I started reading Nicholas Nickleby on my new gadget at Christmas.  For someone who can only use one hand I have put off reading any big books long ago.  My gadget solved that.

Into the second chapter and enter the Muffin Company, a great ruse for making money that wasn’t really there (modern day parallels, Fanny Mae and RBS, abound).

The treatment of Smike in Dotheby is extreme by today’s standards but you only have to listen to the testimony of Edna James to realise that sort of thing was still going on into the 1950s.

Smike has essentially been left at the school and the school master has neglected to educate him because the fees have not been paid.

Smike then befriends Nicholas Nickleby who then adapts his writing so that Smike can appear in his plays. When Nicholas returns to London Smike goes with him.

Squeers and Nickleby’s wicked Uncle Ralph try to reclaim Smike and in the process label him an “imbecile”. The Nickleby family all rally round and protect Smike who finds a skill and something he is good at – gardening.  He is loved for who he is and what he does for those around him.  He has value in a Dickensian World.

Dickens explains at the start of the novel his reasoning for exposing malpractice in schools.  He was criticised for writing about schools in such a negative way, but this novel was to expose bad practice and help to stimulate discussion that resulted in the first regulation of schools by Act of Parliament.

Dickens also depicted people with physical impairments as positive role models.  Newman Noggs had a definite limp and stoop and was fond of a pint, but he is a loyal friend and a hero (the strike of the bellows which fells Squeers and results in Squeer’s arrest is a key part of the novel).

I would have to say Dickens was ahead of the curve as far as writing about Education.  He had a paternalistic attitude towards disabled people but he valued people for the qualities they individually possess and this novel brought about changes that have resulted in, on balance, a more inclusive education system.  I don’t think we should go back towards segregation and exclusion.

Disabled children have value and we should do everything in our power to ensure they are fully included in our society.

Mark Leach

It has been suggested that the emphasis on certain subjects is already narrowing student choice and this cannot be a good thing for disabled learners who already face barriers accessing inclusive curriculums.  The lowering of funding and status of certain subjects is likely to leave many disabled learners feeling less valued in schools. The government argues that the proposals are trying to close the gap in educational achievement but ALLFIE is concerned that it is very likely to have the opposite effect.

Are you experiencing the effect of the EBacc (English Baccalaureate) proposals?  Is focusing or core subjects helping disabled students get access to parts of the curriculum they often have to fight to access or is it leading to further exclusion?  Let us know your views and experiences.

A short word-play with the definition of inclusion soon shows where this absurdity lies.

There are several meanings embedded in the concept of inclusion – all of them important and, once named, none of them are really open to much serious debate about their place as core values in a civilised society. Let’s look at a few of the meanings that the concept of inclusion carries:

BELONGING – to be included means to feel a sense of belonging, to be part of something, to know and be known by others. Its opposite is to feel a sense of isolation, to be lonely – to be excluded.

ACCEPTANCE – to be included means to feel a sense of acceptance of who you are just as you are, without this being conditional on you changing in some way. The opposite is to feel a sense of rejection, to be disapproved of – to be excluded.

ACCOMMODATED TO – to be included means that reasonable and necessary accommodations or adjustments are made such that you are able to participate in whatever is happening for others around you. The opposite is to be denied opportunities to participate, to be required to fit in or nothing – to be excluded

Now let’s apply those 3 meanings above to the cornerstone aim of our Government’s SEN Policy.

This, then, variously becomes:

“to remove the bias towards belonging”

or, even more chillingly -

“to remove the bias towards acceptance”

and, even harder for a Government to sell -

 “ to remove the bias towards making the necessary accommodations and adjustments that enable participation”

If the above is what they mean by removing ‘the bias towards inclusion’ then the Coalition should say so.

If not – it’s back to the drawing board with yet another badly thought through policy and time again to listen.

Derek Wilson

Inclusive Solutions

July 2011

 A general view that came out of the discussions was how few people understand what inclusion actually means, in a lot of cases what is described as ‘inclusion’ is a version of ‘integration’. This misunderstanding of inclusion is shown in the Government’s Green Paper as the paper talks about removing the bias towards inclusion, but the experience of a lot of our supporters is that they are still fighting to achieve inclusion. One parent, whose child is in mainstream education, gave an example of how her child was made to sit on a separate table during lunch times by staff apparently for the child’s dignity. Surely it is more dignified to choose where you want to sit?

At the start of the discussion, ALLFIE’s new chair Joe Whittaker used an example to show how inclusion is a constantly changing thing that depends on the whole educational community to be successful. Inclusion is not created by one off actions and a setting can easily change from being inclusive to being integrated. Inclusion is not just about having disabled learners in the room. It’s integration that causes many to think mainstream education can’t work for disabled children.

With the green paper focused on moving away from inclusion, we need to show why inclusion is important to disabled learners and non-disabled learners. If you have any examples of how to make inclusion work or how it has made a positive difference, please get in touch.

The Green Paper talks a lot about ‘parental choice’, but the new proposals to increase parental choice, already virtually nonexistent for those with disabled young people, will be undermined by proposals in the already published Education Bill which will weaken appeals procedures whilst giving schools greater control over admissions, exclusions, curriculum and teaching methods.      

Parents may have choice to say where they would like their child to go but, under these suggestions, schools now have even more ways to say no to a disabled child and under the proposals parents will have less ways to challenge that decision.

On the plus side the Green Paper does put forward the idea of disabled children and those with SEN being given the opportunity to challenge decisions made by adults in relation to school, support, learning options but will this idea be reflected in reality?

What are your views on the paper?

The report recommends that low attaining learners should concentrate on the core academic skills of English and Maths, and on work experience. Funding and performance measures should focus on these core skills and on employment outcomes rather than on getting qualifications.

The report also challenges the value of many vocational courses available to 16-19 year olds suggesting that they don’t help students prepare for the future.

Another recommendation of the report is that 16-19 education should be funded on a per student basis rather than per course as is done at the moment.

If the report’s recommendations are taken up the impact for many disabled students is likely to be huge, however the impact has the potential to be both positive and negative depending how the education system would choose to implement them.

 On the one hand the recommendations could give disabled students a way to put pressure on schools and colleges to get on to courses of their choice rather than being forced to do the same courses multiple times.  However the recommendations could be used as a means to further exclude disabled students from the mainstream by removing vocational options from many mainstream schools.

Do you think that vocational courses are important?

Do they act as a barrier or enabler to disabled students?

The English Baccalaureate target judges a schools success by the number of students achieving GCSE qualifications at grade C or above in  English, maths, a science, a foreign language and a humanity such as history or geography. The government target is that at least 35% of pupils achieve five “good” passes (A* to C).

Education Secretary Michael Gove says that the Baccalaureate measure will “…shine a light on excellence”*.

By adopting such a narrow definition of excellence are disabled students going to face even more barriers to the mainstream education system? At Allfie we already hear about students being excluded from some of the subjects above. This measure seems likely to make schools narrow the qualification options available as well as making schools even more conscious of targets. There is a high chance this measure will lead to the achievements of many disabled learners being undermined and undervalued.

On the other side of the argument the new target might provide a useful tool to encourage schools to open up access subjects that many students have been excluded from.

What’s your view on the Baccalaureate target?

*12/1/11 bbc news http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12163929

For disabled students who are already significantly underrepresented in higher education the new proposals are likely to hit hard. Many disabled students do not have the same opportunities as their non-disabled peers to earn money while studying and with the extra costs already facing many students due to their impairments many disabled students are likely to think twice about whether university is for them.

On top of the financial deterrent that the increase in fees poses to students, the drive to increase entry requirements is yet another barrier for disabled students to overcome. At ALLFIE we are already hearing from young people who are uncertain about whether they will be permitted to attend the universities of their choice due to the increased emphasis on achieving A levels.  This approach ignores the positive impact that diversity of experience has on everybody’s university experience.

In groups of 8 we visited 10 schools in Nottingham and Derby, a mixture of primary and secondary schools. We saw some great schools with some great practise around inclusion from signing across the whole school, to fully inclusive PE classes using Paralympic sports as a basis for lessons for all students. One of the key things that came out from the schools during the visits was the strength of belief in inclusion and education being for all which was great to see.

It was also brilliant to see secondary schools fully embracing inclusion, celebrating and acknowledging all achievement, not just academic success. All too often at Allfie we hear stories about young people who enjoyed an inclusive primary education having to fight to access mainstream secondary schools or being forced into special schools, but in Nottingham we saw that being inclusive at a secondary level can be achieved in the current system if the school has a positive and open ethos.