The Curriculum and Assessment Review: A Disability Rights Perspective

In 2022/23 there were 16.1 million Disabled people or 24% of the population in the UK according to the Family Resource Survey. In England in January 2024, 18.4% of school pupils had Special Educational Needs, 4.8% EHCPs, and 13.6% with SEN Support. That is 1.7 million in England (0-16 year olds). 

Background 

Impairment has existed throughout human existence. The types and degrees vary, but social reactions cause disablement. For thousands of years, the overwhelming social response was negative with the occasional veneration (Traditional/Charity Models). Then with the Enlightenment, burgeoning medical science suggested limited solutions for fixing some impairments (Medical Model). Along the way false science intervened with Eugenics and Social Darwinism that led to Segregation and the Isolation of Disabled people. 

Disabled people increasingly resisted and identified reactions to them as socially and culturally derived. They identified disablement as being a result of attitudinal, environmental and organisational barriers that they faced as people with impairments (Social Model).  

After 40 years of Disabled people struggling for this paradigm shift it was adopted in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). Now ratified by 191 countries it promotes a Human Rights Model based on the Social Model. The UNCRPD was ratified by the UK in 2009. 

UNCRPD Article 24, Inclusive Education 

Article 24 of the UNCRPD requires governments to develop an Inclusive Education system for Disabled students with reasonable adjustments and the right support, while teachers are trained to manage inclusive classrooms, and alternative communications systems such as Sign Language, Braille and Easy Read and Pictograms are made available. 

As General Comment No 4, which is legally binding in international law, says on ‘the right to inclusive education’: 

“Ensuring the right to inclusive education entails a transformation in culture, policy and practice in all formal and informal educational environments to accommodate the differing requirements and identities of individual students, together with a commitment to removing the barriers that impede that possibility. It involves strengthening the capacity of the education system to reach out to all learners. It focuses on the full and effective participation, accessibility, attendance and achievement of all students, especially those who, for different reasons, are excluded or at risk of being marginalized”. 

The Equality Act 

The Equality Act 2010 and Single Public Sector Equality Duty (Sec 149) 2011 harmonises the existing three duties into one new duty, which will cover all seven equality strands: age, disability, gender, gender identity, race, religion or belief and sexual orientation. Age will not be covered under the public sector equality duty for public bodies delivering education. 

The single public sector equality duty will require public authorities including schools to: 

• Eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation; 

• Advance equality of opportunity by removing and minimising disadvantage, taking steps to meet the needs of groups’ protected characteristics, and encouraging their participation; 

• Foster good relations, tackle prejudice and promote understanding. 

The current curriculum 

So, how successful has our current curriculum been at formally educating Disabled people? According to the 2021 Office for National Statistics report on the Outcomes for Disabled people in the UK: 

• 13.3% of Disabled people had no qualification (aged 21 to 64) compared to 4.6%  non-Disabled people. 

• 4.5% of Disabled people with significant neurodiversity and learning difficulty are employed.
   

Michael Gove switched the National Curriculum to a knowledge base, starting at a higher threshold excluding many students with learning difficulty. In addition, removing continuous assessment which provided more flexibility and adaptation. So, the National Curriculum is currently not fit for purpose as an inclusive curriculum. 

Achieving an Inclusive Education system 

So what do we need to do to transform our education system into a real inclusive one for all learners? 

1. Develop a comprehensive and coordinated legislative and policy framework for Inclusive Education and a timeframe to ensure that mainstream schools foster real inclusion of Disabled children in the school environment and that teachers and all other professionals and persons in contact with children understand the concept of inclusion and are able to enhance Inclusive Education; 

1. Strengthen measures to monitor school practices concerning the enrolment of children with disabilities and offer appropriate remedies in cases of disability-related discrimination and/or harassment, including deciding upon schemes for compensation; 

1. Adopt and implement a coherent and adequately financed strategy, with concrete timelines and measurable goals, on increasing and improving Inclusive Education. The strategy must: 

1. Ensure the implementation of laws, decrees and regulations on improving the extent and quality of Inclusive Education in classrooms, support provisions and teacher training, including pedagogical capabilities, across all levels providing for high-quality inclusive environments, including within breaks between lessons and through socialization outside “education time”; 

1. Set up awareness-raising and support initiatives about Inclusive Education among parents of Disabled children; 

1. Provide sufficient, relevant data on the number of students both in inclusive and segregated education, disaggregated by impairment, age, sex and ethnic background, and on the outcome of the education, reflecting the capabilities of the students. 

What are the parameters that should guide an inclusive disability equality curriculum? 

• Recognition of Impairment over history and geography and the variability to disabling barriers 

• Values based on inclusion, the intentional building of relationships and emotional intelligence 

• Human Rights approach 

• Universal design and generalising accessibility in all forms 

• These to be applied to all curriculum areas from Early Years to KS1/KS5 on a spiral basis, across each curriculum area. This means at least one programme of study in each curriculum are in each key stage focusing on disablement/disability. 

Can an inclusive curriculum be enacted now in England? 

Yes. If we are clear about what we mean by inclusion and the values needed by schools to enact it and provide a massive staff development programme with time for developing the materials and the pedagogy necessary and the flexible assessment systems that can demonstrate progress on a formative rather than a normative basis. For this we need to argue and campaign. 

More: 

Go to the World of Inclusion website for the full talk, PowerPoint and film clips.