Inclusion Now Articles Volume 5
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Inclusion on the Isle of Dogs - George Green School
profiled
Lessons from Around the World - International Perspective
by Professor Mel Ainscow
Restorative Justice - A different approach to discipline
Thinking about Young People in Care - presentation by Philip
Awofesobi and Jackie Deardon
Education Inclusion Rap - Philip Awofesobi
Mainstream in Nottingham - Young People's experiences
Taking Action for Change - presentation by Parents for Inclusion
Greener Grass - Charlotte Patrick tells her story
The Many Faces of Racism - presentation by Suresh Grover
Reflections on an Inclusive School - John O'Brien
New Act Comes into Force - implementing the SEN Disability
Act
A Tribute to Nihal Armstrong - pupil at South Camden Community
School
Inclusion on the Isle of Dogs
George Green School is a secondary school in East London which has become a dynamic centre of inclusive education. Kenny Frederick, Headteacher, talks to Micheline Mason about her philosophy on inclusive schooling.Our school was not one of these schools which are designed
by the LEA to become a speciality-resourced secondary school. It became an
inclusive school by having an open admissions policy and open minds! The staff
at the school are friendly with a 'can do' attitude. They want the best for
young people and see it as their role to overcome barriers.
Enrolling our first student who used a wheelchair was our incentive to have
ramps built and to ensure basic access was established. We built on these
beginnings by being open to learning from the students, from parents, and
from other schools, and from learning from our mistakes…. And we made
lots! Our teachers and support staff are fantastic and have a really positive
attitude. When we advertise for new staff we implicitly state our position
on inclusion, we talk about it, its part of our literature and part of everything
we do…… you cannot miss the message "All different. All equal".
When we interview new staff the first question is about equal opportunities
and inclusion. Those with a 'not my job' attitude don't get employed here!
We like teachers who can 'think outside the box' and who can find solutions
not problems.
We teach largely in mixed ability groups and only have setting in a small
number of subjects at Key Stage 4. This is something we have discussed at
great length and we believe that we need to be able to meet the needs of each
individual pupil. Pupils learn from each other as well as from the teacher
- we aim to use all our resources to meet the needs of individuals. We are
working hard to make our curriculum as flexible as possible as 'one size'
does not fit all! Not everyone can handle 10 GCSE subjects (or indeed 10 different
teachers) at a time so we provide alternatives to meet their needs. We do
not allow pupils to decide where they sit in class. Instead, all teachers
have a seating plan so we can mix girls and boys, ethnic groups, and pupils
of all abilities. This way, pupils can support each other's learning and can
get to know each other in a structured environment. This often leads to new
friendships outside the classroom. Staff development is constant. We have
regular residential conferences for all our staff to share what they know
with each other.
A local special school for young people with physical impairments and learning
difficulties has closed down and we have admitted many of their pupils into
the school. Many students from local special schools have joined our sixth
form and we are putting on a variety of courses at appropriate entry levels
to meet their needs. We organise circles of friends to help them to establish
themselves. Many sixth form students and indeed pupils from other year groups
volunteer to help with hydrotherapy and other activities. We are organising
work experience for all our students. In fact, some of them are working here
in the school, on the phones or in the library. It raises their self-esteem
and gives them some money and it helps us to cope with the workload! Some
ex-pupils have come back here to work as Teaching Assistants and ICT technicians.
We have trained a special group of staff as our Supervisors and have trained
them in behaviour management, in conflict resolution strategies and in equal
opportunities and a whole host of other skills. They work throughout the day
on a rota basis and give tremendous support to staff and pupils. They wear
a red uniform, which means they are very visible in the playground or corridors
or around the school. They run the breakfast clubs, do the first day absence
calls, check the toilets and support supply teachers and will spot bullying
at a glance! They are worth their weight in gold! We pay for this team from
our Pupils Retention Grant and from the monies we used to spend on Mealtime
Supervisors. The Supervisors all live locally and know everything that goes
on in the local community. They also know every child in the school and are
great ambassadors for the school.
We have over 30 Teacher Assistants and they are divided into specialised groups
with team leaders: hearing impairment, emotional and behavioural difficulties
and complex needs. No one person is simply attached to one child, but one
to one support is organised in negotiation with the child concerned. There
would always be back up so no child would be disadvantaged. All our TA's are
well trained and developed and have a clear career structure with lots of
opportunities for advancement. They are really appreciated by pupils and staff!
We have a lot of children with statements for emotional and behavioural difficulties
and if any of them is causing problems outside of school, I still feel it
is my responsibility. This is of great concern to me. We do a lot of work
on anti-bullying, working with both perpetrators and victims. We work closely
with the Police and with outside agencies as we need to work together to find
solutions to issues that arise in the local area.
This is a happy school, with lots of laughter. The local community has become
involved with the school, especially when we started fund raising for a lift.
We raised £17,000 through discos, quiz evenings, karaoke, a mini opera
and competitions. It is all a part of community building. We are getting a
three million-pound re-fit from the DfES so we can start to get the building
the way we need it. But it is not about buildings. It is about people.
My message to other Headteachers?
Inclusion is a benefit - not a cost!
Micheline:
Are there enough Head Teachers like you to go round?
Kenny:
I think if you are a teacher who believes in inclusion you must push yourself
forward, develop your leadership and go for it.
Bukhtiar Ahmed speaks about being the first disabled pupil
at the school:
I was one of the first pupils to come here. At the time I went to another
'resourced' school in Whitechapel. I went on a bus and I had to be on it at
6am and I didn't get home until 6pm. Also, at that school, the pupils were
not that friendly. Hilary Maguire, the Inclusion officer for Tower Hamlets
encouraged me to visit George Green School, my local school, with my Mum and
Dad. There were problems getting around then, no ramps or anything, but they
were talking about changing things. Mum and Dad were worried that I'd get
bullied. They came 5 times before they agreed.
I had to miss 2-3 lessons at first. I was the centre of attention when I came
because I was the only wheelchair user. I was asked lots of questions but
in a friendly way.
Everyone knows me now. I had a relative in the same form and they introduced
me to Jason and Gavin. I have lots of friends now but you can't have too many
friends can you? My little brother comes here now and my sister's in year
10. Friends come to my house, which never happened when I was at Swanlea.
In fact, I think everyone on the Isle of Dogs knows me.
I am doing A level Business, Media Studies and IT and can keep up with it
all. I had one assistant at first but now have several, but it is negotiated.
When I was ill, they brought work home for me. Teachers visited me too. After
this year I want to take a year out and go to work before going to Uni'. The
only thing I don't like about it here is that the lift keeps breaking down!
Summer School Section
Introduction:
The Inclusion Now Summer School was an amazing event attended by over 150
people. All the workshop leaders donated their time to help build a vibrant
and dynamic movement for inclusive education in the UK. The following pages
contain a few excerpts from some of the speakers as well as thoughts from
participants both during and after the event. The full transcripts are a treasure
of good thinking and information. They are available from the Alliance for
Inclusive Education as a Summer School Pack (£10 inc.p&p). Proceeds
will go towards next years' event.
Lessons from around the world
By Mel Ainscow
I've been interested in notions of inclusion for more years than I like to
remember, and I have to say, I don't remember a better time than now to take
this agenda and move forward.
What I'm going to talk to you about is my own journey. Around about 1988,
I was invited to join a project that was being organised by UNESCO. My background
is in the special education world. This experience of working internationally
has forced me to rethink those experiences and to try to get clarity about
what it is that I now believe I am trying to aim for. All my work had been
in England, so I took with me experiences and ideas from England that we had
developed. I didn't have to be in these countries very long before I realised
how absolutely useless all these experiences were, and how unhelpful they
were to me in thinking how I might move forward because, for example in China,
the first thing we found was the typical class size in any primary school
was approximately 70 children, and there I am arriving from England with all
this luggage about how you have to assess children individually and devise
programmes. It was gradually dawning on me that it wasn't even possible to
do that with a class of 30, heaven forbid trying to do it with a class of
70. What I found myself doing was looking at what the teachers in those contexts
were doing themselves, looking at the kinds of practices they were using.
I gradually realised that in those contexts, even where teachers were working
with these massive numbers of children, many of the teachers that I watched
and talked to and heard about had developed remarkable skills in planning
their lessons and orchestrating their lessons in such a way that they could
draw the different learners into the common experience that was being provided.
And so the first lesson that struck me was: if you were wanting to take an
education system forward from wherever it is, whether it is a large class
size of 70 somewhere in China, or whether it's a much smaller class size here
in England, the starting point has to be with the skills and the knowledge
that already exist in the context that you're working in. So that was the
lesson that I took from those experiences wherever I went.
In one of the classrooms in Ghana, I remember saying to one of the teachers,
"I'm part of a UNESCO project and we've come here to help you think about
how you're going to deal with children who are experiencing difficulties.
What kind of help do you need?" The teacher said, "Well, I need
more books." He explained that he had 45 children in his class and that
for every lesson he only had one book, and so if he was going to teach a lesson
in English he had to go into the classroom beforehand and write the comprehension
on the blackboard. I thought, all this guy is looking for is more books and
we're spending fortunes sending people to Ghana from England, sending people
to the moon and golly, we must somewhere have got our principles wrong. In
this particular school, I suddenly became aware that there was this young
man in one of the classes who had a physical disability and was hopping into
the classroom using this stick and I followed him into his lesson and watched
what was going on. He was sitting at the front, and I talked to the young
teacher who was working with him and I said, "I notice you've got this
young man with a disability in your class - how is it that this boy comes
to your school?" The teacher looked at me rather curiously. What I was
doing, of course, was asking the Western question, the question born of my
own experience when I was probably thinking the boy should have been having
some form of special help. Well, the teacher didn't understand that, and he
said to me, "Where else would he go?" Of course the teacher lives
there, in the community, so these are all his children, they are all part
of his community. And you start to think that there maybe something in this,
in the sophisticated north we have lost the belief that we share responsibility
for all children, and they're all our children because they're all part of
our community.
Another question I asked him was what special arrangements he made for him.
He said, "I try to love him like I love the other children", and
I thought, what a lovely answer. If a teacher said that in England he'd probably
get arrested.
We also worked in relatively well-to-do parts of the world, the Austrian education
system is wonderfully well resourced. I watched this lesson - the classroom
almost looked like Ikea, all the kids had these beautiful pencil and crayon
sets. There were 16 children in the class, but because there were two children
who had been classified as having special needs, there was a second a teacher
as well. On some occasions when the main teacher was talking to the rest of
the class, the special teacher stood in front of her two children with her
back to the rest of the class so that she could work separately with her two
children in the classroom. And they call this integration! Look at the opportunities
that are being missed! The possibility of two teachers working with 16 children,
the creativity that that could develop in a way that could benefit all the
children as well as helping these two children who are classified as being
special in some way to participate in a more active way. I'm led to conclude
that sometimes our sophisticated resources and our technology actually get
in the way and inhibit the creativity that might help us to develop schools
that are genuinely more inclusive.
I contrast that with other places I've been to such as Laos. Laos has just
about the poorest economic situation in the world, it's a small country hidden
away between Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. I watched this lesson that was
being taught by, again, a young man teacher, and he'd drawn a picture of the
local countryside. For the first ten minutes he entertained the children by
talking to them about the local countryside and talking about nature and trees
and animals and birds, and then he said to them, "OK, I'm, going to give
you a question" and he wrote it on the blackboard. He said, "Now
I want you to go into your groups and I want you to work together to address
this question" and immediately, because these children had obviously
done it before - they didn't need to be given instructions - they turned around
and they started to work together. Immediately this classroom was transformed.
These children had been sitting rather passively, listening or possibly not
even listening, understanding or maybe not understanding, and suddenly these
learners were active learners, they were collaborative learners and they were
sharing one another's resources and using one another's resources to make
this learning experience meaningful and valuable to every one of their members.
And it made me think, how creative people will be if they are given the time,
the space and the encouragement. What he's done is discover for himself something
we spend millions of dollars on in the West, understanding that one of the
greatest resources for stimulating participation and learning in any classroom
environment are the learners themselves.
Running through my stories, I have come up with some ideas which are things
which I think are worth thinking about. The mistake of a lot of our early
work on integration, and I was much guilty of this, we that we tried to transport
special education into the mainstream. It does not work, it does not fit.
It's born of a different tradition and a different environment.
So the task is not about bringing new techniques into the school, it's actually
about making better use of the skills, knowledge and creativity that is there.
That's what inclusion is about, it's changing the culture of the school, it's
not a technical task, it's a social task.
Human resources are about the most important factor in relation to that. But
it's also about breaking down the isolation that still permeates the profession
of teaching, where teachers still work separately with the door closed, not
knowing what anybody else is doing within their organisation. That is in itself
an organisational barrier that we have inherited from the past and which we
have to overcome. We have to create a language so that teachers, like other
professional people, can share ideas about what they are doing but can also
think in more detail about their own practice, something we find very often
that teachers have difficulty with.
If there's one thing that comes out of all those stories and all those experiences
from those wonderful places I have had the privilege to go to, the one thing
I'm clear about, is if you want to bring about improvements in your education
system, the most important thing is the will of people to make it happen.
Mel Ainscow is Professor of Education at Manchester University
Restorative Justice - A different approach to discipline
Reflections on a workshop led by Robin Tinker and Kate Slowikowski.
It was the second day of the conference and connections with people and ideas
were running deeper than I expected. So it was no surprise that Robin Tinker's
workshop on 'Restorative Justice', which I attended mainly out of curiosity,
opened my mind to endless possibilities for negotiating and ending harmful
behaviour. This is the kind of behaviour that begins on a 'drip, drip' basis
and eventually ends up creating 'victims' and 'offenders', 'punishment' and
eventually 'exclusions'.
Although Robin and Kate who ran the workshop, based it on school errant behaviour
and demonstrated the techniques on video footage of actual case studies, it
could be applied in various other social situations. The important thing was
that it worked and it was moving watching boys who bullied others actually
admitting to the harm they caused and making a written agreement together
on how it would be stopped.
Based on thinking by Hilary Stacey and Belinda Hopkins, 'Restorative Justice
constitutes an innovative approach to offending and inappropriate behaviour
which puts repairing harm done to relationships and people over and above
the need for assigning blame and dispensing punishment'.. . and 'all those
affected by an incident or conflict being involved in finding a mutually acceptable
way forward'.
There were a set of clear, uncomplicated guidelines for facilitators, schools
and LEAs could buy in their support and although the statistics are yet to
arrive, I was certain that such intervention would go a long way towards reducing
the high number of exclusions in schools and creating a more supportive and
inclusive environment.
Preethi Manuel
Robin Tinker and Kate Slowikowski work in the Anti-Bullying Support Team in Nottingham Education Department and can be contacted on: 0115 915 0940.
Thinking about young people in Care
A presentation by Philip Awofesobi, who is an Achievement Mentor for children in public care in Nottingham City, and Jackie Deardon, who is an Educational Psychologist, also for children in public care in Nottingham City.
Philip: My true mentor role, what I do, is build relationships with young people so that I know what they want. I build trust between me and the young person. I try and speak to them about what they want and what they like doing in school. I try and use what they say to help them and for instance, if someone says, "I don't like this teacher because he does X, Y and Z and I don't like going to his lesson," I'd go back to the designated teacher in school, or my senior, and raise the issues that he doesn't like this and he doesn't like that so that things can get sorted out more easily. A young person wouldn't tell any other person who came to ask them these questions so it's easier for me to go and speak to them and try and get it out of them.
Jackie: Philip is a young person from a care background that not everybody thought could do very much at all at times, and here he is, employed in his old school doing a brilliant job. One of the young men that Philip works with said 'It's different having Philip, he knows what it's like, he's been there. I'll talk to him'.
Philip: I support in school quite a lot. If a young person isn't going to school at all and they don't like school and they don't want to go to school, if I can get them into school for a couple of sessions a week that would be more than excellent. With this particular young person I started off with I started to get them into school, and after a while I stopped working with them just to see how it would go, and he started to go to school on his own. I think I'm the only person to get him into school.
Jackie: This young boy wasn't going to talk to any adults, certainly wasn't going to talk to me, and I said to Philip, 'I don't know what this youngster wants to do, can you see if you can talk to him?' Within half an hour the young man had told Philip what he wanted to do in terms of his education. These young people do not trust us adults and they have every reason not to, so we need to find another way in.
Philip: I also use activities in the community. If I do not
support them in school I try and find out what the difficulties are and what's
wrong through taking them out bowling or any kind of educational visit. I've
done a lot of training, I've helped out with designated teachers, and given
them another perspective, a similar thing to what I'm doing now.
If you were in our workshop yesterday, you will have heard about the gap between
the educational department and the social services department which young
people fall through because systems create failure, not in all cases but in
a lot of cases that happens. In the future I think people should listen more
to young people. Communicate.
Jackie: There's a huge issue about communication between education and social services, and about communication within residential homes. Residential homes have staff changes, shift changes, you leave one message five minutes ago, ten minutes later it's a new member of staff and the message hasn't been passed on. So in terms of timetables in schools and where people should be and when they should be there, communication is a huge issue and we're really bad at it.
Philip: I think we're a very very long way from success, a
long way from the day when every young person, regardless of whether they're
in local authority care or not, is going to school at least 80%.
I used to think that teachers were just there to pick on you, but now I know
that teachers are doing their job. Care staff boss you around like your mum
and dad - I used to feel that, but now I know there are certain regulations
you have to stick by. Life is like a book. It's got your name on the front
of it. The first 20 pages is your past and the page beyond that is today.
On the next couple of pages you can write what you want to do in the future.
You can write you're a doctor or a surgeon or an actor, or anything you want,
the world is full of possibilities and opportunities. Throughout life there
are always distractions and hurdles, but when those hurdles crop up the thing
you have to do is pick yourself up and stay on track. I also feel that everything
boils down to education.
Education is your life development.
Education Inclusion Rap
by Philip Awofesobi
There's something about our education
That's totally baffling the nation
Young people full of frustration
About any form of separation
They seem to think teachers, are just preachers
Pupils be cursing, classroom dispersing
I think when we go to class
We don't know that we need to get a pass
Some people think it's cool, to mess up at school
Which leads to exclusion, we need inclusion
I think we want to be liked and hyped
But there's no reason to be stereotyped
We all should be together, in any weather
Regardless if we're bad behaved or clever
It needs to be renewed, that we're valued
We need to learn, the last thing we need's a feud
We don't need to be judged and smudged
This ain't a small problem you know it won't budge
Need to be respected, not neglected
Because of our faults we will get rejected
This needs to be inspected you know the score
It's not one of these things that you can ignore
If I was the PM you'd be breaking the law
It's like nothing that I've ever saw before
As everyone can see it's a pain in the jaw
We've now got support, we need more & more & more
We all need to listen, need to communicate
We need to pull our socks up before it's too late
We totally resent, future unemployment
We hope from now on service gives 100%
We said what we meant, it's time for development
We want co-operation, and commitment
Whether you're in care, or you're at home
We don't know what it's like when you're feeling alone
You need to talk to us cause you can't take it on your own
When we come and talk to you, you tend to moan and groan
Don't get too close with your congregation
We all know you want a qualification
Don't wreck your chances with confrontation
Because there's nothing more secure that your education.
Mainstream in Nottingham
Young people's voices
Maresa Mackeith and her cousin Daisy and friend Lindsay talk about the importance
of inclusion:
Maresa MacKeith
Young people can't understand why we can't be together. It's obvious to us
that we need each other. This is why young people need to have a voice. It's
been so hard for me to make friends; this is because it was years before I
was allowed into school to be part of ordinary school life. When I did get
in, it was still hard because I wasn't an ordinary student, first part time
and then in a unit. What I would have liked was to be there as an ordinary
student and people would have got used to me. Although I was eventually an
ordinary student and it meant a lot to me to be allowed to study.
But the reason we are here and what makes a good life is lost. We need to
challenge in a big way the power behind the people who make big money and
try to make us into slaves, as this is what prevents us disabled people from
having what we need. I would like to see us all asking the people we know
why they are so busy and if the things they do are important for promoting
what they need.
If we all made the needs of each other a priority, we would live in a world
without rush and could spend time learning about each other and what we need.
All our needs as disabled people would be then seen as an exciting privilege.
Daisy Mackeith
School isn't there just to pass exams: all experience is a learning experience.
There's too much emphasis on exams. What's valuable is the learning from relationships
with other students and teachers, so when you meet someone with a different
perspective that can only be a positive learning experience.
The point of school is to learn, and what's more important to learn about
than people?
Lindsay Wallace
Like many of the children at school, I had never been around disabled people
before as I am myself able-bodied and had always attended a school which didn't
cater for disabled children.
Because Maresa was in my year group I got to know her very well, although
this took quite a while not only because of the lack of information we had
about her but also the lack of time we had just to sit and chat and find out
about each other.
I think that these are just simple things that could have made a massive difference
in making Maresa and others feel included. I often found that many of the
pupils would ask me questions about Maresa instead of directly finding out
for themselves by asking her. I think that if we were given more information
and opportunities to learn about Maresa, and of the young people with disabilities,
then everyone in the school would have great disability awareness. I do, however,
feel that inclusion within the school will improve with time.
There is no doubt that the changes made were for the better, but it felt as
if too much planning went into the actual physical changes, like lifts and
toilets, and although these are obviously essential, I thought that how the
school were actually going to include disabled pupils in school life could
have been given a lot more thought.
Time and awareness are what I think are two key factors into inclusion in
schools, and although there were faults with the alterations the school certainly
tried to make it work. I would like to think that all schools will make similar
alterations soon, so that inclusion of disabled pupils is a natural part of
everyday life. An unnecessary line that separates can be removed, not only
to enable inclusion in education and school life but also in society.
Lucy Fisher talks about her experience as a disabled person
in mainstream school:
I enjoyed myself at school, and found my year, and particularly my tutor group
were very friendly and helpful. This was because on the first day of school
I explained to my tutor what my disability was and the effect it had on me.
This answered all their questions, and as a result they never subjected me
to discrimination or name-calling. However, other tutor groups who did not
know me saw me as a mysterious person who was very different to them. As they
were not educated to it they were unpleasant, and some simply inquisitive
but too afraid to ask questions.
I remember my disability education lessons - well, all two of them - very
well. I remember them most as being very limited and the teacher being more
confused than the children. We watched a basic video and spoke to a blind
person. I think learning from personal experience of disability is very important,
but getting involved in disabled activities could prove more effective. There
should also be a great deal more lessons devoted to disability in the curriculum.
As a person with a physical disability, my greatest problem during my time
at school was how to manage getting in and around the building with the hoards
of children around me who could knock me off my feet at any time. Teachers
and fellow pupils did their best to accommodate me, but in a school with almost
three flights of stairs it was a difficult issue to avoid. Climbing so many
stairs with a heavy bag was difficult and physically exhausting, so I would
often sleep for two hours every day after school. Many strategies were tried
to help me get to my lessons, including having special needs assistants collect
me, but I was often forgotten, to having friends help me which was later said
to be a safety hazard, to eventually getting myself to lessons, which was
a nightmare as I started having panic attacks at the top of the stairs. Operations
that knocked me off my feet also caused major problems. I was put in a downstairs
room where the necessary work often did not reach me, and I did not have the
subject teachers on hand to help. At one point leaving school was suggested.
Yet to me the solution was simple: better disabled access in schools. It frustrates
me to see fortunes spent on anything but these crucial items. My school was
a prime example, as the head teacher valued funding for laptops and a state-of-the-art
design technology room far greater than the need for disabled facilities like
a lift or a ramp. I realise that things like laptops are a bonus and can further
a child's education, but they are still a luxury, whereas a ramp and a lift
are necessities.
I think it is time disabled people took priority.
Taking Action for Change
A mixture of speeches and drama made a presentation by Parents
for Inclusion at the Summer School an unforgettable event:
Diana Simpson
Co-Director of Parents for Inclusion
We want to show you all the passionate things that are dear to our hearts
as parents of disabled children. We want to show you why we must reclaim our
child from the legacy of their oppression. At Parents for Inclusion we take
the lead from disabled people, and especially this brilliant, wonderful idea
of the Social Model. That is how we know it's not our child who is the problem,
it's not their impairment that is wrong, its the way they are thought about
in the world. We want to show you through a series of little sketches what
these ideas are and how powerful and important they are.
We want to show how building alliances is key. We want to build them between
parents, between disabled people, and our professional allies out there. What
we really want to do is make sure that there are allies out there for our
young people. The way we try to do that is to empower each other, parent to
parent. Something that is perhaps the hardest thing is to not blame individuals
but to put all of that energy and anger into taking action for change. The
very last thing that we hold on to is that all really does mean all. Every
single child out there is the child that we're talking about.
I hope these sketches will show you all the things we have learnt. Here are
some more parents' voices to pass on the message:
Cornelia Broesskamp
Training Co-ordinator at Parents for Inclusion
Inclusion needs to be there right from the start. Every child has the right
to be welcomed into the world with love, and then it can look into the future
with hope, and that there is all the celebration around the birth that any
other child has as well.
In our work with the parents, one of the courses that we run is called Planning
Positive Futures. It is about giving the relationship and the child back to
the parent and opening the door to a very hopeful and positive future. It's
also about finding ways that we as parents feel strong about what we do, and
reminding us of what we know about parenting. When we have a disabled child,
so many people get involved, so many people tell us what to do, so many people
tell us what should be right for the child, that it's so important that we
find and remember what really is important for children.
Caroline Goffe
Helpline Co-ordinator at Parents for Inclusion
When the helpline phone is picked up in our office, what we are trying to
do is re-focus that parent's attention back on that precious relationship
which is so threatened, almost to the point of breaking, by the struggle and
the fight that the oppression leaves behind. That can be an amazingly isolating
position to be in. For the thousands of parents who telephone us, when that
phone is picked up, one little bit of isolation is broken and the first step
of getting that focus of attention back to what really matters. And through
a process of listening and reflecting, those phone calls manage to bring that
parent to a place where possibly they can start thinking about the action
they can take for change. Who are the people who might be their potential
allies in a situation that might seem completely bleak?
Jo Cameron
Co-Director of Parents for Inclusion
Some time ago we set up something called Inclusion Groups in Schools. What
we found is that it has completely broken the isolation of parents. Many here
will have memories of going into schools and being told things about their
children, and they've gone home and cried, because the oppression is very
heavy not only for disabled young people but also for parents. So we're working
in something like 23 schools. We've set up a really exciting model, I think,
which is now ready to fly. It isn't about parents coming into a school creating
scenes. It is about parents who meet, who have the time and the space to think
through what is really happening for their children, and for schools to come
in and to hear what the parents feel they really want for their children.
Through this we have stopped exclusions.
We held a remarkable workshop for black and minority ethnic parents called
'All our Children Belong'. It was really a workshop to celebrate diversity.
I hope you will buy the report, which is called 'Dreaming the Dream, an Issue
of Social Justice' (available from Parents for Inclusion).
We need parents at the rockface, and they are growing steadily with power
and with enormous capacity to be remarkable allies to their disabled children.
Linda Whitehead
Parent Trainer at Parents for Inclusion
I'm thinking of the medical model of disability as a kind of inhospitable
sea, and as a non-disabled person I've lived my life swimming against the
tide and my disabled friends are the people standing in the shallow waters
saying "Swim to the side, don't try to swim against it, come over here!
Don't go in the sea, stay out of it, stay on the beach and enjoy the sunshine!"
That's what's in it for me, I want my son to be included but I don't want
him to be the only disabled child in his school, so I want to take other parents
along with me on that journey. I'm constantly being told that other parents
don't think the same way as me necessarily. They are asking for segregated
provision, and we must make room for everyone to have choice, and I question
that - I think that's a cop-out. I think the parents who are asking for segregated
provision are the parents who have had their expectations undermined from
the moment their child was born by the medical model and who haven't had the
benefit of the information that I've been privileged to hear. I want to see
that information spread out more so that I'm not a lone voice and nor is my
child.
Mole Chapman
Disability Equality Trainer at Parents for Inclusion
I think what Linda has said is terribly important and deep. As a child growing
up, being disabled, and having been labelled as emotional and difficult, I
have found a very safe place with Parents for Inclusion, where I can explore
my real power, and where I am able to feed back to other people meaningfully.
Actually working with Pi (Parents for Inclusion) gives my life meaning, because
our relationship just might be changing their relationship with their children.
My relationship with my mother ended up extremely broken, because we got totally
embroiled in the medical model: trying to make me walk and trying to stop
me shaking. I think if she could have just stopped doing that, and actually
enjoyed the fact that I was alive, and the fact that I loved her, and she
loved me, we would have had a much better time together. Now, my experience
of parents has been love and hate. Despite the huge amount of love that was
there, there was always this hatred of my impairment, and what it had caused
in suffering in their lives. Parents I have met at Pi have contradicted that
message so vehemently, because they have said: we want you in our lives; we
love you the way you are. Nothing I have ever heard could be as powerful as
that!
So that's our invitation to you. When we act together, not dividing, that's
when we're going to be at our most powerful.
Greener Grass
Charlotte Patrick tells her story:
First let me explain why I have chosen to write about my life now. On the
15th July I went to an Inclusion Now conference in Nottingham. I didn't realise
before then how the following four days would inspire and yet challenge me
mentally. I was shown things that had always been a part of my life and yet
I had somehow been oblivious. During these four days in Nottingham I learnt
a lot about myself as well, but it took over a hundred people to show me that
I wasn't alone, I don't have to do it alone, there are people on my side and
this list could go on and on forever. So lets move on before I lose your interest!
I was born in late December in Kent. My biological mother put me up for adoption
because she couldn't cope with what the future might have held or the fact
that people were going to stare at her and her child. So she did what she
thought was best and she was right.
When I was ten months old my Mum and Dad came along, they had already adopted
one child and now they wanted to adopt me. They had a battle on their hands
because both my parents have a disability and the authorities believed that
two DISABLED people who had adopted one disabled child couldn't possibly adopt
and cope with another disabled child.
After winning the first of many battles on my behalf my parents took me home.
I was a happy baby with my family but disliked strangers or being left on
my own. My parents had been told the "medical facts" about me, that
I would never walk, feed myself, dress myself, etc, etc, etc. When Mum and
Dad took me home I was still on baby food, I couldn't sit up unaided and I
didn't know how to play. Between them my parents taught me how to play, sit
up and move on my own and how to feed myself. By now my parents realised that
I had never been given a chance. Mum wouldn't accept the medical facts so
she set to work.
Everyone from physios to social services told Mum I would never walk but she
refused to believe this and told them that they were wrong and all she needed
was something to support my weight whilst I tried to walk. She was right.
They gave Mum a trolley with two holes in it to put my legs through. Every
morning Mum would stand in front of me with my breakfast and I would scream
all the way down the hall following her into the kitchen. It didn't take long
before I was walking unaided, a little haphazard but unaided.
Naturally it didn't take long for someone to suggest that I be fitted with
artificial legs. My parents agreed to try it but said the end decision was
up to me. It was fun being the same height as everyone else but not so much
fun taking a nosedive, which I did regularly. I told my parents that I didn't
want them anymore but they kept them for a while in case I changed my mind.
I didn't.
By now I had started at the local primary school which was an inclusive school.
Well, until mealtimes anyway. At lunchtime I had to eat in the classroom,
I don't know why and I didn't question it. I thought that was right, I mean,
I was a child and the teachers were adults. At Christmas I was allowed in
the main hall with the other children but behind the scenes it was suggested
to my parents that both my brother and myself should attend a weekday residential
special school. My parents disagreed. They had spent their school years at
boarding school miles away from home and knew what that felt like.
They chose not to fight this time. Instead Mum wanted to move back into England
from Wales to live on a boat. Yes you read that right, a boat! They bought
a sixty-foot narrow boat that was named "Itsy Bitsy" and on we moved.
We being, two adults, two kids, three dogs, a budgie and a cat. We travelled
around for a little while and then settled at Sawley Lock, just inside Leicestershire.
To start our schooling in England the authorities put my brother and I into
a special school. My parents weren't happy. They fought tooth and nail to
get us out and into a mainstream school and, surprise surprise, they won.
The local primary school said they would accept me. It wasn't bad there. On
my first day I had to sit in front of the teachers desk whilst she read the
register and then she introduced me to the class. It got better after that.
I made friends, had good days and bad days, played football, became a tomboy,
oh yeah and at lunchtime I ate my dinner in the main hall with the other kids.
When I was nine we went a school trip to France for a week, it was great.
Looking back this part of my life was pretty amazing and at the time I thought
this is how it would be forever. I was wrong. The authorities had decided
that we lived in Leicestershire and that I should attend a school in the same
district. So in September I started at Shepshed high school.
The first few months were ok. I made a few friends. Things began to turn sour
though. To help me to my lessons I was given an ancillary (helper) who, to
be fair, didn't really know what she was doing. She was a parent so how she
treated her kids was how she treated me. However I hated having an adult sitting
next to me in class and following me around school. Not only would she tell
me off for being naughty, (which was often) but also she would tell the others
off when the teacher was out of the classroom. It didn't take long for my
classmates to decide it was my fault. In their eyes, if I hadn't been there,
then she wouldn't have been there, then they could have got away with a lot
more. Which is what all children want and often do. Having this "shadow"
restricted me from a normal school life. For example, I couldn't bunk off
without her coming to find me and when I got into a fight with a lad from
my year, she gave me a disapproving look and didn't speak to me for a whole
afternoon.
By the time I got to thirteen the bullying had intensified. Not content with
name calling, they began to trip me up, steal and hide my school bag and sit
behind me in class so they could spit things into my hair. One day I was deliberately
pushed over in the corridor and I split my head open. Whilst I was taken to
the doctor's, the boy who pushed me was asked what happened. He said it was
an accident, so they told him to try and be more careful. My parents were
aware of what was going on and tried to get it stopped but to no avail. I
became not only a "freak" but also a "snitch". I tried
my own ways of stopping the bullying. I tried being the class fool, answering
back, bullying others to make myself look tough, and ignoring it. The latter
was the better option but it was hard.
At sixteen I took my GCSE's. I got one C in drama. Not proud of my grades
but hey. After taking our GCSE's we had a choice of staying at Shepshed or
moving on. As my results were so bad it was suggested that I went to Loughborough
College and redid my exams. I didn't really want to but went with the flow.
As it turned out going to Loughborough was one of the best things I could
have done. My grades didn't improve but I left the bullies behind and found
some great friends who liked me for me and didn't see me any differently.
An example of this is when one friend was writing a description of her best
mate and turned to me and asked, "are you left or right handed?"
(For those who don't know me I only have one arm). I smiled and replied "Right
handed" She didn't realise I was being funny and wrote it down only to
look at me a few minutes later and say "No you're not". We both
fell about laughing. I had a great time at Loughborough College and put behind
me the previous bad experiences.
I now work for the Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living as an Education
and Learning Officer. I like this title and so far I like working here. Looking
back I'm glad my parents adopted me and gave me the chance that I may not
have had otherwise. I'm also glad that I had a mainstream education otherwise
I wouldn't be where I am now. The grass was definitely greener on the other
side.
The many faces of racism
By Suresh Grover:
I'm going to speak strongly to you on the issues that I believe and many of
my colleagues believe that are important to this society, to people here,
and on a global scale.
I came into the field of working on racism not simply because I am Asian,
or black. I was a happy-go-lucky young person, 15 years old. I used to play
cricket for Lancashire B Team. I used to be a cross-country runner. I had
just come from East Africa, through India, in 1965, I was only very young
when a wave of Pakkie-bashing started. I got stabbed. I got my jaw broken
twice. I got beaten up in school on a regular basis. The schools in early
1970s and late 1970s didn't understand the problem of racism. They never acknowledged
it. They never did anything. For a period of three months, because I was the
tallest black Asian person, man, or boy, in the school, I got beaten up. In
the first three months I was too scared to fight. The physical attack scared
me and I used to run away from the playing fields. From someone who was into
music, I lost interest in music.
I was the co-ordinator of the Stephen Lawrence family campaign from the time
Stephen was murdered in South London in 1993. We developed a legal strategy
to hold those people responsible for the murder to account by taking a private
prosecution against those five or six individuals responsible for his death.
If you look at the process of that enquiry and case, the central figures in
those are Stephen's parents, Doreen and Neville. A family that was crushed
because of the sudden murder of their son, totally unexpected, they became
protagonists to change a culture which began to ask serious questions about
racism on a national scale. For the first time, a High Court Judge agreed
that an agency was institutionally racist.
I want to concentrate on two forms of racism when I discuss the issue of inclusion.
What I describe as racism that kills and racism that discriminates. The impact
of a policy on discrimination may be very different from a policy looking
at racial violence.
Despite the Stephen Lawrence enquiry, unfortunately, the problem of racism
has got worse. If you look at Home Office, Government figures, on racial attacks
in this country, at the time that Stephen was killed in 1993, the figure stood
at 7,000 racial attacks on a national basis. 1999 - 380,000 racial attacks
in this country. Those attacks encompass anything from racial abuse to arson
attacks, and to murders. I, myself, as a member of the monitoring group on
the National Civil Rights Group, am dealing with about 60 race murders.
To give you a graphic description of the kind of harassment people go through,
recently we dealt with cases such as Ricky Reel, a young Asian man with his
friends in Kingston town centre. Attacked by two white racists. Fled for his
life, and disappeared. His mother and father and sister, and other brother,
went to the police with those three Asian friends, and said "he's been
racially attacked. We can't find him." The initial reaction was "had
he problems at home? Do you object to him having a girl friend?" Because,
apparently, Asians object to girlfriends. And when the mother said, "well,
actually I don't have a problem with that" - "Is he gay? He can't
tell you that." That's what the parents were told. This is historic fact.
It's in the enquiry and the inquest. Do you know whether he is gay, and that's
why he's not coming home?
It meant the family had to begin to look for him, and for seven days, from
seven in the morning to three in the morning, I saw the mother, the father,
his friends and their families, searching every street in Kingston. In the
bins, to see if he may have been injured. In schools. And when the police
began to take it seriously, a week later, it took them seven minutes to find
his body. Seven minutes. I was there at that moment. Seven minutes to find
that he had run and fallen into the River Thames which is only 100 yards from
the site of the attack.
Schools are very, very important to us. And I want to concentrate not just
on race, but also religious hatred, because I think there are commonalities
between these two elements in relation to the National Curriculum and in relation
to the problem that exists in this country and on a global scale.
I think religion is absolutely crucial. Since September 11th, the question
has become much more focused. There is a notion in this country that Moslem
people are responsible for September 11th and as a result you've had much
more dramatic increases in attacks on people who are targeted or seen as Moslem.
Specifically women who wear the Hadj and burka . I think that if we are serious
about looking at community cohesion in terms of religious perspective, then
we need to isolate a number of strands which we need to look at in the educational
curriculum. Because the whole debate is about whether Islam is less tolerant
than, say, Christianity. Or less civilised that the notions of other religions.
In my view, on the issue of race, like religion, there are two key principles.
The first is what is the difference between multi-culturalism and anti-racism?
The second is perhaps more relevant to the issue of religious hatred - the
issue of what do we mean by monolithic versus pluralism.
Blunkett's proposals of introducing special schools for young asylum-seeker
children is the most de facto segregated policy since segregation of schools
under apartheid. Not only does it stigmatise asylum children, but it will
ensure that it doesn't deliver an equitable education for those new arrivals
because of a lack of resources. If you are going to develop psychologically
as well as in terms of fulfilling our social development process, we have
to increase our structures which are more accountable.
The only way we can combat that is to begin to understand the educational
value of linking religion and race from a social history perspective. Understand
why racism exists, and challenge it. The people who killed Stephen Lawrence
probably went to a Chinese and ate a Chinese before they stabbed him. It doesn't
mean they understand the notion of religion. I have a lot of police officers
who come to me when I'm training who say, "Suresh, I'm not a racist because
I'm married to a black person". Well, I'm married to a woman. It doesn't
make me a feminist. It makes me more tolerant. I'm supportive of feminism,
I don't have a problem with it, but there's no commonality between them. I
think the qualitative difference, and maybe I've not explained properly, between
the issue of multiculturalism and anti-racism, is that the end product for
multiculturalism will probably be a written policy on equal opportunities.
Fantastic. But the qualitative end for anti-racism would be giving justice
to a community that's not privileged. I'll stop there.
Suresh Grover is the Chair of the National Civil Rights Movement,
a national network of individuals and families dedicated to the struggle for
racial justice and human rights. Contact: NCRM, 14 Featherstone Road, Southall,
Middlesex UB2 5AA.
Website: www.ncrm.org.uk
Reflections on an Inclusive School
By John O'Brien:
Richard and Micheline asked me if I would see if I could hear some of the
links that came up in the Summer School.
It occurred to me to organise this in terms of Micheline's great question,
'what exactly would an inclusive school look like?', and it seems to me that
an inclusive school would look like a place where everybody in it, regardless
of their age, and regardless of their role, and everybody who relies on it
- parents, family members, community members - were willing to have the courage
to recognise that some of our deepest connections are to do with the emotions
of anger and fear, emotions that come from feeling isolated, feeling powerless
in a world that is changing very fast, becoming increasingly complex and becoming
increasingly competitive. So a fully inclusive school, as far as I can work
out, would be one where everyone, regardless of their age and their role,
recognised that part of what unites us is our fear, our uncertainty, and that
we have a real choice about how to defend ourselves against those fears and
against those uncertainties.
We've got one choice that leads down a path that's deeply and painfully familiar
to disabled people. That's the path that leads to a kind of rigidity, a kind
of distancing, separation, trying to figure out, trying to believe that 'I
can get rid of my fear by getting rid of you'. That leads us to turn fears
into labels, into over-certainties about what the answer is, and to build
all those into structures and policies that continue to promote exclusion.
So it seems that a truly inclusive school would be a place where we realise
that we are all scared. That all of us feel isolated and nobody feels like
they've got a surplus of power, and that needs to lead to everybody in the
school, but probably especially the adults in the school, taking responsibility
to model being responsible. And being responsible means recognising that we
live in a school that is profoundly influenced in one way or another by poverty,
by racism and by disable-ism. If we happen to be in a school that's materially
well-off, we are still powerfully influenced by the reality of poverty in
our inner society and culture, and if we happen to be in a place that's all
white, we are still profoundly influenced by racism. So probably an inclusive
school would be one that recognised that and didn't get paralysed by it -
so heavily burdened by it - that we couldn't figure out something to do about
it.
It seems like part of taking responsibility is recognising that we are part
of a larger social system and educational system that is trying to figure
out how to do better by all kids. By managing the very details of people's
day, just by creating structures of league tables and competitions among schools
and incentives for teachers, and curricular requirements, and all sorts of
things, however they may have been intended, our experience is lots of people
using up all the oxygen in their environment, and unless you have oxygen flowing,
those emotions of anger and fear and isolation just get worse and worse and
worse. You can't breathe, so you can't metabolise the stress and you can't
metabolise the emotion.
So, we would realise that we live in a place where there's not a lot of space,
and would have to take responsibility for making space and making time. It
seems to me that the kinds of things I might see in inclusive schools, are
some structures. We hope simple and uncomplicated structures. Everybody in
the school would be able to answer the question "How do you have some
influence on what goes on around here?". "How do you have some influence
about the way we use time?", "about the way we relate to each other?"
There would be some kind of simple structure that would give everybody in
the school and everybody related to the school, the capacity to answer "Well,
what do you do if you don't know what to do?", "What do you do if
you're stuck?", "What do you do if you are grieving?", "What
do you do if you're scared to death?". There'd be some kind of answer
for that, which would lead to a signpost that points to somebody or something.
People would be able to answer "What are the bridges between our school
and the families of the people who come here?", "What are the bridges
between our school and our larger community?", and "How do we know
that what we are doing in this building has real relevance to the world that
we live in?"
So there would be some structures that people would be able to point to. People
would also take responsibility for building some space and maintaining relationships
that would allow all kinds of learning. The particular kind of learning we
are struggling with today is learning about who gets put down, left out, pushed
out, and then ultimately kicked out. But the 'kicked out' is sort of the end
of a process with 'put down, pushed out and left out', and somehow or another
we'll be struggling to understand what that's about and to take responsibility
for the exclusions that we do. We'd like to see models in our school of people
saying "Yes, we did kick Joey out, and that wasn't a good thing to do.
We'd better figure out what in the world helped that to happen, so it doesn't
happen again." And if we displace responsibility for our own exclusionary
practice way up the line and leave it there, then we are going to miss one
of the most crucial lessons of the social model of disability. Because as
I understand it, one of its great gifts is to say "of course we live
in a disable-ist society that is structured to screw people with disabilities,
and people with disabilities have choices about that, and can organise in
resistance to that, and can find that next opportunity for action, as Parents
for Inclusion demonstrated for us so powerfully this morning.
So we would be taking responsibility for that. We would be making time, in
a situation where there isn't enough time, and where somebody else outside
the school wants to control every single minute. We would be trying to figure
out how to get control of enough minutes so that we could celebrate, so that
we could hear each other's voices, so that we could orchestrate difference
into creations that would make us proud of who we are as a diverse group of
people.
We would recognise that wisdom about being human is pretty widely distributed,
and that wisdom about being human ought to be available to everybody in our
inclusive school, and that almost anybody could be carrying that wisdom. It
isn't only elders, but elders are important. It isn't only children, but children
are important. It isn't only people who are all resolved and conflict-free
in their life, its the sort of fallible, frail, broken, miserable gang of
us who find ourselves stuck in a particular place together. So we might as
well try to get on with it in a way that supports each other. If we could
figure out, in this inclusive school, how to avoid defending ourselves with
rigidity, against anger, fear, conflict, isolation and powerlessness. If we
could figure how to model for each other greater responsibility, how to give
room for our passion for justice, how to recognise that the world we are surrounded
by is not only unbelievably frightening, complex and uncertain, but also filled
with remarkable opportunities, and how we go about balancing those things,
and not pretending that only one is true and not the other, seems to me to
be part of the wisdom that we need to claim in order to do this. We would,
in other words, all see each other as belonging to each other, and we would
try to figure out how to deal with all of the pain of that as well as all
of the wonder of it.
So that, anyway, is part of what I heard in all that you said.
John O'Brien and his wife Connie have spent many years creating ground-breaking systems and services for disabled people the world over. They have trained thousands of facilitators and human service workers and are the authors of many deeply insightful publications - see www.inclusion.com for a list.
New Act comes into force
By Richard Rieser, Director, DEE
By the time you read this, the SEN Disability Act 2001 will have come into
force across the education service in England, Scotland and Wales. All providers
of education -under 5's, primary, secondary, special, LEAs, further education,
higher education, adult and community education, whether private or state,
are affected.
Codes of Practice for Schools and Post-Schools have been produced by the Disability
Rights Commission and sent to every School, LEA and College.
(Copies from DRC: www.drc-gb.org)
There are two new duties:
" Not to treat disabled children or students less favourably because
of their impairment than those who do not have impairments.
" To make reasonable adjustments to all aspects of school or college
life including policies, practices and procedures so that disabled children,
pupils or students are not placed at a substantial disadvantage.
This second duty is an anticipatory duty. This means that barriers which would
place a disabled child or student at a substantial disadvantage need to, wherever
this is reasonable, be removed before a particular child or student is enrolled
at the school or on the course.
Of course, as has been previously pointed out (Inclusion Now, Volumes 2&3),
there are plenty of excuses that can legally be brought forward to justify
Disability Discrimination and not making the adjustment. These include Health
and Safety, cost, practicability and not affecting the education of other
pupils or students. However, not to consider what needs to be done, will immediately
leave the school, college or service in a vulnerable position, if a case for
disability discrimination were to be brought against them.
Therefore, if the school or college has not looked for the barriers that might
place disabled children and/or students at a substantial disadvantage and
altered policies, practices and procedures, where reasonable, then they will
not be in a strong position to defend themselves against a charge of disability
discrimination.
For those in the Inclusion Movement this means we now have an opportunity,
in a way we have never had before, to raise the development of inclusive policies,
practices and procedures.
Training is a Priority.
It means that every school and college, staff and governors need training
on the Disability Discrimination Act and Inclusion. Disability Equality in
Education (DEE) has received a substantial three-year Community Fund grant
from September 2002, to develop its network of disabled equality trainers
across the UK, and develop the training quality and resources we offer. Already
DEE has produced three course books for Early Years, Schools and Post Schools
to help with this mammoth training task. (£10 + £1.50 p&p
from DEE)
The new edition of the 'Index for Inclusion' from the Centre for Studies on
Inclusive Education is out this autumn. The first edition has proved a very
valuable school self-review tool both in the UK and around the world. (£24.50
from CSIE:www.inclusion.org.uk)
The Council for Disabled Children and Disability Equality in Education, working
in partnership with voluntary organisations and teachers associations and
funded by the DfES and DRC have produced a training pack for schools - 'Making
it Work'. This provides overhead slides and presentation notes on the new
duties, other statutory guidance and resources for developing inclusion.(£15
from the National Children's Bureau. Tel: 020 7843 6028 or www.ncb-books.org.uk)
The Government has recruited a number of disabled people to join the SEN Disability
Tribunals. These include 4 of DEE's trainers, but the new law will only be
as strong as the case law that is built up around its implementation. We therefore
need strong cases of discrimination against schools to be taken to the SEN&
Disability Tribunals by parents. Students in Post Schools need to take cases
of disability discrimination to the County Courts. The Disability Rights Commission
will take up test cases.
So if you think you have a strong case of Disability Discrimination that has
occurred since 1st September 2002 contact the DRC. Telephone: 08457 622 633
or e-mail: enquiry@drc-gb.org.
A tribute to Nihal Armstrong
Nihal Armstrong was a young man known to many of us. His friends, Speech Therapist, Learning Support Assistant and Teachers remember what he meant to them and to all of us in the struggle for inclusion.
You have left us with many memories
We miss you every day
Sometimes we think of you
Not more than today
You will never be forgotten
In our hearts you are and there you'll stay
You were a really good friend
And this we will never forget . . . .
I'm sure he loved his family most of all
But shared himself with all who called
And no prejudice nor hate
But accepted life just on his faith
His life was short but full of love
For family, friends and god above
So short a time with us it seems
No time to really fill his dreams
This is written to him in honour
For all that we did share
I just want him to know
How much we really did care.
Syeda Momena Aktar from 11Y,
Camden Community School, London
Anne Emerson, Speech Therapist:
In only 17 years Nihal achieved so much. Nihal died suddenly and unexpectedly
last December in the midst of preparing for a major operation and his GCSEs.
He had travelled a long way to this point through special and mainstream schools
touching many people deeply on his way.
I first met Nihal when he was six and Rahila, his mother, told me of her belief
that Nihal understood much of what was said to him. She described the instances
of him demonstrating an ability that was usually hidden by his disabilities.
Her view differed from that of most of the people involved in assessing him
and deciding on appropriate therapy and education. Nihal was attending two
schools, the one for children with physical disabilities which Rahila felt
was more appropriate to his needs and the school for children with severe
learning disabilities which the local authority felt was more appropriate.
I was invited to work with Nihal because the approach I had started to use,
Facilitated Communication, led Rahila to think that I may be open to accepting
her view of Nihal. I was used to using a visual approach and was challenged
by the fact that Nihal had been assessed as being functionally blind. So I
tried to adapt my methods but soon realised that in fact he could see well.
We progressed little by little, using pictures, then words, letters and eventually
Nihal started to point, with support to his body and arm, to indicate his
choice. At first he was just proving understanding and demonstrating vision
but gradually we introduced the possibility of Nihal expressing his own views
and ideas. This he took to rapidly and with relish. It had been possible before
to gauge his reactions through his smiles, laughs, cries and body movements.
Now he could communicate greater subtleties and begin to tell us more about
his interior life.
Nihal was cheeky, full of life, stubborn and motivated in turn, had strong
opinions. Working with Nihal was sometimes frustrating and I felt like I was
letting him and Rahila down when we didn't progress, but mostly it was a wonderful,
fun-filled, warm and exhilarating experience.
In order to gain a place in a mainstream school Rahila took Nihal's appeal
to an education tribunal. I will never forget the detailed preparations we
made before facing the tribunal panel and the jubilation on our success. There
were such strong opposing views of Nihal's abilities and needs and a very
strong case made by the local authority for special schooling. We really made
ground in being able to persuade the panel that Nihal's needs would be better
made in a mainstream school and Nihal became a pioneer, particularly in gaining
a mainstream secondary placement.
Towards the end of Nihal's life more people accepted his abilities, some of
his mainstream secondary school assessments showed clearly his keen intelligence.
He was due to take maths and science GCSEs this year using the method of turning
his head to select answers to multiple choice questions - slow and laborious
but something he could do independently.
At Nihal's funeral many of the people who knew him best paid tribute to him.
We had not conferred, we did not all know each other, and yet the picture
that emerged of Nihal was so unified and strong. He was such an engaging presence,
so welcoming, warm, fun and full of mischief. He was deeply sentimental and
sometimes sad. Nihal proved and demonstrated to a number of people what was
possible despite the most severe of disabilities.
Rebecca Philips & Marion Stanton, Nihal's individual teachers:
Nihal was a great bloke. He knew how to make you laugh and how to cop a good
skive. We should not, of course, be talking like this. As serious teachers
it is of course our first consideration that the pupil gets their heads down
and does nothing but work. Actually, when it comes to the practice of inclusion
there is far more to it than this. Supporting someone who doesn't speak in
social chat is just as vital as helping them to show what they know. Nihal
showed us that he had both skills for the curriculum and plenty to say. Thanks
to Nihal, the process of persuading exam boards to recognise the assessment
needs of pupils who have limited movement and no speech but good understanding
has begun. There is still a long fight to be had in this regard but he kick
started the process as he did in so many other innovations for disabled pupils.
We will miss you Nihal.
Donna Szombara, Support Assistant:
I have known Nihal for seven years and for the last five and a half years
he attended South Camden Community School. I was with Nihal the whole time
as his special support assistant. Knowing Nihal and having such a long and
close relationship was the best thing that happened to me, I feel a great
loss without him. It wasn't easy being in the school. I was the one that had
to deal with the daily doubts that Nihal received. For the first three years
Nihal was constantly having to work twice as hard as any other child as he
was put through tests to continually prove his intelligence. Nobody ever said
Nihal was a genius, just a normal teenager yet he had to work harder. People's
beliefs in Nihal changed when he received teacher support in year 10 which
was provided by C.A.S.T.L.E. Nihal did his last battery of tests to prove
his validation and he also sat the SAT tests at the highest level because
of his age.
To me inclusion is being with your peers and not having to prove your right
to be there. Having the chance to learn and develop with equal value. Even
though Nihal has had a hard time at school he thoroughly enjoyed every single
day right up to his last. At the end of Nihal's life he had gained the respect
and support of most staff and pupils in the school. They have worked hard
to let Nihal have the chance to sit G.C.S.E's like his peers and they gave
him a feeling of future in his life. Unfortunately he cannot go into his future
as it has been stolen from him. Nihal had inspirations to continue to develop
his creative skills through literature and planned to write a thriller for
teenagers.
Nihal has also been an inspiration to me to continue to work towards my dreams
and everything I do will be driven by the love I received from Nihal, I will
miss him very much.