Inclusive Practice in the Primary School

A Guide for Teachers

Sarah Trussler, Debs Robinson, Author

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781446274903, 9781446274897
• eBook ISBN: 9781473916944
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Inclusive Education

Do you want to feel more confident when teaching children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)? Would you like to be a more inclusive teacher?

This book provides clear and flexible frameworks for effective inclusive teaching, and explains how to teach and plan for supporting any child's learning, no matter what their needs are.

With case studies and activities the book:

• explains and contextualizes current beliefs towards SEN
• provides models for practice
• encourages you to engage in thinking about SEN and inclusion
• offers interactive reflection points throughout
• links out to research with suggestions for further reading

Whether you're training to be a primary school teacher or already in the classroom this book will make you feel confident to be the inclusive teacher you need to be.

Part One

Chapter 1 Understanding Special Educational Needs, Disability and Inclusive Education

Learning Objectives

After engaging with this chapter you will be able to:

• Understand what is meant by inclusion.
• Understand what is meant by special educational needs and disabilities (SENDs).
• Explain the tensions that exist between the terms ‘inclusion’ and ‘special educational needs and disabilities’.
• Identify and reflect on your own belief systems about special educational needs, disability and inclusion.
• Reflect on your own stage of development as an inclusive practitioner.

Introduction

This chapter will explore what is meant by inclusion, and SEND. As you will discover, these terms are far from simple and there are different views about their meaning and value. Case studies of real student teachers will be shared, as a way of illustrating how these terms can be differently interpreted by professionals in the very early stages of their career. These illustrate varied stages of development in terms of preparedness and confidence for inclusive practice and you can consider how you compare. The chapter also includes a word-association exercise that will enable you to identify and reflect on your own belief system as this relates to special educational needs and disability, and this will help you begin the journey that this book has been designed to take you on.

Defining inclusion

It is frequently noted that the term ‘inclusion’ is hard to define. For example, Liasidou (2012: 5) describes inclusion as a ‘semantic chameleon’ because it adopts a different colour and meaning when used by different people, at different times, in different places. The following classroom scenario is presented as a means of reflecting on what is meant by inclusion and it will be returned to regularly during the discussion that follows.

Some people might argue that Dean’s experience of the science lesson was inclusive because he was learning in the same mainstream classroom as his peers. Adjustments had also been made so he could participate equally in the learning and hence he made progress. In this way his impairments were understood and compensated for through adaption and support. Others however would say that this was not inclusion since Dean had been unnecessarily separated from other learners (in working separately with the learning support assistant). Though he had been included in the classroom he had not been included in the social community of the class and hence could not participate fully.

Dean himself feels included in science but probably feels more included in English because there is scope to work with his peers. Whilst we could be critical of the level of inclusion provided in the science class Dean seems to think it is sufficient, and from his perspective his experience of inclusion in the school is a positive one. This is an interesting illustration of how inclusion can be a matter of interpretation. It can also be a question of degree given that we might have an overall and general sense of being included (as Dean does), and the extent of this varies in different contexts (as Dean seems to recognise). For a number of reasons, inclusion is a difficult concept to pin down or be absolute about.

Arguably, it would be paradoxical to fix on a single definition of inclusion because our conception of it must be flexible enough to adapt to diverse and ever-changing people in diverse and ever-changing contexts. Darling-Hammond (2006) notes that the learner population is infinitely diverse and hence something we must be continually adaptive to. Further, what counts as inclusion for Dean on a Monday may not count as inclusion for Dean on a Wednesday, and what counts as inclusion for another pupil may not be the same as what counts for inclusion for Dean. This presents you with challenges as a teacher since it may make it hard for you to gain any consistent view of what inclusion is and what you should be doing as a demonstration of it. In terms of professional development, this implies that you will need to be reflective, flexible and adaptable in order to be an inclusive practitioner. This book has been written to help you navigate that challenge.

However, in terms of its broader principles and practices there is some consensus on what inclusion means. A definition provided by the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted) (the school inspection body in England) is one example that will be analysed and built upon to establish what these principles and practices might be:

An educationally inclusive school is one in which the teaching and learning, achievements, attitudes and well-being of every young person matter. Effective schools are educationally inclusive schools. This shows, not only in their performance, but also in their ethos and their willingness to offer new opportunities to pupils who may have experienced previous difficulties. This does not mean treating all pupils in the same way. Rather it involves taking account of pupils’ varied life experiences and needs. The most effective schools do not take educational inclusion for granted. They constantly monitor and evaluate the progress each pupil makes. They identify any pupils who may be missing out, difficult to engage, or feeling in some way to be apart from what the school seeks to provide. They take practical steps – in the classroom and beyond – to meet pupils’ needs effectively and they promote tolerance and understanding in a diverse society. (Ofsted, 2000: 7)

This definition represents a number of common dimensions of inclusion as follows.

Inclusion is not just about SEND

The definition of an inclusive school presented above makes reference to the concern for every pupil (including those who may have special educational needs and/or disabilities). Hence, inclusion extends beyond SEND and is not just a term that describes the placement of learners who would otherwise have been in special schools into mainstream schools. Inclusion is a process that is concerned with everyone. Villa and Thousand (2005) consider inclusion to assume that every member of a school community has a right to belong and participate. This right is often extended to all stakeholders including staff and parents (Black-Hawkins et al., 2007; Corbett, 2001). If taking this perspective, Dean’s experiences of the science lesson would fall short of inclusion since he could not participate with his peers and was separated from the community of the classroom.

Case Study: Dean and the science lesson

Dean (a 14 year-old with limited mobility) is in a science lesson in a mainstream classroom. The pupils are learning about electrical resistance. The teacher introduces the lesson and provides a well-structured explanation of the concept and how it links to previous learning. Practical demonstrations are used to support understanding. The teacher then sets a practical task where the students must measure the impact of variable levels of resistance on the performance of particular components. They are asked to collate and record their results and to draw conclusions. The students work in groups to carry out the experiment together. There is plenty of discussion between them. Dean is working one to one with a learning support assistant at a different table (of an adapted height so that he can draw his wheelchair up to it). He tells her what needs to be done and how he wants the equipment to be manipulated and moved (he cannot do this himself). He tells her what he wants recorded in writing. He makes progress with the task and the learning.

Dean says that he feels very included in this school and that he chose to attend it because it was the one he judged to be the most inclusive in the area. For example, he reports that he is included in science experiments (though they are not the best example of how he is included) and adds that the lessons he enjoys the most are ones involving group work and discussion. Dean gives the example of English where he was involved in lessons about debating in which people listened to each other and criticised each other’s arguments.

Inclusion is a process that involves reflection, striving and positive action to counter inequality

Ofsted (2000: 9) note that the most effective schools ‘do not take educational inclusion for granted’ but strive to achieve this through a continual process of monitoring, adaption and improvement. This view is also adopted widely, often with particular attention paid to the way in which inclusion is concerned with an active commitment to removing barriers to participation (Sautner, 2008). With reference to Dean, though the barriers to learning were removed through the active allocation of teaching support and adapted furniture, it could be argued that the deployment of a learning support assistant actually created a barrier to participation since it enforced some separation of Dean from his peers and vice versa.

Inclusion celebrates diversity and adapts in response to diversity

There is also reference made to ‘taking account of pupils’ varied life experiences and needs’ (Ofsted, 2000: 9), although other definitions are more likely to emphasise the importance of celebrating diversity and recognising it as a trigger for improving education for all (Villa and Thousand, 2005). Dean communicated something about his preference for group learning and discussion. If this had been heard, a different decision about how to use the learning support assistant might have been made in order to enact real respect for his ‘life experiences and needs’ (Ofsted, 2000: 9). Additionally, Dean’s separation from his peers was preventing their enrichment. In this way, there may have been limitations on the extent to which this lesson reflected a concern to celebrate diversity and adapt respectfully to it.

Inclusion seeks to secure the participation of all members of the community in the full life of the community so that everyone can benefit

Ofsted (2000: 9) recognise that inclusive schools take note of who is not engaged or benefiting from the life and work of the school and act accordingly ‘in the classroom and beyond’. This view of inclusion is widely supported. For example, Sautner (2008) notes that inclusion represents a proactive concern to secure equality and acceptance for all, and Barton (2003: 10) argues that it involves the ‘politics of recognition’ being concerned with who is included and who is excluded in education and in broader society. Inclusion is often conceptualised as an issue that must extend beyond education in this way. In the case of Dean, whilst his educational needs had been met in terms of the learning objectives for the lesson, his more universal human need to work alongside his peers was not being add...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Publisher Note
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Illustration List
• Table List
• About The Authors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: How to use this book
• Part One
• Chapter 1 Understanding Special Educational Needs, Disability and Inclusive Education
• Chapter 2 The Policy Context for Special Educational Needs, Disability and Inclusive Education
• Chapter 3 Models of Difference and Differentiation
• Chapter 4 Inclusive Classroom Practice
• Chapter 5 The ‘Special Pedagogy’ Debate
• Part Two
• Chapter 6 Strengthening the ‘Whole Child’ Approach through the Spiral Spectrum Model
• Chapter 7 Personal, Social and Emotional Development
• Chapter 8 Communication, Language and Literacy Development
• Chapter 9 Physical Development
• Chapter 10 Drawing It All Together – How Children Learn and How We Teach Inclusively
• References
• Index