Inclusive Education:

1
Inclusive Education

• Making Rhetoric a Reality in England

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In this presentation

• Problems of nomenclature!
• Special educational Needs-SEN
• Inclusion- The making of a legal framework
• The noughties
• Research, Reports and recommendations
• Outcomes -Rhetoric becomes reality?
• Support and Aspiration A new approach to SEN and
  Disability 2011

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Whats in a name?That which we call a rose
would by any other name smell as sweet(Romeo
Juliet II, ii, 1-2) The problems of
nomenclature -special educational needs and
inclusion
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Special Educational Needs -SEN

• The term Special Educational Needs-SEN is a
  legal definition.Children with a SEN all have
  learning difficulties or disabilities that make
  it harder for them to learn than most children of
  the same age.
• These children may need extra or different help
  from that given to other children of the same
  age.
• (Reference Code of Practice -Special Educational
  Needs, 2002)

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• Special educational provision
• means
• for children of two or over, educational
  provision which is additional to, or otherwise
  different from, the educational provision made
  generally for children of their age in schools
  maintained by the LEA, other than special
  schools, in the area
• for children under two, educational provision of
  any kind
• Ref Section 312, Education Act 1996

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Children have special educational needs if they
have a learning difficulty which calls for
special educational provision to be made for them.
Children have a learning difficulty if they a)
have a significantly greater difficulty in
learning than the majority of children of
the same age or (b) have a disability which
prevents or hinders them from making use
of educational facilities of a kind
generally provided for children of the same age
in schools within the area of the local
education authority (c) are under
compulsory school age and fall within the
definition at (a) or (b) above or would so do if
special educational provision was not made
for them.
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A child is disabled if he is blind, deaf or dumb
or suffers from a mental disorder of any kind or
is substantially and permanently handicapped by
illness, injury or congenital deformity or such
other disability as may be prescribed. Ref
Section 17 (11), Children Act 1989
A person has a disability for the purposes of
this Act if he has a physical or mental
impairment which has a substantial and long-term
adverse effect on his ability to carry out normal
day-to day activities. Ref Section 1(1),
Disability Discrimination Act 1995
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• Special educational needs -SEN discourse
  supports within child deficit assumptions
  (Salt Report, 2010)
• Educationally subnormal - term not used in UK /
  England after the 1970s
• Moderate Learning Difficulties-MLD the generic
  term used
• Retarded or mentally retarded to be removed
  from new edition DSM-5(pending 2012). New term
  learning and cognition needs

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Language of meeting needs in England

• Remedial education
• Compensatory education
• Special classes
• Special treatment
• The whole school approach
• Differentiation
• Integration
• INCLUSION

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• Integration- child adapting to the host
  environment
• Is politically neutral and infers a model of
  service delivery
• Gradually assimilating into a structured setting
  or environment
• The setting is not required to change to meet
  the needs of the child

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Inclusion

• The host adapting in order to meet the needs of
  the child
• Framed within the ecological paradigm(Mitchell,
  2001)
• Has a strong ideological element
• Reflects a shift in a paradigm from a Needs
  base to a Rights base (Lindsay,2007)

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Milestones to inclusion

• 1970 Handicapped Children Act
• 1976 Act-Integration
• 1978 Warnock Report
• 1981 Education Act
• 1989 The Children Act
• UNCROC-UK ratified 1991)
• 1993 Education Act (Implemented 1994)
• 1994 Salamanca (Inclusion Philosophy)
• 1995 Disability Discrimination Act

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Milestones to inclusion continued.

• 1996 Education Act
• 1998 Human Rights Act
• 2001 Inclusive school design
• 2001 Special Educational Needs and Disability Act
  -SENDA Duty (Part 1)
• 2001Inclusive schooling- Statutory Guidance
• 2002 SENDA ACT (Part 2) Added responsibility on
  1995 Act)
• 2002 New Code of Practice for SEN
• 2004 Children Act

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Removing Barriers to Achievement (2004) A shift
in responsibility?

• Every teacher should expect to teach children
  with special educational needs
• Every teacher needs to be equipped with skills to
  do so effectively
• Action to do so would be required at three levels

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SPECIALIST SKILLS -in some local schools
ADVANCED SKILLS-some teachers in ALL schools
CORE SKILLS -for ALL teachers in ALL Schools
Reference Removing barriers to Achievement
Developing School workforce SEN skills. DFES
(2004) p 56.
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Every Child Matters (2003)

• Reforms Supported by Children Act (2004)
• Every child has the right to
• Be healthy
• Stay safe
• Enjoy Achieve
• Make a positive contribution
• Achieve economic well-being
• Partnerships and Trusts established- the child
  is given a voice

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The Lamb Enquiry (2009)

• Reviewed provision of SEN and disability support
• Established to investigate parental confidence in
  the SEN system of assessment and provision and
  how it might be improved
• Found a disparity of provision across England
• Demonstrated that changes can work-10 pilot
  studies in 460 schools in England

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Bercow Report (2009)

• Looked at services and support for students with
  speech, language and communication needs
  -SLCN(age 0-19)
• 10 months of extensive data gathering found
• Lack of consistency in provision across Local
  Authorities and Primary Care Trusts
• Needs not being met for the majority
• Insufficient understanding / insufficient
  priority given to addressing SLCN
• Acute shortage of therapists/ teaching staff not
  trained/ no therapy during school holidays

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Bercow Report (2009) Outcomes

• Five key themes identified
• Communication is crucial
• Early identification and intervention are
  essential
• A continuum of services designed around the
  family is needed
• Joint working is crucial
• The current system is characterized by high
  variability and lack of equity
• 40 Recommendations made within these five
  themes

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Rose Report (2009)

• Identifying and Teaching Children and Young
  People with Dyslexia and Literacy Difficulties
• As with Lamb review, this found parents had to
  fight for support or assessment
• Teacher knowledge and sufficient expertise was
  lacking
• Language development requires more stringent
  monitoring
• Insufficient links to INCLUSION DEVELOPMENT
  PLAN(IDP)

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Achievement for all aims (2009)

• to improve outcomes for all children and young
  people with special educational needs and
  disabilities (SEND)
• to improve the engagement of parents of children
  and young people with SEND with their school and
• to improve the wider outcomes of children and
  young people with SEND

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Identifying and teaching young children with
dyslexia and literacy difficulties (Rose 2009)
found

• Parents had to fight for their childs assessment
  and support
• Teacher knowledge of dyslexia lacking
• Provision of support disproportionate across
  England
• Fundamental change in the approach to providing
  for students with dyslexia and reading
  difficulties needed

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Salt Review (2010)

• Review of Teacher supply for pupils with severe
  learning difficulties(SLD) and profound and
  Multiple Learning difficulties (PMLD)
• Found.
• Average age of current staff could mean an exit
  through retirement - workforce potentially a
  serious shortage
• Expertise sharing between mainstream and special
  schools weak

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Outcomes and recommendations

• Lamb Review (2008)
• Bercow Review (2009)
• Rose Review (2009)
• Achievement for All (2009)
• Salt Review (2010)

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Lamb(2008) Review Outcomes 51
recommendations made parents need to be
listened to 4m set aside to take
recommendations forward Fully funded
NASENCO mandatory course
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Bercow Review (2009) Outcomes 52million
allocated to implement recommendations.
(41.2m Every Child a Talker-ECaT-
project) (12m to SLCN up to 2011)
2011 National Year of Speech, Language and
Communication Established communication Trust
http//www.thecommunicationtrust.org.uk
Appointment of Jean Gross - A Communication
Champion The Hello Campaign-to increase
understanding of how important it is for
children and young people to develop good
communication skills www.hello.org.uk
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Rose (2009

• 19 recommendations made
• All accepted, 20million set aside to fund
• 4000 funded places to train mainstream teachers
  as specialists
• Share expertise between groups of schools
• Specialist to Conduct in-house in-service
  training
• Head teacher and Governors should audit provision
  regularly to ensure needs being met.

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Salt (2010) recommendations

• Aging teacher population-Recruitment and
  retention urgently needed
• Raise incentives to boost the entry into this
  sector of teaching
• 28,000 SLD/PMLD pupils in Special schools
• 9500 included in mainstream schools (England)
• Remove barriers to qualification-open routes to
  non graduates
• Strengthen parent choice

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Achievement for all (2009)

• Radical scheme Achievement for all successfully
  piloted in some 500 schools across 10 local
  authorities since launched in 2009
• Where piloted, it has reduced the number of SEN
  pupils by 10 per cent
• (Source Director of the scheme Professor Sonia
  Blandford)
• 450,000 children were being wrongly labeled as
  requiring special needs teaching !
• (Ofsted Report)

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May 2010 General Election

• Change of Government
• Conservative/Liberal Coalition
• Change of policy
• Financial constraintsRecession!

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http//www.education.gov.uk/schools/pupilsupport
/sen/types The Salt review This page may not
reflect Government policy. More
information.Information and recommendations from
the Salt review, which reviewed the training
needs of teachers looking after children with
severe learning difficulties.General article 21
September 2010 The Bercow Review This page may
not reflect Government policy. More
information. A review of services for children
and young people with speech, language and
communication needs, led by John Bercow
MP. General article 21 September 2010 The Rose
Review This page may not reflect Government
policy. More information. Outcomes and
recommendations from the Rose Review, a report on
the provision of education for children with
dyslexia. General article 21 September 2010 Lamb
Inquiry - SEN and parental confidence This page
may not reflect Government policy. More
information. Information about the Lamb Inquiry,
which was established to identify ways in which
parental confidence in the SEN assessment could
be improved. General article 19 August 2010

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Michael Gove cuts special needs register for
children by 170,000(Source Daily Mail March
2011)

• Schools have wrongly labeled too many pupils as
  'special needs' to cover up poor teaching
• SEN label was introduced under legislation that
  decreed that any pupil with a Greater difficulty
  in learning than the majority of the same age
  had a Special educational Need
• Currently a fifth of all children in England are
  identified as having SEN - 21 per cent or
  1.7million out of a total school roll of
  8.5million
• children that are just naughty

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What Inclusion studies have shown

• anything which divides pupils in a school,
  particularly in terms of cognitive abilities, is
  virtually guaranteed to produce school failures
  (Blaug, 2001 pp42-43)

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What the research tells us

• Effects of inclusion are not huge but they are
  positive (Lindsay 2007)
• Students perform better in regular mainstream
  classes (Baker, Wang Walberg,1994)
• Effect for students of different achievement
  levels close to zero (Slavin,1993)
• Students seldom enjoy high levels of acceptance
  in integrated classrooms but social competence
  and academic achievement benefits (Freeman
  Alkin, 2000)

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Inclusion

• is not simply about where a child is taught it
  is about the quality of a childs experience of
  school life, including both the formal and
  informal curriculum, in and beyond the classroom
• Its a distinctive value position
• Conceptualizing difference as an issue in the
  schooling of ALL children

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Inclusion can be seen as

• Giving rise to genuinely new forms of practice
  (Ainscow,1999)
• Concerning the rights of marginalized pupils and
  building a particular sort of inclusive
  society
• and making a real advance in special
  educational needs.

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References Baker,E.T Wang,M.C. Walberg,H.J
(1994) The effects of Inclusion on learning
Educational Leadership December 1994/January
1995, 33-35 Dyson A. Special Needs in the
twenty-first century where weve been been and
where were going. British Journal of Special
Education 28.(1) (March 2001) 24-29. Freeman,
S.F.N. Alkin,M.C (2000) Academic and Social
attainments of children with mental retardation
in general education and special settings
Remedial and Special Education 21 (1),
3-18. Lindsay,G.(2003) Inclusive education a
critical perspective British Journal of Special
Education 30 (1), 3-12 Myklebust,J.O (2006)
Class placement and competence attainment among
students with special educational needs British
Journal of Special Education. Vol 33, No 2
76-81. Blaug,M (2001) What are we going to do
about school leavers? European Journal of
Vocational Training 22. 40-46 Mitchell, D.
(2001). "Paradigm Shifts in and around Special
Education in NewZealand " Cambridge Journal of
Education 31(3) 319-335.