different. There is strong, consistent evidence that an inclusive education – where children with special needs learn alongside typically developing peers with adequate support – benefits all children.
A review of 280 research studies from 25 countries by the Harvard Graduate School of Education found those with special needs who are educated in mainstream settings make greater gains in all areas of development than their peers in segregated settings. For typical children, being educated alongside a child with a special need does not lead to negative consequences. In fact, they gain academically and socially from inclusion over time.
Beyond locating these children in the same classrooms, effective inclusion requires educators to develop a better understanding of their strengths and provide multiple pathways to learn. Such efforts can help to break the boundaries between “mainstream” and “special” education and broaden the repertoire of skills, pedagogical practices and capabilities in schools to deal with diversity more effectively.
An initiative of the Lien Foundation, How We Do School is a nine episode series of short films that explores how Finnish and British Columbia schools address the increasingly diverse learning needs of its students and what we can learn from them.
We took two Singapore educators from the early childhood education and special education sectors – Dr Jacqueline Chung, Senior Principal and Academic Director at St James’ Church Kindergarten and Ms Tan Sze Wee, Executive Director at Rainbow Centre – to Finland and British Columbia to learn their journeys towards greater inclusivity and equity in its education system. By showing what is possible, we hope this can in turn inspire Singapore and inform ways that we can go about making inclusion more of a reality.
Canada, similar to Finland and Singapore, is ranked highly on global education indicators and regarded as a leading nation in the area of inclusive education and disability.
Ideas about inclusive education have developed over the decades. British Columbia, one of the 10 provinces in the country with a similar population as Singapore, began with separate schools run by parents of children with disabilities in the 1960s. It moved quickly to segregated classrooms within public schools, and eventually to schools where students with special needs are included in regular classrooms with other typical children. By the early 2000s, there were no more special education schools in the province’s , as policies shifted to resource classroom teachers appropriately with assistants and access to professionals like therapists and consultants in special education.
Families were the primary force behind this move as they advocated for their children with special needs to attend school in their neighbourhood and receive the support required for their children to be successful in regular classroom settings, instead of segregated programmes. Since the 1950s, ground-up groups like Inclusion BC, Family Support Institute and PLAN, run by professionals who are parents of children with disabilities, have journeyed with government to empower families after them and progress standards of inclusion in schools. There is much to learn from British Columbia, which has made inclusion a hallmark of its educational system, as its stakeholders navigate shrinking budgets and political changes to get students and teachers the support they need.
Read More: The Big Read with TODAY Online
Finland, like Singapore, is ranked highly on global education indicators. At the same time, it is based on equity and idea of ‘education for all’, which have been key drivers in developing an inclusive education system. The country stopped building special education schools back in the 1990s and has since moved to close down many of these segregated schools over the years.
In fact, its three-tiered system of support to meet the diverse learning needs of its students is built into its mainstream education system and is often cited as one of the key factors behind the country’s high equity and high performance in international comparisons.
While the number of students requiring special education hasn’t decreased, it was a strategic move to provide special education within mainstream school class settings. Finland’s journey offers insights on how we can improve and calibrate our education system to stay relevant as we gear all children to be productive members of society.”
Read more: Learning for all, the Finnish way with The Straits Times
Episode 1 Bridging the Divide https://youtu.be/XT0n5uTSjyY
Episode 2 Forging Friendships https://youtu.be/vTxm5Rx36F8
Episode 3 Learners in Progress https://youtu.be/xVfUseGt5IY
Episode 4 Teaming Up https://youtu.be/f-5poIBv44E
Episode 5 Power to Parents https://youtu.be/1mH0LIOfwhw
Episode 1 What’s So Special https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aheDzMrKuEM
Episode 2 Teaching TwoGether https://youtu.be/6RJ-Y3xmyFo
Episode 3 School for All https://youtu.be/ceWeIKLfgv8
Episode 4 Out of School Into the World https://youtu.be/WI-OlkoLDEk
Category: News
When Article 24 of UNCRPD was being framed at the United Nations (2001-2006) there was much disagreement between sensory impairment organisations and other Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs), the former arguing for a right to segregation. This led to a weak and compromised wording.
Category: Uncategorized
