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Background Information
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INDEX for Inclusion
Professor Mel Ainscow of Manchester University, talking about the INDEX for Inclusion, says that it attempts to draw on the experience of many schools that have made progress in creating a more effective learning environment, and that it provides a more detailed definition of what inclusive education might look like. It provides a set of aspirations against which schools can compare what they’re doing at the moment with what they’d like to achieve. Professor Ainscow goes on to say, ‘What we’ve seen in quite a lot of schools are senior management teams embracing the INDEX and using it to create a more inclusive way of carrying out school development and planning. In these schools we’ve seen a number of examples of where that process of school development planning is carried out in a more inclusive way by listening to the voices of different stakeholders within the school. Inclusive practices have genuinely contributed to the improvement of the school, in such a way that it’s benefiting all children. So I was really pleased that the government decided to send the INDEX to all schools in England and what I’m hoping now is that headteachers as well as teachers and other people in education will now take the INDEX and use it to improve the quality of education for all children in the community.’
The INDEX - a copy of which was sent to every school in the UK - is an essential tool and a set of materials to support schools in the process of inclusive school development. It is about building supportive school communities which foster high achievement for all students. The process of using the INDEX is itself designed to contribute to the inclusive development of schools. It encourages staff to share and build on their existing knowledge, and assists them in a detailed examination of the possibilities for increasing learning and participation amongst all of their students.
The INDEX involves a process of school self-review on three dimensions concerned with inclusive school cultures, policies and practices. The process entails progression through a series of school development phases. These start with the establishment of a coordinating group. This group works with staff, governors, students and parents to examine all aspects of the school, identifying barriers to learning and participation, deciding priorities for development, and sustaining and reviewing progress. The investigation is supported by a detailed set of indicators and questions which require schools to engage in a deep and challenging exploration of their present position, and of the possibilities of moving towards greater inclusion.
What teachers say about the INDEX for Inclusion
Dianne Rowbotham, deputy head at Girlington Primary School in Bradford, says, ‘It’s very interesting for us because the children with disabilities were here before we started to look at the INDEX for Inclusion. We knew the children were coming (to the school) because they lived round here and we knew they presented a challenge to us ... it happens bit by bit, child by child, and you just look at the child and try to work out what is best for them. So, when we began to look at inclusion more formally, using the INDEX, it just happened to clarify the thinking and helped us look at it in a more formal way. And the INDEX does really help you to think more broadly about inclusion for all children. How many children, hearing or hearing-impaired, feel that they go home at the end of the day with a question that the teacher didn’t give them an opportunity to ask? How many parents feel that they can’t come through the door and ask the Headteacher a question about their child’s education? All these issues are what inclusion is about. By looking at the INDEX and all the indicators within it we began to think about those things.
‘When we began to use the INDEX for Inclusion in a kind of audit/evaluative way, we gathered some information from the year 3 and year 4 pupils and parents. It was information on a broad range of issues. We didn’t know what we were going to get back; we’d never asked the parents for that much detailed information before. It was in the form of a questionnaire. When we got the information back there was a lot of positive information on how they felt we were working with their children. And that’s good for us. We did have a little negative feedback from both pupils and parents about how support assistants and class assistants in school were perceived ... so it was obvious we needed to do some work helping the parents to see how it fitted together, how the teacher planned lessons for the class and how we had the support teacher working with children who had been identified as needing some help in particular curriculum areas or in basic skills. We needed to explain how we expected the parents to help at home. We had meetings for parents where we introduced all the support staff, who, interestingly reported they had had feedback from parents themselves asking why they, the support assistants, were working with their children. So, obviously, there was a mismatch between what we thought was happening and what the parents thought. We then held a meeting with each year group on consecutive weeks, we introduced the classroom assistants and they all had an opportunity to show what kind of work they were doing with the children in school. We put up displays in the classroom with a photograph of the member of staff, the support staff and their job title and role and how that role was to help the children to learn.’
Elaine Dawson, SENCO (Special Educational Needs Coordinator) at Beckfoot School in Bradford, says, ‘The school was involved in the pilot of the INDEX for Inclusion and I was the person who was going to steer and pilot that within the school. At first, I made a deliberate decision that, although I was the SEN Co-ordinator, I wouldn’t involve many SEN staff because I didn’t want it to be seen by staff, students, governors, parents as purely a SEN issue, and thankfully, that worked because the overriding result that emerged from the INDEX for Inclusion is the way that we include students in the management and the development of the school. The students became very interested in working parties within the school. They wanted to be involved in the running and the decision-making element of the school. Some very interesting work with interesting results was carried out.’
Resources
INDEX for Inclusion
£24.50 (inc. p&p)
Developing an Inclusive Policy for your School
£6 (inc. p&p)
A clear and simple introduction to inclusion.
Inclusive Education: A Framework for Change
£4.50
National and international perspectives.
Published by CSIE (Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education) - address below.
Inclusion as a Human Right.
Human Rights and Schooling: The Newham Story
- Linda Jordan and Chris Goodey.
£6.50 (inc. p&p)
Disaffection and Inclusion: A Mainstream Approach to Difficult Behaviour
- Giles Barrow.
£7.00 (inc. p&p)
All these titles, and more, available from:
CSIE (Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education)
1 Redland Close
Elm Lane
Redland
Bristol
BS6 6UE
Tel: 0117 9238450
Teachers with Disabilities
Disabled people who are looking for a career in teaching have a great deal to offer young people. It is not only in terms of being a role model, it is also about bringing their own experience to the classroom. Disabled pupils need adults they can talk to about what it’s like to grow up as a disabled young person, whether you will ever have a relationship with anybody, how you develop feelings about your own sexuality and how you relate to other people. For younger pupils, they see disabled adults having authority and power in the school situation. The Teacher Training Agency is working to get more disabled people into teaching.
The Governor
Chris Goodey is the parent of a disabled pupil and governor of Lister Community School. Chris says, ‘The governor’s job is to keep tabs on what the managers of the school are doing. Governors can ask questions about the kind of provision that pupils have in the school. They can ask why there aren’t more pupils in the school who have particular disabilities or certain kinds of special needs. The best thing to say to parents who might be doubtful of sending their child to a mainstream school is that the child with a disability usually acts as an ambassador for inclusion. If parents of non-disabled children do object to disabled children being in the school, all I can say is that the evidence here is quite the opposite, that the presence of children, often with quite severe learning difficulties in the school, can push up exam results. Newham, Lister’s LEA, came top of the National League of Improvement over a four year period in GCSE results, in exactly the same year as it arrived at the top of the league for local authority areas including disabled children in ordinary schools. What it does is encourage teachers to differentiate the curriculum. They have to do that for pupils with learning difficulties, so that trains them in doing it for other pupils as well and it improves performance. Lister School for a number of years had a very stable set of results for A to C passes at GCSE but the year when inclusion really kicked in at this school, the results started to rise.
‘Before 1970, my daughter, who is disabled, wouldn’t have been in school at all. After 1970 she would have been in a school for children with severe learning difficulties. Here, she’s been in mainstream school since she was five, and last year she left secondary school with four GCSEs, three at ‘F’ grade, and she went through all her school life with her peers, she wasn’t withdrawn, she wasn’t separated. She knows she’s different, she knows she needs support in some lessons, but she thinks that that’s a normal part of life and, correspondingly, my son, who’s not disabled has a concept of normality which includes his sister and people like his sister.’
Circles of Friends
Circles of Friends is an approach to enhancing the inclusion in a mainstream setting of any young person who is experiencing difficulties in school because of a disability, a personal crisis, or his or her challenging behaviour towards others. The Circle of Friends approach works by mobilising the young person’s peers to provide support and engage in problem solving with the person in difficulty. Circles of Friends is not the same as ‘circle time’ but many of the skills and techniques used by teachers in ‘circle time’ can be used to support the Circles of Friends process. It is a highly accessible, practical and useful resource.
Circles of Friends
Written by Colin Newton and Derek Wilson
Published by Folens
Albert House
Apex Business Centre
Boscombe Road
Dunstable, Beds.
LU5 4RL
Tel: 01582 472788
Price £14.95 inc. p&p
folens@folens.co.uk
Also useful:
Working Towards Inclusive Education: social contexts
Written by Peter Mittler
Published by David Fulton £16
A comprehensive review of inclusion and exclusion policies.
‘Sign Now!’ (the CD-ROM featured in Count Me In, in the background of the sequence with Jill Kirk at Lister Community School, Catalogue number 1996) A comprehensive CD-ROM dictionary with many useful features. Price £59.00 inc. VAT.
Post free from:
Forest Book Services
8 St John Street
Coleford
Gloucestershire
GL16 8AR
Tel: 01594 833858
Fax: 01594 833446
Website: www.ForestBooks.com
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