Last year I authored a series called radical inclusion. A year on we have the White Paper and subsequent guidance. There’s lots of buzz and will to get schools right for our most vulnerable young people. This is great but I also think there are some pitfalls or ‘illusions’ that seem like inclusion but actually reinforce forms of exclusion when done badly.
In this series, my intention is to feed into the policy debate and offer some constructive suggestions. I set out four of these possible ‘illusions’ and some musings, about how we might guard against them. They are: ISPs; Impact, Inclusion Bases and Experts.
Spoiler: I think the only way through is by building coalitions and collaborating. So if you’re interested please do read it and comment and challenge or amplify as you see fit.
A note: I write without AI- not because I’m a purist but because I think it AI produces perhaps the most powerful illusion of them all- that these answers are simple. Its in the careful thinking through and the crafting of our words that we come closer to something true. The drawback of that is plenty of typos and and a fair amount of human error.
1. The Inclusion Base Illusion
A flagship element of the SEND reforms is the aspiration to have “tens of thousands of new places in inclusion bases in mainstream settings”. The White Paper sets out a vision for inclusion bases, stating “for some children, this support will enable them to gradually transition to full participation in mainstream classes. For others, ongoing support from the base will help them access mainstream learning, education and their wider community in a way that works for them” (p58). Recently, we saw the publication of a number of pieces of guidance around Inclusion, most substantially the Inclusion Bases in Schools guidance which puts more ‘meat’ on the ‘bones’.
The intention of these reforms is noble, more children with complex needs educated in the mainstream, accessing the curriculum alongside other children rather than ‘hidden away’ in specialist provision. But of course, the devils in the detail and without deep thinking about implementation there are some serious risks. As Ben Newmark aptly reminds us “ things can get worse”.
Many of us working in schools that have a high proportion of children who experience disadvantage or have complex needs know all too well the reality of what many so called ‘inclusion’ bases can become. Well intentioned ideas can quickly morph into informal and insidious forms of exclusion. Whereby the most vulnerable students are kept separate from their peers, receiving poorly planned provision by poorly paid and poorly trained staff that only widens the gap between them and their more advantaged peers. Out of sight and out of mind, they quickly become ‘somebody else’s problem’.
It is good there is a tighter focus in the new suspension and permanent exclusion guidance on managed moves and other forms of informal exclusion But these are not the only forms of exclusion that occur; hubs, bases, offices as The Differences report into ‘who is losing learning?’ indicates, there are a myriad of ways that pupils can be in school but not engaging with learning.
We do not yet have a robust enough evidence base. Particularly, when it comes to SEMH (now being referred to as SED[1]). As the DfE’s research report and this EEF study (linked in the Inclusion Base guidance) demonstrates. There is a danger launching into a policy, that by design takes pupils outside the classroom, when we don’t yet know what the most effective approach is. I will unpack this more in the third chapter of this series on ‘impact’.
We do know that there are opportunity costs with every decision made. These are magnified earlier in a pupils lives and compounded by intersecting disadvantages. In this blog on what I’ve termed ‘Radical Inclusion’ I illustrate, through a fictional case study, how the Matthew Effect (or the principle of accumulated advantage)[2] impacts beyond literacy and compounds over a life course.
To narrow this gap is no mean feat. We need to be sure that what we are doing is not inadvertently widening it. To get clear on that is going to require collaboration as a sector and deep introspection; about what the aims of good schooling and curriculum are for our most vulnerable children.
The DfE Inclusion Base Guidance makes reference to curriculum, leadership and implementation but there is not yet a blueprint. At times I worry we’ve put the cart before the horse. As we’ve not yet achieved consensus about what makes really effective inclusion provision. Although there are lots of schools doing brilliant things, many of whom I have the pleasure to work with, if we’re going to get it right for a generation of the most vulnerable children, we have to develop the evidence base further. I guess we’re going to have to learn fast and on the job.
We have to draw on a deep understanding of how children develop from infancy (or even earlier considering the chemical cascades that happen in the womb[3]). This needs to happen alongside strong disciplinary knowledge and an understanding of sequencing as well as an understanding of the leadership and enabling conditions that support effective implementation.
Whilst there is some consensus, for example about the mechanics of learning to read, lots comes down to individual judgement calls. Whether or not it is more beneficial for a year 7 to analyse a Shakespearean sonnet alongside their peers, if they haven’t yet mastered the basics of reading fluently, or whether they should receive a targeted literacy intervention requires knowing what the opportunity costs are. This rests on the subject knowledge to account for vocabulary and cultural capital debt they will accrue and the understanding of how that might effect their reading later down the line. It is not an easy thing to do. Neither is knowing the real implications for a pupil trying to ‘catch up’ in a hierarchical Maths curriculum, if they are streamed to solidify their understanding of number. Increasingly we’re understanding the impact of play and a broad and balanced curriculum too, so it’s not as simple as giving students a diet of literacy and numeracy until they’ve mastered it. We have to consider the social emotional impacts of a student feeling separate and different if they spend much of their school day in an Inclusion Base and weigh this up against their ability to regulate in school if they don’t get explicit support with their development of social and emotional skills.
There are no easy answers and they are certainly not going to be generated from ‘on high’. We need to create the conditions for leaders to skilfully assess the impacts of their decision making. A substantial challenge, but a meaningful one.
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