1. Micheline Mason and the Struggle for Inclusive Education and Disability Rights

    September 15, 2024 by admin

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    Micheline Mason died of a stroke on Saturday 7th September 2024. Micheline was 74, a major leader in the Disability Movement and a brilliant thinker, taking our Movement forward, especially the struggle for Inclusive Education, in a series of quantum moves. 

    This will leave a great hole in the lives of those who loved, knew and worked with her, but also a strong feeling of loss across the thousands of people whose life Micheline changed directly and a diminishment of possibility in the lives of millions.

    Micheline had been developing her thinking since she had been born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta (Brittle Bones) and although she felt like everyone else coming from a loving and supportive home, firstly Medical, then Educational and Social authority required her to be hospitalized, isolated and educated at home and later sent to a segregated boarding school. Micheline has powerfully written about this formative process and how it strengthened her in her book she self-published in 2022 “An Ordinary Baby: Tales of Childhood Resistance.’  Against the odds Micheline excelled academically and went to Art College where she began to liberate herself. After leaving Art College she rejected having a commercial art career in favour of activism. Micheline’s thinking developed further through the Re-Evaluation Counselling, the Women’s Movement and the burgeoning Disability Movement.

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     In the 1980s she played a key role in launching and running the ‘In From the Cold Collective’ [ See this clip where with her long term friend Chrissy Wilson she describes this], which brought together many of the future leaders of the Movement particularly Women, as it took a more all embracing approach than Union of Physically Impaired against Segregation (UPIAS), who became the majority of the leadership of the newly formed British Council of Disabled People (BCODP, 1980).

    The Liberation Network of Disabled People (LNDP) were influenced by the Women’s Movement. Following their initial meeting at Lower Shore farm outside Swindon in 1980, they focused on breaking down isolation by finding ways to communicate with each other whether deaf, blind or physically impaired. Many of the ideas were developed by Micheline Mason and others in their ‘In From the Cold’ magazine. “We brought together leaders of different fragments of a movement.  We challenged the effects of ‘internalised oppression’, recognised by all marginalised groups as the major ‘tool’ of the oppressive society; we challenged the conditioned hatred of ourselves and each other as disabled people; we challenged  the desire to assimilate; we challenged the denial of ‘hidden’ disabilities; we challenged the fierce competition between us; we challenged the inability to champion, appreciate and support each other’s achievements or thinking (especially when it challenges our own); we challenged the lack of information & understanding about the issues of other oppressed peoples.’’ The LNDP were at the founding meeting of BCODP, leaving at lunchtime not happy with the male dominance and rigid approach. Many of these activists formed organisations that joined BCODP as it grew, but they always formed a different approach within the Disability Movement. The thinking of LNDP helped form the Alliance for Inclusive Education. The  work on self-representation, social model and disability as an oppression was brought together to transform education.’

    To earn a living Micheline had also become a Disability Equality Trainer and worked with the London Boroughs’ DET Team. Here she had learned and developed the thinking about the Social Model of disability, the need for self-representation and to challenge disability as a social oppression.

    For Micheline “Friendship is key. I would argue for inclusive education as young people need to be facilitated to make friendships across the barriers that adults have created. That can’t happen unless they’re all together. All the rest of it is secondary. It was certainly the thing missing from my childhood. You never get over it, not really”.  

    Let me give some examples. I was introduced to Micheline, when I was put together with her by the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) to write advice on Disability Equality to the 13 successor boroughs, after abolition in March 1990. As a disabled teacher who won my grievance against compulsory redeployment, I had been seconded to develop work on bringing disability into the curriculum. Margaret Thatcher had abolished ILEA for purely ideological reasons, even though it was highly effective and popular with parents. The parents of disabled children, through an advisory group in 1989, had demanded that such advice be produced, as unlike Race, Gender and Class none had come from the ILEA.

    The core of that group of parents became Parents for Inclusion, who had worked with Micheline previously when she’d sought advice on how to ensure her daughter, Lucy, who had the same impairment as her mother, could be successfully included in mainstream primary school. They mainly had children with Learning Difficulty, mostly Downs Syndrome, and had been struggling to get their children included [though at that time we called it integration]. 

    I had come from a teacher trade union and socialist background and until this point had seen my impairments as a personal issue to be overcome. All this changed on the carpet of Micheline’s flat in Tooting as we argued and sought to find a way to reconcile our different views. I think I learned more from Micheline, but she also gained an understanding of the education system and wider social organisations. We met for the first time in September 1989 and what was meant to be a 80 page document grew and grew, as we agreed different experiences and thoughts had to be in ‘Disability Equality in the Classroom : A Human Rights Issue’. Launched by the political leaders of the ILEA three weeks before its demise, copies of the 280 page handbook were sent to every school in Inner London, every English Education Authority. Largely due to Micheline’s thinking in bringing the social model into education to challenge the deficit thinking of the medical model (Special Education Needs view) a uniquely radical approach to the education of disabled people was presented, covering impairments, curriculum, disability equality, pedagogy and self-representation.

    Several things arose from our collaboration. Micheline became a life-long friend and collaborator. The Alliance for Integration was formally formed following an initial conference. The 3000 remaindered books were delivered to me and Micheline. Disability Equality in Education was formed to deal with the distribution and training over the next 17 years. Founding the Alliance, Micheline worked with me to develop a constitution that would represent all our allies but have a majority of the Council as disabled people, so it could be part of the UK Disability Movement. This meant having places on the Council for disabled people with various descriptions, disabled school students, disabled teachers, disabled parents and allies being parents, teachers and headteachers, educational psychologists, non-disabled young people. It sounds cumbersome but as the first elected Chair for 12 years, it was very effective, following Micheline’s leadership. In the first 10 years Allfie supported many parent led local campaigns for inclusion, drafted an Integrated Education Bill for Parliament, adopted Inclusion rather than Integration and changed its name, worked closely with Parents for Inclusion, Education Psychologists for Inclusion, spoke at many education and training conferences and later set up Young and Powerful. We got grants from Platinum Trust and Barrow Cadbury. Micheline held, for the first time in her life, a regular paid appointment as Allfie Coordinator with an office.

    In 1995, Save the Children approached the Alliance, concerned at the lack of portrayal of images of disabled children and to organise a conference of children’s image makers, both authors and programme makers. This was the highly successful Invisible Children Conference. Out of this came the 1 in 8 Group which led to real changes both in books and children and adult programming. 

    Comic Relief were keen to work with us and Micheline became a member of their Board. The change in the images, their patronizing approach and their grant giving to DPOs is in no small way due to Micheline’s tenacity. Though they could not fund children they were able to commission a pack for training the adult workforce for inclusive education. ‘Altogether Better from ‘Special Needs’ to Equality in Education’. This was another collaboration between Micheline and myself and gave us a valuable space to produce a more practical case for inclusive education. With a film from Anthony Minghella – Break down the Wall and Griff Rhys Jones in a head to head with an astute disabled student from Tottenham, linking film extracts chosen by Anne Pointon, Channel 4 disability advisor, this was a powerful  salvo for inclusive education. It sold more than 10,000 copies and was used throughout the country for training education professionals.

     

    Comic Relief funded the first national Disability Equality Trainers Training for Education at the Leicester Holiday Inn,1992. They gave an interest free loan for a second edition of a further 5,000 Disability Equality in the Classroom. In 2008, Comic Relief was able to fund children’s activities and they funded ‘Young and Powerful’, ‘The Alliance’’ and ‘Disability Equality in Education’ (DEE), a small charity based on the work of Micheline Mason & Richard Rieser. DEE has developed and trained a national network of 100 disabled Disability Equality Trainers in England and Wales. The trainers delivered high quality disability equality training for inclusion to schools and colleges. This was launched by Jacqui Smith MP, Minister  at the DFE in 1999. Micheline and I worked on developing the materials and running the Training the Trainers. We thought the Alliance should be the campaigning organisation, which is why it was not a Charity, whereas DEE  could be and it got funding. Its training was received by over 100,000 educationalists in the UK. 625 disabled people had received Training the Trainers training which developed a much more positive view of inclusive education in the Disability Movement, by the time it was wound up in 2008. This was because Labour had changed their mind and would no longer fund this important work.

    Some of the other major achievements were getting a meeting with David Blunkett MP before the 1997 General Election. As the future Secretary of State for Education he committed to developing an inclusive education system. Amending the Disability Discrimination Act to bring all Education establishments under it and removing 2 of the caveats that prevented parents getting their wish for mainstream. We called this compulsory segregation. Micheline and I, along with Jo Cameron of PI on the Council for Disabled Children managed to get the support of all the Charities sitting there. Ministers, Estelle Morris MP and Jackie Smith MP also supported and brought in the 2001 Education Amendment Act. Support of the Disability Rights Commission, teachers’ unions and TUC helped. Things were not perfect but from 2002 to 2006 the range and number of disabled children successfully included in mainstream schools went up in England. The publication of the Inclusion Assistant  which came out of a weekend workshop of young disabled people was another major achievement, later taken up by the Government (2007) for Learning Support Assistant  training.

    Further achievements were getting a Disability Equality Duty into the 2005 Act for all public bodies and UK Government support for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), especially Article 24 on Inclusive Education.   

    However, as David Blunkett said to Lucy at a Young and Powerful meeting :‘Send Micheline and Richard a message. I could not do what I promised. The forces arrayed against us were too powerful.’  This was an unholy alliance of ‘SEN experts’, politicians led by David Cameron, special school headteachers, teachers who had not received adequate training, ill-informed parents, LA bureaucracy. The Baroness Warnock, author  of the report that led to the 1981 Act changing her mind about inclusion and a Government laisse faire approach, not requiring schools to admit disabled pupils. The Labour Government view by 2007 had shifted when Andrew Adonis , Schools’ Minister, told the Education Select Committee that Labour did not have a policy of Inclusive Education. Micheline joined in these public debates on TV. 

    In 2010, the Conservative /Liberal Democrat Government had a policy of countering the ‘Bias to Inclusion’ which was nonsense, but together with austerity it led to an onslaught on the rights disabled people had gained. 

    In 2010, Rosa Branson launched her Portrait of the Inclusion Movement, painted 5 years earlier, which puts Micheline at the centre of multiple avenues of change. Launched after the first ever UK Disability History Month on the theme of Education at the Institute of Education, in November 2010, where the picture was hung.

    Speaking at that event Micheline said:-

    “Inclusive education AND Disability Rights are here to stay. I have seen such an enormous change in this area in my life-time. When I was born in the 1950s to be disabled was a terrible tragedy. It was just seen as a life sentence. At the point a child got a diagnosis they would be called handicapped. The parents were told they would never achieve. The expectations for their life were extremely low. Certainly, for me it was never expected that I would leave home, that I would get married, have children, have a job or a voice in the world. None of those things were expected. There was no Disability Movement. Disability was seen as a God given tragedy and possibly a punishment for the past evil deeds of thew parents. Parents felt full of guilt and shame. As a disabled girl there was absolutely no place in this country where I could receive an education that would lead to taking public examinations.

    There was no differentiation between people with different impairments. We were all handicapped, we were all the same and needed to be shouted at, patted on the head and treated as children for the whole of our lives. The best you could hope for was a job at Remploy. I can remember that word filling me with absolute horror. One of the reasons it is so important to say all this is because of how it makes you see yourself. Apart from the Rights you don’t actually have it makes you feel so insignificant as a human being. I think what happens is even when things change, because today disabled people have far more rights in the world and there is a growing understanding that we are an oppressed group. Like other oppressed groups it is the discrimination and mistreatment that makes our lives so difficult. Even with some of those improvements it doesn’t necessarily mean you feel any better about yourself, without actually learning the history, learning that we are part of a group that have resisted, that have come together and fought. It is disabled people who have brought about these changes and that is something that each generation needs to know. That they are part of that group of people who chain themselves to buses, who fought for the DDA, who did so many things to make lives better for ourselves and each other. That struggle and that history is not known. They still think the Government did it, kind souls, or parents did it.

    It was disabled people who did it. We had to organise and do it. It’s a history we have to be immensely proud of. As Richard said if you look back at how we have been treated over the years, it’s amazing it did not work. We’re still here. We are coming out and getting stronger, louder and bigger all the time.  So what does that say about human beings and what really matters to us? Something I have noticed we call it a struggle for inclusion. An awful lot of people are using that word and they know what it means. It has stirred something right in the core of our beings, which everybody wants. I don’t believe there is anyone on this planet who does not want inclusion in their hearts. It is only the fears and everything else that is stopping it. The bigger our voices and the more platforms we have to speak on the more we can move things forward and its not just for us but for a kinder world to live in.”

    2016 UKDHM  Micheline read two of her poems Micheline’s poems are powerful and impactful. Not Dead Yet (2006) is as relevant now as then, with threats to introduce assisted dying.

    Not Dead Yet

    I have lived to see another spring
    To  breath in the blossom’s perfumed air
    To feel again in the sun warming my skin
    To wonder at the life we share 

    I have another chance to notice
    Shining eyes meeting my own
    Some with love, some with questions
    The hope, fear, pain we have all shown

    I can touch again those I care for 
    With my hands, my mind, my heart
    They touch me as if for the first time
    New thoughts, our dreams just start

    Physical pain I have known plenty
    Impairments hold little fear for me
    But to feel unwanted, a burden, a weight
    Is the intolerable pain I fear

    The answer cannot lie in murder made easy
    In fueling guilt, complicity and dread
    It lies in the courage to create a kinder world
    In which no one would choose to be dead

    Happily, I am not dead yet
    I have lived to see another spring
    I will use every precious moment I have left
    This welcome change to bring

    Micheline’s illustrations of our inclusion message have often convinced people more than screeds of words. 

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    In 2019  for UKDHM Micheline and myself did a 2 handed interview on the History of the Alliance for Inclusive Education

    Going into retirement, Micheline was free to write and began to drill down into the origins of some of the thought barriers we had come up against that reversed the moves to inclusion. Micheline was always an optimist and strongly believed that much of what we had done by challenging the status quo of segregation and integration could not be put back in the box.

    So ‘Incurably Human’  and ‘Dear Parents’ published by Inclusive Solutions, bear witness to this deeper thinking and both still  stand as invaluable  templates for rekindling the Inclusive Education Movement.

    The Financial Crash of 2008 and Austerity led Micheline on a deeper investigation of Capitalism and its impact on the working class. Micheline was convinced that a process of healing in group meetings was necessary to empower working class people, including disabled people, to have the confidence to challenge the oppressive power of those in control.

    Interview with Colin Newton from Inclusive Solutions

    Critique of the Conservative Government SEN Green Paper and Plan. Here Micheline says the Government has spoken to everyone but those who have grown up in the special segregated schools and can attest to their negative and long-lasting impact on their lives. 

    Those of us who worked closely with her will always venerate and be thankful for her insights and the challenge she provided which moulded the journey forward. In her memory we must continue. I will also never forget her joy and laughter.

    As the American Socialist, Joe Hill said on his death by firing squad “ Don’t Mourn. Organise!”

    Richard Rieser friend, collaborator and comrade in the struggle for Inclusive Education and a better world. World of Inclusion and UK Disability History Month



  2. Open Letter to Bridget Phillipson Secretary of State for Education – SEND Crisis

    September 3, 2024 by admin

    The following template text has been designed to send to your Member of Parliament. The section in green can be deleted if it’s not relevant. The sections highlighted in yellow should be changed depending on constituency. MPs can only respond to correspondence from their constituents so it’s important to include your address. You can find your MP by using this link: Find your MP – MPs and Lords – UK Parliament


    Dear [INSERT FULL NAME OF MP],

    I am writing to you in relation to the ‘SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) crisis’ which, while widely acknowledged, is not necessarily understood in the same way by all parties. The content of this letter was also delivered as an open letter to the Secretary of State for Education on 3 September 2024.
    It is well known that we have:
    • A 72% increase in the number of Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) since 2019.
    • A 283% increase in agreements to requests for Education, Health and Care Needs Assessments since 2015.
    • A 250% increase in appeals to the SEND Tribunal since 2015.
    • Over 20% of students recorded as ‘persistently absent’, likely related to emotionally-based school non-attendance.
    • An increase of 33,485 students attending alternative provision and special schools since 2015.
    • Increasing numbers of Local Authorities unable to fulfil their statutory SEND requirements and experiencing associated financial unsustainability.
    • 17% of pupils in England identified as having SEND (January 2023), indicating one in six children and young people are unable to successfully access the curriculum without support or adjustments.

    In order to understand the factors underpinning the current crisis so that it can be addressed, we need to stop looking at the ‘SEND System’ in isolation and consider the wider education system as a whole.

    A series of well-intended developments, policies, and practice introduced in good faith have combined to result in a fragmented system characterised by multiple examples of competing pressures and inconsistent legislative frameworks. Combined with chronic underfunding, the cumulative impact of these unintended consequences is to disproportionately disadvantage children and young people who need something additional or different to access education.

    • The 2014 National Curriculum was introduced with intentions to raise educational standards but in doing so brought a much more rigid, prescriptive and narrow focus to learning with increased expectations for attainment at the end of each Key Stage. This came in the context of high-stakes performativity measures for both schools and individual teachers, (no doubt aimed to increase school performance) and a culture of competition between schools (aimed to provide more of a sense of parental choice). However, these were not congruent with the flexibility and adaptations needed for inclusive education. This was accompanied by considerable costs to school budgets (often reported as 8% in real terms), the wider impacts of austerity, the aftermath of COVID and much reduced access to external services such as mental health professionals and educational psychologists. As a result of all of this, the capacity of schools to provide the flexibility and resourcing that is required for inclusive education has been significantly reduced.

    • Local authorities are responsible according to the Children and Families Act (2014) and SEND Code of Practice (2015) for ensuring access to provision for children and young people who need something different or additional to access education and for securing educational placement. However, since the Academies Act (2010), Local Authorities have very little power and no effective mechanism to hold academy schools to account, nor are they able to build new schools (mainstream or special) themselves, having instead to rely on negotiations with MATs or with central government in relation to free schools. This comes in the context of the huge increase in the demand for statutory assessments and special school requests already outlined, a severely depleted workforce, including educational psychologists, and a 21% cut in funding to local authorities since 2012.

    Within the landscape outlined above, it is not possible to ‘try to fix SEND’ without looking at the role of other parts of the system in contributing to and maintaining the current situation. This must include a repositioning of ‘SEND’ within the wider education system so that it is no longer viewed as a ‘bolt-on’ or afterthought as it is now. Rather, those children and young people who need something additional and/or different to access education must be considered as central to all educational policy.

    Instead of providing solutions, the current approach has led to parts of the system blaming each other:

    • Schools are blamed for not being inclusive enough when true inclusion is impossible within current competing pressures and stretched resources and with teachers often feeling that they don’t have adequate training in how to support students with additional needs, including the application of reasonable adjustments (Independent review of teachers’ professional development in schools: phase 1 findings – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)). School staff often report experiencing a sense of professional fatigue associated with not being able to provide the flexibility and support for the children in their classes that they would like to, or were able to, 15 years ago.

    • Parents are blamed for being ‘pushy’ or ‘demanding’ when what they are doing is advocating within a system which was not designed with their children in mind. Families are too often bearing the impact of limited capacity for responsiveness within systems so that children are often in crisis before they begin to access the level of support required. This often has serious implications for families, including huge emotional impacts, as well as difficulties with maintaining employment when their children are not able to access education (full time or otherwise), therefore resulting in serious difficulties with financial stability

    • Local authority staff are blamed for not being able to meet their legal obligations in the concurrent and opposing vice-like constraints of financial strangleholds (since 2012), the demands of interventions such as Safety Valve, Delivering Better Value and Change Programme, which are all predicated on local authorities having control of rates of requests for Education, Health and Care Needs Assessments and special school places which the Children and Families Act and SEND Code of Practice don’t allow for. They are blamed for not providing enough support and early intervention in a context where the workforce crisis for support services has been growing over the last decade and a half. As an example, 96% of Local Authorities report difficulties with recruiting and retaining educational psychologists.

    • Most alarmingly of all, children and young people are increasingly being blamed in narratives around behaviour, in particular on social media, for not being engaged enough in education. Given that fewer than a quarter of children eligible for free school meals pass combined maths and English at GCSE, it is not unreasonable to understand ‘low attainment’ as a result of external factors. Indeed, issues within the SEND and wider education system disproportionately disadvantage children and young people from marginalized communities, including Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) students, those from low-income backgrounds, and those with additional vulnerabilities. For many children and young people, their educational experience is not accessible, meaningful or purposeful. We can’t blame teachers for this; they are obliged to teach to the curriculum.

    Our children and young people need a coordinated and united approach to improving the education system, and an end to the current culture of blame.

    It is in your power to be part of the solution. We ask you to please raise awareness of the broken, ‘bolt-on’ approach to SEND with your colleagues in the Department of Education and the Treasury. Please could we ask you to request that any response is not limited to reference to the SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan, which does little to address these issues, or any funding initiatives for local authorities already mentioned. Please press your colleagues to engage with a full review of the whole education system and curriculum to address the inconsistencies outlined here, and to place the needs of those with additional needs at the forefront so that all children and young people can access a meaningful and relevant educational experience within which they can thrive and have a sense of belonging within their own communities.

    The profession of educational psychology, represented through our joint liaison professional group (LA Principal Educational Psychologists, Training Programme Directors, AEP Professional Union, Division of Child and Educational Psychology at the British Psychological Society) would like to constructively engage with the DfE to co-produce a way forward. We are keen to work with the new government to work towards a solution to the issues identified, and so set an ongoing relationship where we are at the table for informed decision-making around holistic education policy.

    Very best wishes and many thanks,

    [INSERT NAME AND ADDRESS]

    Please note that the open version of this letter delivered directly to the Secretary of State of Education, has been signed by the following organisations:

    • Association of Educational Psychologists
    • British Psychological Society’s Division of Educational and Child Psychology
    • National Association of Principal Educational Psychologists
    • Action Cerebral Palsy
    • Afasic
    • Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education
    • British Dyslexia Association
    • Disabled Children’s Partnership
    • Equals
    • National Development Team for Inclusion
    • Special Needs Jungle
    • Thomas Pocklington Trust
    • Down’s Syndrome Association
    • Contact
    • Square Peg
    • World of Inclusion



  3. The Inclusion Think Tank Podcast

    April 25, 2022 by admin

    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:



  4. Richard Rieser Keynote for Quest University, Malaysia

    December 7, 2021 by admin


  5. National Education Union lights a beacon to fight to build and protect our inclusive mainstream education system for children and young people with SEND.

    April 12, 2021 by admin

    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.

    Addressing the Crisis of Disability Equality in Our Schools

    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.
     

    1. Schools are generally failing to observe the General Equality Duty towards disabled staff and pupils required by Section 149 of the Equality Act, where Responsible Bodies need due regard to i.e. eliminating discrimination and harassment of disabled staff and pupils in all decision making.
       
    2. The failure of many schools to provide effective education to pupils with SEND, often blaming the pupil for the school’s and Government’s systemic failures. In particular, the disproportionate exclusion of pupils with SEND, off-rolling, insufficient differentiation of curriculum and assessment. While we note the Education, Legislation maintains a presumption of inclusion, to which the Union is also committed; the reality is high levels of disablist bullying, increasingly schools saying ‘they cannot meet need’ and the building of new special schools, growth in the proportion of SEND pupils attending special schools/alternative provision, while SEND budgets in real terms are reduced.
       
    3. The recent report from ALLFIE showing schools are largely failing to have effective statutory Access Plans (Schedule 10 Equality Act). They are inadequate, often not annually reviewed, consulted upon with pupils and parents, containing information on improving access to the curriculum, not removing physical and information barriers for disabled pupils at the school.
       
      Conference instructs the Executive to: –
      a) Campaign to collectivise the treatment of disabled staff and change school culture to support them.
       
      b) Build with unions, parents and disabled people’s organisations a campaign for a properly funded inclusive education system, to achieve adequate SEND funding, large scale staff training on inclusive pedagogy, a curtailing of normative testing, revision of curriculum and assessment and accessible schools, so disabled pupils and others can thrive.
       
      c) Mount a high-profile NEU campaign to achieve disability equality for staff and pupils in all our schools.
      d) Create a Disability Equality Framework that enriches the curriculum by challenging both negative attitudes and stereotypes.
       
      e) Provide a well -advertised national launch event for the framework, that involves Disabled members, with regional events to follow which promote the framework by illustrating good practice”.
       
      Carried as amended National Education Union Conference Thursday 8th April 2021
      837 For 0 Against 1 Abstention

    SEND Funding and Mental Health (Composite)
    Conference notes:

    1. The picture facing schools and colleges supporting students with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) is bleak, with budgets at breaking point and severe cuts to health and social care provision.
    2. Schools are struggling to meet the needs of our most vulnerable pupils and the lack of sufficient funding and a more coherent approach are rendering the SEND code of practice is nothing more than an empty promise from government to parents and students.
    3. One million of the recognised 1.28 million students with SEND do not have any additional funding afforded to them, and therefore the financial burden of additional support penalises those schools that are the most inclusive.
    4. Students across the UK have also had their lives turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic and have had to adjust to dramatic changes in their education, routine and home life. Some have experienced bereavement or other traumatic experiences
      during the lockdown, while groups who were already marginalised or disadvantaged are now likely to become more so.
    5. The real terms cuts to mainstream funding have led to cuts in learning and pastoral support staff and access to specialist support, which is undermining the ability of schools to support their students with SEND and mental health and is failing our students.
    6. Conference notes that High Needs Funding is insufficient for the number of, and needs of, children with SEND.
    7. Conference further notes that school budgets continue to be top sliced, through local Schools Forum agreements, in order to make up the shortfall in the High Needs Funding block. This takes much needed funding from one already underfunded block to support
      another.
    8. Conference understands that even if a child has an Educational Health Care Plan (EHCP), the school or college they attend may not automatically be given the funded needed to support the child. An additional application is sometimes needed to obtain High Needs Funding.
      Conference instructs the Executive to urge the government to:
      (i) Work with the Union to undertake a full, evidence-based review of current and future demand for high needs funding to support students with SEND, and of the real cost of supporting students with SEND and those with mental health concerns
      (ii) Agree an immediate increase in funding to all schools and colleges
      (iii) Ensure that there are sufficient trained therapists and professionals available to support SEND and mental health needs of students.
      Conference further instructs the Executive to:
      a. Undertake a survey of members, to ascertain the situation of SEND students and those experiencing mental health issues.
      b. Support members, parents and others campaigning for proper funding and support for SEND students and those experiencing mental health issues.
      c. Conduct an enquiry as to how much money has been transferred from school budgets to support High Needs funding.
      d. Campaign for the further development of good SEND provision, both in mainstream and in alternative settings.
      e. Call for EHCPs to automatically come with the required level of funding needed to properly support a child with SEND.
      f. Continue to campaign for properly funded school and college budgets, including proper High Needs funding, to ensure budgets are no longer transferred from one block to another, allowing funding to be used for its intended purpose.
      g. Set up a SEND organising forum for members in Specialist, alternative provisions and those who support SEND students where they can meet virtually on a termly basis to discuss issues arising and organise activist and community-based campaigns.
      h. Highlight the inequalities older students and families are facing around benefits and access to educational provisions. EHCPs are for students 0-25 Years old however many families are unable to access support and provisions once they reach 18”.

    Carried 801 For 6 Against , 1 abstention



  6. Resources and Recordings from the Inclusive Education Festival

    March 31, 2021 by admin

    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.

    View them here



  7. Why Inclusion Matters films

    March 15, 2021 by admin

    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

    Why Inclusion Matters

    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.

    What is “How We Do School”

    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.

    Why British Columbia?

    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 BCFamily 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

    Why Finland?

    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

    www.inclusionmatters.sg

    How We Do School: British Columbia Filmed 2019 

    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

    How We Do School :Finland  Filmed 2018

    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



  8. Why inclusion?

    November 9, 2020 by admin

    A comprehensive and inspiring guide for mobilising peer support to include children with complex needs

    In just 40 minutes learn why inclusion in mainstream education is so important for disabled children and those with complex needs. We clarify the academic, social and human rights benefits of not being segregated.

    https://inclusive-solutions-school.teachable.com/p/why-inclusion



  9. Every Learner Matters

    September 24, 2020 by admin

    New paper published by the World Bank: Every Learner Matters: Unpacking learning crisis for children with disabilities

    Richard Rieser’s Case study assessment in UK– p. 74

    The paper “Every Learner Matters” explores how the global learning crisis relates to children with disabilities, examining education systems and the importance of measuring learning achievement for children with disabilities to respond appropriately to the needs of students. The paper picks up on the central message of the “World Development Report” (2018), which calls for urgent action to focus on measuring learning to understand gaps and barriers to align education stakeholders and create an enabling environment to deliver quality learning for all.

    Download here

    Also recently published by the World Bank

    Pivoting to inclusion

    The world is faced with a global education emergency of unprecedented scale. According to estimates by the World Bank, the COVID-19 pandemic, at its peak, caused more than 180 countries to mandate temporary school closures, leaving 85 percent of the world’s learners out of school. Children with disabilities and their families, especially those living in poverty, face significant multiple vulnerabilities during this pandemic, including education, health, and social protection.

    The World Bank’s Inclusive Education Initiative (IEI) presents its latest Issues Paper, Pivoting to Inclusion: Leveraging Lessons from the COVID-19 Crisis for Learners with Disabilities.’

    The challenges facing learners with disabilities are numerous.

    • Children with disabilities are among the most vulnerable – facing multiple forms of exclusion linked to education, health, gender equity, and social inclusion. Those living in poverty are at risk of further marginalization.
    • The schooling and learning deficit experienced by learners with disabilities impedes the ability to earn income as adults, which impacts individuals, households, and communities, contributing significantly to a country’s human capital gap.
    • At the peak of lockdown, the COVID-19 pandemic caused 180 countries to close schools temporarily, forcing 85% of the world’s learners out of school, furthering the risk of marginalization for children with disabilities 
    • The digital divide exacerbates the learning divide among learners related to accessing equipment, electricity, and the internet for learners with disabilities who have an additional barrier of inaccessible learning content. Also, many remote learning options are not accessible to blind and deaf learners.

    COVID-19 obliges us to rethink remote learning with an inclusive lens, where every child, whether they have a disability or not, can access and participate in learning that takes place away from the classroom.

    • Adopt a twin-track approach to disability inclusion in all phases of response: relief (immediate actions needed), recovery (medium-term actions to ensure safe reopening), and resilience (long-term actions). 
    • Use the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to ensure multiple means of engagement, representation, and expression are utilized for learners to think, develop skills, and grow while at home. 
    • Information should be wide-reaching and available in multiple languages and multiple accessible formats to reach learners and families of children who are at risk of being excluded.
    • It is crucial to support teachers in three core areas: resilience, instruction, and technology- training must focus on responding to learning loss as well as supporting parents to engage while learners with disabilities are compelled to stay at home. 
    • Ensuring safety, protection, and inclusion should be a priority when reopening schools. Children who are hardest to reach with remote learning, including those with disabilities, should be prioritized, where appropriate, among the first to have opportunities to return to school. 


  10. Global Monitoring Report on Inclusive Education

    June 23, 2020 by admin

    Download the report here: https://en.unesco.org/gem-report/report/2020/inclusion

    In line with its mandate, the 2020 GEM Report assesses progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) on education and its ten targets, as well as other related education targets in the SDG agenda. The Report also addresses inclusion in education, drawing attention to all those excluded from education, because of background or ability. The Report is motivated by the explicit reference to inclusion in the 2015 Incheon Declaration, and the call to ensure an inclusive and equitable quality education in the formulation of SDG 4, the global goal for education. It reminds us that, no matter what argument may be built to the contrary, we have a moral imperative to ensure every child has a right to an appropriate education of high quality.

    The Report also explores the challenges holding us back from achieving this vision and demonstrates concrete policy examples from countries managing to tackle them with success. These include differing understandings of the word inclusion, lack of teacher support, absence of data on those excluded from education, inappropriate infrastructure, persistence of parallel systems and special schools, lack of political will and community support, untargeted finance, uncoordinated governance, multiple but inconsistent laws, and policies that are not being followed through.  

    To complement its online database on education Inequalities, the Worldwide Inequalities Database on Education(WIDE),in January, 2020, the GEM Report launched a new online monitoring tool, Scoping Progress in Education, (SCOPE)telling the story behind SDG 4 data using the latest in online publishing and data-visualization technologies.  

    A complementary new online platform, Profiles Enhancing Education Reviews, (PEER) prepared by the GEM Report has been launched describing countries’ laws and policies on inclusion and education. 

    In 2020, the GEM Report will also launch two special regional reports produced in collaboration with regional partners. The reports will offer a deep dive into inclusion and education in Latin America and the Caribbean (October 2020) and Central and Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia (December 2020).