5.1 In gathering evidence for this report, HM Inspectors were left in no doubt that schools generally regard inclusion as one of their key priorities and challenges. This report describes emerging good practice in a wide range of contexts. It is not built on the presumption that any one school displays all of the features of effective educational inclusion, nor does it seek to predict new forms of good practice which have yet to emerge. In all of the schools from which the evidence is drawn, it was recognised that review, evaluation and adaptation in the light of experience would continue to be necessary.
Key messages
5.2 A number of general themes can be drawn from the overall findings of this review. These can be summarised in terms of seven key messages.
Schools should have high expectations for all of their pupils.
5.3 Effective inclusion involves more than just addressing disadvantage. It is based on having high expectations of all pupils in the school community, and supporting them to achieve their full potential. It is based on the conviction that all pupils have talents and have the capacity to benefit from their educational experience. The role of the school is to maximise the advantages they bring and minimise any disadvantages, drawing on a good knowledge of individuals and their aspirations. In setting expectations, staff need strenuously to avoid negative stereotypes or assumptions that might constrain attainment or reduce expectations for pupils from particular groups or backgrounds.
5.4 Concern for high standards of attainment is absolutely consistent with the broad aims of social and educational inclusion. To a considerable extent it is by helping all pupils to achieve as well as they can that schools can most effectively maximise pupils' life chances and minimise the risk of social exclusion after leaving school.
5.5 Schools should also have high expectations of pupils' behaviour. Within a school, inclusion equally implies a climate where pupils recognise not only their rights, but also their responsibilities to each other and to the school community as a whole.
All pupils should experience success.
5.6 Effective inclusion aims to give all pupils the experience of achieving real and meaningful success in their school lives. This involves encouraging pupils to identify and work towards stretching but realistic individual targets, and recognising their success when targets are reached. Progress against stretching personal targets should be valued equally, regardless of the absolute levels of attainment involved.
5.7 Schools recognised that effective inclusion required them to provide support and challenge for pupils at all levels of attainment. This applied equally to those capable of reaching the highest levels of achievement. Care needed to be taken to ensure that they also reached their full potential.
5.8 In inclusive schools, concern for high attainment is matched by concern for other forms of achievement, including the development of personal and social skills and successful participation in school and community activities.
Inclusion requires a flexible, dynamic response to the needs of individuals.
5.9 Schools need to be more flexible and responsive in how they plan and deliver programmes for pupils if they are to succeed in meeting the needs of all their pupils successfully. Schools are increasingly introducing a wider range of opportunities into the programmes they offer. In this way, they can better engage and challenge pupils who might otherwise be insufficiently motivated or stimulated. Effective inclusion also involves developing learning and teaching approaches which are responsive to pupils' personal learning styles and prior attainment, and ensures that pupils are involved actively in taking responsibility for their learning.
5.10 The approach required for inclusive education is the antithesis of what might be described as a 'one size fits all' approach to education. It requires schools to be able to offer a wide range of different learning opportunities, which are adapted and tailored to meet the needs of particular individuals in ways which engage and motivate them.
Inclusive education can be delivered through a variety of settings.
5.11 Promoting an inclusive approach to education does not imply uniformity or conformity amongst schools. Schools take very different approaches, depending upon the nature of the particular communities that they serve. The inclusiveness of a school comes from the aims and values of the school, its climate and ethos and the extent to which the needs of all individuals in its particular school community are being addressed.
5.12 Educational inclusion does, however, imply an absolute commitment to
equality of opportunity and fairness of treatment, regardless of sex, religion,
ethnic origin, gender orientation, social, economic, and linguistic background.
It also requires schools to take active account of special needs and the implications
of religious, ethnic, cultural and social diversity, to ensure that all pupils
reach their potential. Where a school, or an aspect of education within a school,
provides specific or specialised provision, it should equally promote awareness
of, and respect for, diversity and an understanding of the experience of others.
It should provide opportunities for pupils to broaden and enhance their experience
of society as a whole.
5.13 Specialist provision for pupils with special needs, including social, emotional and behavioural needs, has an important role to play in an inclusive educational system. Inclusive mainstream schools start from a very strong commitment to trying to meet the needs of all members of their school community. In many cases, the provision of additional support and facilities allow the needs of pupils with special needs to be met in mainstream provision. In some cases, however, placement of a pupil into good quality alternative provision may be a positive move to ensure that the needs of the individual pupil and of others can all be met.
5.14 Alternative provision for pupils placed outwith mainstream provision should also have an inclusive orientation. Plans for individual pupils should include strong links and routes back into mainstream provision wherever possible, and the necessary support to make this a success. Inclusive special schools and units focus strongly on equipping the pupil with the necessary skills and attainments to prosper on transition to their next placement or when leaving school to take up their place in the community.
Inclusive education relies on schools working in partnership with others.
5.15 It is clear that schools need to develop increasingly close and effective working relationships with other agencies, if they are to maximise their effectiveness in promoting inclusion. These relationships need to be based on a shared understanding of aims and objectives and a clear understanding of the contribution that each agency can make towards achieving them. They also need to be based on a true partnership, in which all partners are prepared to share decision making and the leadership of specific pieces of work in appropriate ways.
5.16 The ways in which staff from schools and other agencies relate to each other and to pupils have to be flexible and managed responsively to meet the needs of individuals and groups. A high degree of professionalism among teachers and other staff is required. Good opportunities for continuing professional development for all staff and for joint training between professional groups are crucial. The experience of new community schools has shown that the development of fully effective inter-agency working is not an easy task, and requires sustained effort from all concerned.
Schools should support and develop the whole child.
5.17 Inclusive schools are committed to developing the whole child, including all of their talents and abilities as well as their personality, social attitudes and competencies. This requires a high degree of knowledge of pupils as individuals amongst key staff in the school. It also requires knowledge of the pupil's life outside the school, at home and in the community. Inclusive schools therefore need to be committed to actively engaging with pupils and their parents to identify their needs and aspirations and to access their views about the school's success in meeting them.
5.18 A commitment to developing the whole individual also involves recognition of the fact that schooling should be seen as just one part of a much more extensive process of life-long learning for individuals, in which attitudes to learning in the family and the local community play a vital part. As a result, schools need to be concerned with promoting positive attitudes to learning and raising aspirations in pupils' homes and the wider community as well as within the school buildings.
Inclusion requires effective leadership.
5.19 Effective leadership is crucial in establishing the aims, vision and values which are needed to support the development of inclusive educational practice and ensure that it is pursued consistently throughout the school. Leadership is required at all levels. Whilst it is vital that the headteacher projects a strong commitment to an inclusive approach, it is equally important that this is reflected throughout the rest of the staff. This leadership needs to include coherent approaches to evaluating current provision and to planning developments to ensure that successful strategies for improving provision are established and implemented.
Looking forward
5.20 The key messages above highlight the nature of the challenge that faces schools, education authorities and national bodies as they plan for future development.
5.21 At national level, the establishment of the national priorities set by the Executive in partnership with education authorities has set an agenda for the future. There is also increasing recognition that curricular flexibility and innovative approaches to learning and teaching are necessary to improve the standards and quality of educational provision for all.
5.22 There can be little doubt that the development of educational inclusion will continue to be a matter of high priority for the foreseeable future at all levels in the education system. This is likely to be a rapidly developing field in which new forms of good practice are constantly emerging.
5.23 It is equally clear, however, that some aspects of the broad inclusion agenda present particularly difficult challenges to schools and education authorities. As discussed earlier in this report, the challenge of including pupils who present severely disruptive behaviour or who are generally alienated from school is one such aspect. The effective inclusion of pupils with special educational needs, in ways which ensure that they are genuinely prospering in the mainstream school and not merely attending it, is another. Schools and education authorities also face major new challenges in responding to the statutory requirements placed on them by the recent legislation on race relations, disabilities and special educational needs.
5.24 To support the development of inclusion across the system we need to
find new ways of explicitly rewarding and celebrating the success of schools
in meeting the challenges presented. During the course of gathering evidence
for this report, a number of headteachers argued that there was currently an
over-emphasis on judging the success of schools on a limited basis which focuses
strongly on the success of more able pupils in examinations and national tests.
In such a context, schools may even feel that there is a positive disincentive
to including pupils who have special needs or behavioural difficulties. To ensure
that this is not the case, schools need to be positively rewarded for their
successes in promoting inclusion, as well as for their successes in more traditional
measures of academic performance.
5.25 Finally, it is also important to recognise that the overall scale of
the challenge faced by schools across the country in achieving inclusion varies
very significantly from one school to another. In particular, it is clearly
the case that schools serving areas with high levels of social disadvantage
are often dealing with issues on a much greater scale than those in more affluent
districts.
This has led to some schools in very difficult circumstances becoming involved
in a particularly wide range of projects and initiatives. Whilst this report
has illustrated a number of positive developments of this sort, experience from
the school inspection programme suggests that we need to give serious thought
to the impact of large numbers of different projects and initiatives on a single
school. As a national education system, we need to seek continually to evolve
the school system away from a situation in which a small number of schools have
to cope with a disproportionate degree of challenge. In the short term, we need
to continue to identify and disseminate good practice in the management of such
high levels of challenge in the context of a single school. It is vital that
schools in such circumstances have the support, resources and expertise necessary
to manage the complex provision, and the inter-agency working that goes with
them, if they are to be able to succeed in meeting their pupils' needs effectively.
5.26 This report has attempted to draw some overall messages from the wide variety of ways in which schools are addressing issues of inclusion across Scotland. In so doing, it aims to stimulate further development through presenting a range of aspects of good practice.
5.27 HMIE will continue to seek out and report on good practice in schools and authorities through its inspection programme and other activities, and also to identify any emerging concerns. Our aim is to support sustained improvements across the country.
5.28 We will also continue to debate and review the issues presented in this report in the light of further experience and the development of best practice in schools and communities. Having considered inclusion at a very generic level in this report, we have also begun a range of reviews and inspection activities, focused on specific aspects of inclusion. These will result in a series of further contributions to the debate. Forthcoming reports will include a review, undertaken jointly with Audit Scotland, of inclusion of pupils with special educational needs; an investigation of how schools and education authorities are responding to the recommendations of the Discipline Task Group report; and a review of how schools and authorities are addressing their new duties under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000.