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Dear friends

Save the Date: National Day of Action Against Disability Discrimination in Education: November 21st 2018

ALLFIE is joining forces with education unions, students and other campaign groups for a national day of action against Disability Discrimination in Education. Our focus is on raising MPs’ awareness of the injustices faced by Disabled students when attempting to access mainstream education.

Since the Conservatives came to power in 2010, we have seen increasing attacks on inclusive education with new legislation and policies that have weakened Disabled students’ right to mainstream education. At the same time, education providers are being financially penalised for promoting inclusive education practices and disincentivised by academic performance measures.

From ALLFIE’s experience, the overwhelming majority of MPs lack any real understanding or appreciation of just how severe the injustices experienced by Disabled students in mainstream education are. This is our chance to put the record straight: disablism and disability-related discrimination is rife in our education system and it needs to end.

Day of Action leaflet
Download the leaflet

This is a call for action:

In solidarity,

Simone Aspis, ALLFIE’s Campaigns & Policy Coordinator

Educate Don’t Segregate

We know many Disabled students experience discrimination at all levels of the education system, which often leads to segregation and exclusion. For example:

The Education Select Committee is currently undertaking a SEND inquiry. Whilst the inquiry’s terms of reference focus on the SEND assessment and EHCP processes and operations, ALLFIE decided to put forward a submission highlighting (1) how the government systematically violates Disabled students’ human right to mainstream education and (2) the failure of current education legislation to promote the presumption of mainstream education.

We are pleased that Tara Flood, ALLFIE’s Director, has been asked to provide oral evidence to the Education Select Committee on the 20th November 2018. The Education Select Committee has a Twitter feed, so please tweet your messages of support for the right to mainstream education to @CommonsEd, including @allfieuk and @DamianHinds.

We need you to act and bring the issue of disability-related discrimination to the forefront of the minds of the government, the Department for Education and MPs.

Contact your MP

We are asking you to raise your concerns with your MP about your experience of disability discrimination in education, and please encourage your MP to attend a parliamentary reception event at the House of Commons on 21st November from 17:30-19:00. ALLFIE is asking MPs to pledge their support for the following during the session:

Please let us know how you get on.

Get Tweeting!

On the 21st November we will be using the power of social media to tell Damian Hinds and the Department for Education about the widespread disability-related discrimination that thousands of Disabled students experience across the country every day.

Please feel free to write your own tweet beginning with “#DisabilityDiscriminationinEducation is…” adding in @DamianHinds @educationgovuk – don’t forget to include us – @allfieuk.

Or you can tweet one or more of the following tweets:

If you are planning to hold any activity on the day, let us know and we can promote it on social media.

If we can help you, please let us know.

Simone Aspis: simone.aspis@allfie.org.uk 0207 737 6030

Twitter

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The Education Select Committee (July 2018) examining the unprecedented growth in exclusions, unlawful off-rolling and demand for Alternative Provision said:

“An unfortunate and unintended consequence of the Government’s strong focus on school standards has led to school environments and practices that have resulted in disadvantaged children being disproportionately excluded, which includes a curriculum with a lack of focus on developing pupils’ social and economic capital. There appears to be a lack of moral accountability on the part of many schools and no incentive to, or deterrent to not, retain pupils who could be classed as difficult or challenging”….

“Off-rolling is in part driven by school policies created by the Department for Education. The Department cannot wash its hands of the issue, just as schools cannot wash their hands of their pupils…The Government should issue guidance to all schools reminding them of their responsibilities to children under treaty obligations and ensure that their behaviour policies are in line with these responsibilities…The Government and Ofsted should introduce an inclusion measure or criteria that sits within schools to incentivise schools to be more inclusive”.

There is also an unprecedented growth in parents home educating their children, often not by choice, but as a last resort.

Damien Hinds, Secretary of State for Education,  speaking on 5th July to Children’s Services Conference:

“We know there has been a steady movement of children with special educational needs out of mainstream schools and into specialist provision, alternative provision and home education. At the same time, rates of exclusion have begun to rise after a period of having calmed down. I hear too many stories about off-rolling, with schools finding ways to remove pupils, outside of the formal exclusions system. And of what is, essentially, pre-emptive exclusion, where parents looking at secondary schools are actively or in some way subtly discouraged from applying to a particular school for their child. And I want to be clear right now: this is not okay. SEND pupils are not someone else’s problem. Every school is a school for pupils with SEND; and every teacher is a teacher of SEND pupils. And all schools and colleges – alongside central and local government – have a level of responsibility here, it cannot just be left to a few…..But mainstream schools and colleges – with the right support and training – should also be able to offer strong support for many more children and young people with EHC plans, as well as high quality SEN support for those without plans. So I want to both equip and incentivise schools to do better for children and young people with SEND”.

Fine words! But there is still a coyness to speak of inclusion from the Tories. The lack of inclusiveness is witnessed by the number of school students being educated in special schools, rising from 86,000 in 2006 to 115,000 in 2018. In 2015/16, 6,685 pupils were permanently excluded from school, with 339,360 fixed period exclusions. This was a 40% increase from the previous year. Last year, 48,000 pupils were educated in alternative provision and outside special and mainstream schools. Children in care, children in need, children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and children in poverty are all more likely to be excluded than their peers. Pupils with Special Educational Needs are almost seven times more likely to be permanently excluded than pupils with no SEN. 2,000 children with SEND have no educational provision at all [1].

A cut of 8% in real terms between 2015 and 2020 has just been increased by the Government’s refusal to pay for the full 3.5% pay award, recommended by the Pay Review Board. Schools will have to find at least 1%. As pay is a very substantial part of school budgets, this effectively takes the reduction up to 9%. On top of this, Local Authority Higher Needs Budgets are massively overspent and leading to unlawful reductions in funding for those with Education Health and Care Plans. Despite secondary pupil numbers rising by 54,485 from 2014 to 2018, the number of teaching assistants (TAs) has been cut by 6,100. Parents are challenging this and have already halted reductions in Bristol with a Judicial Review. Surrey and Hackney parents are awaiting their day in court.  The Government must be made to fund SEND to meet the needs of those with a Plan and the far larger number who require School Support. A National Association of Head Teachers survey of 600 primary head teachers showed 94% found it harder to resource SEND than 2 years ago and only 2% said top up funding was sufficient to meet Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs). Disability discrimination against students and staff is increasing.

Showing their anger at real spending cuts in schools, over 2,000 head teachers demonstrated in Whitehall on Friday 28th September. High among their concerns was their increasing inability to put in place the provision required by children with SEND.

One head teacher from Suffolk told how she had been bitten by a pupil this week.”It wasn’t his fault. It was because of a situation outside of school, and his emotional support had been cut two weeks earlier because of the cuts.” She could not give her name in case the pupil was identified, but she added: “We have children who are distressed and angry and we can’t help them.” Another Suffolk head teacher, Kelly from Springfield Infants School, said: “It’s head teachers here protesting because there’s no one left. We are using people left, right and centre to cover all sorts of jobs in schools.” Stockport head teacher, Jim Nicholson, said he was fed up with hearing this government line of a rise in school funding.”We have seen how our colleagues are having to lay off staff and our vulnerable pupils are not getting support. We’d all rather be back in school teaching but we’ve had enough”.[2]

Campaign for more SEND funding locally, to put pressure on the Government to increase funding overall. On 21st November participate in a National Day of Action to get equality for disabled students and staff in our colleges and schools. Organise activities and protests in every educational establishment. End discrimination against disabled students and staff. https://neu.org.uk/funding

At the Labour Party Conference in the same week, a reference back to ensure the principle of inclusive education is at the heart of Labour’s proposal for a National Education Service was carried unanimously. Angela Rayner MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Education, said:

“Too often those who suffer from staff shortages are children with special educational needs and disabilities. So our National Education Service Charter, the result of thousands of submissions from our members and others, guarantees it will be truly inclusive. That is why our Shadow Children’s Minister, Emma Lewell-Buck will lead plans to stop those with special educational needs and disabilities from falling out of the school system. And we would back it up with a record investment in modernising school buildings to make sure they are accessible to all who could learn in them. Providing an excellent education to the many and not a privileged few.”

Richard Rieser, World of Inclusion

[1] https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmeduc/342/34202.htm

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-45665122

You can listen online below, or if you want to download the audio files, right click each article and choose “Save Link As”.

This has been a really interesting issue to put together. At the Global Disability Summit we met up with participants around the world and heard about the state of inclusion in their home countries, and there was also a fair bit of unrest amongst DPOs at the UK failing to put its own house in order whilst hosting the summit.

We usually try to include the voices of parents and young people themselves, but In this edition we’ve also got a “teacher’s voice” – the story of an FE college’s inclusiveness over time. We hope to continue this segment so let us know if you have something to say as an education professional! And as ever we’d love to hear from young Disabled people and parents. It’s great to hear in this issue the voice of a young man who has persevered with his parents’ support through an increasingly underresourced system and is now going to university.

I always find ALLFIE’s AGM really heartening, and this year was no exception, with supporters and members coming from all over the country. It was really useful to hear their views on how we should use Article 24 in our campaigning work.

We also have a couple of fascinating articles on inclusive practice – assessing “intelligence” and putting the Children and Families Act into practice. Also I do hope you will visit our website to read our new legal guide.

Jess Cahill

ALLFIE Communications Officer

“Find your voice” – Amen Tesfay

Eighteen year old Amen Tesfay was one of a number of speakers at the recent Labour Party Conference who declared he was neuro diverse while making a great speech.

I live in Enfield, North London, near the A10. A nice place; a good place to raise your children, but not a good place to be a young adult in. When I went to primary school, St Andrews CofE, I got loads of support when Labour was in government. Speech therapy, teaching assistants and 1:1 support in some lessons. They set up a plan for me to be more independent. I was on School Action with an IEP. I had no problems transferring to Enfield Grammar (a comprehensive), as my brother was already there. Enfield Grammar became an academy a month before I came, in year 7 with the promise that there will be more money and more freedom. In year 7 I did get plenty of help that I needed from the experienced SEN staff, but as Tory cuts came in there was a revolving door of SEN staff. The SENCO and SEN staff kept leaving and there were fewer of them. In Year 8 it got less. After that in Yr 9 to 11 I could have done with more. I don’t blame the school, it was the government funding. You had teachers writing to parents asking to fundraise.

However it is strange they got £1m for an Astro Turf as a sports school from the government and Football Association. I find it weird that there was money for that but not for books and paper. It is an old building dating from 1558 but other than the Astro Turf there was not much sign of improving the building.

For both my GCSEs and A levels I had 25% more time and I did the exams in a separate room from the exam hall. It was because they like to get all the SEN students in one room so the SEN staff can be there. They do brilliantly. I got an A, 2 Bs and Cs in everything else.

Now I am just about to start a degree in Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. I got at A levels in the Sixth form an A in History and Bs in Politics and Media. I want to be an adviser to a MP as a job. I joined Labour two years ago after Corbyn won the second leadership ballot. I am talking to the council Labour group about maybe being a potential candidate next time round.

Work hard and prove others wrong. I was made fun of because I have terrible hand writing. Now I have out-performed all those who made fun of me and I am going to the university and course I wanted. Find your voice, challenge cuts, speak to your local representative and if they do not do what you want kick them out.

Parents, keep on supporting your children. My Mum went out of her way practically declaring war on my schools to get the support I needed and keep loving your child and support them.

I have friends with SEND more than me and they are going to FE colleges and universities. Once they get their support, they can achieve… It is about incorporating into society. If they are sent to a special school they will be segregated for a long time. They cannot learn independence if they are sent to a special school.

Amen Tesfay

Interview by Richard Rieser

Amen’s speech to the Labour Conference is below

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Article 24 workshop

Do YOU know what Article 24 is? Maybe you have heard of it but think it sounds a bit technical? In full it is Article 24 of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and it deals with education. It guarantees the right of Disabled learners to be in mainstream education […]

Do YOU know what Article 24 is? Maybe you have heard of it but think it sounds a bit technical? In full it is Article 24 of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and it deals with education. It guarantees the right of Disabled learners to be in mainstream education with the right support.

ALLFIE’s AGM in September this year included a workshop on Article 24. We were interested to find out what people actually know about it. Do they know what it means? And, importantly, how do they think we should be using it to put pressure on the government? Here’s what they said.

Here are the flip chart notes from the workshop: “What do we already know? 92 countries have signed. Only 2 have reservations (one is the UK). UN not impressed by UK reservation: ‘inclusive education includes special schools’. It was about ‘choice’ but became about ‘rights’. Once you've signed you're held to account. No ifs no buts. Info is on ALLFIE website. It's been a long journey. Concluding observations. How can ALLFIE influence the government? Talk about life chances. Life consequences. It's about friendship. It's about disability equality training (attitudes not money). Speak of our values. It's about curriculum and access and reasonable adjustments. Range of ways of learning and contributing (we need to be more mindful of this). The examination system should be more flexible. Work with DPOs Local authority training. Write to local authority, mention UN Salamanca statement. Making sure it's not forgotten. Remembering what's been lost from decades ago. Continue pressing government about implementation. It's about creating a system from scratch.”

What do you know about Article 24?

One participant reported being in New York when the UNCRPD was being drawn up. She recalled that many Disabled people’s organisations were present, but very few were advocating for inclusive education. Originally inclusive education was just going to be included in the convention as a choice, not a right, but as negotiations continued more and more organisations came round to the understanding that it should be a right.

Our workshop participants mostly knew that the UK has put a reservation on Article 24 which states that Disabled children can be sent to segregated settings and that other countries had not. They expressed some scepticism though – just because countries have signed the convention doesn’t mean they put all of it into practice. The Netherlands was cited as a poor example of Article 24 implementation, and at the other end of the scale Italy and Spain have around 0.2% of Disabled children in segregated settings. However people felt that although Article 24 was not enforceable, it did mean countries could be held to account.

Participants also felt that making Article 24 a reality required a lot of change – principally a change in understanding and knowledge, and that people in the system should be starting to ask “What barriers do we as an education system put in the way of Disabled people?” Although people may have the best of intentions, if they don’t have the knowledge of good practice they will not be able to make inclusive education a reality.

Workshop participants talking

How can we put pressure on the government to implement Article 24?

Many participants talked about how important parents are in shaping the climate of public opinion and debate: “We have to recognise the power of the parent”. Therefore getting parents on side is critical to creating change in the system. One participant had found that where parents are strong advocates of special schools they do at least support the right for a Disabled child to be in mainstream if that is their choice. Everyone was in agreement that where parents want their child to go to a special school this comes from having received a lack of support in mainstream: “It’s not a desire for segregation, their needs have not been met.” Parents may have a perception that their children are safer in special schools, despite the history of abuse in segregated settings, and some may have low expectations of their children’s futures: “My child’s going to live a different life anyway”.

Again the issue of a change in attitudes came up: “We don’t see segregation of Disabled people as unfair, why is that?”

Participants felt that in attempting to influence the debate we should continue to talk about our experiences, to present case studies and talk about how our educational experiences affect our life chances. For change to happen, Disabled students also need to be represented in the system, and the aspirations of Disabled people to enter the teaching profession should be met.

At Westminster level, as well as continuing to question the government about implementation of Article 24 and continuing to write to the Education Committee, participants felt we should challenge other education policies, such as the policy of constant exams and assessments, which drives bad practice in the classroom, as it reduces learning methods and different ways learners can participate.

For me, the message coming out of this workshop was one I’ve encountered in talking to people about inclusive education before – that to make it happen, everyone needs everyone else to understand it and to be on board – not just government and politicians but teachers, heads, parents and young disabled people themselves, and that applies as much at a political level as it does in schools.

Jess Cahill

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Legal guide: the right to mainstream

ALLFIE will be adding more resources to its new website that you may find useful. A new addition is a legal guide by barrister Steve Broach which looks at how families may be able to use the law in making the case for their child to be in mainstream.

The Children and Families Act 2014 sets out a presumption that children should be in mainstream education, unless either the parent/young person does not wish for it, or this would be incompatible with “the provision of efficient education for others”. In this guide Stephen looks at what this actually means and what arguments you may be able to use in dealing with the local authority. He also looks at some relevant human rights legislation and case law, and discusses the various avenues open to you, from going to tribunal, through judicial review, to using the Equality Act 2010 in establishing a discrimination claim.

You can read the full guide here.

Global Disability Summit

Michelle Daley and Richard Rieser report on the first Global Disability Summit, the controversy around it and associated events.

On the 23rd and 24th July 2018, the first ever Global Disability Summit took place in London.

This event was co-hosted by the UK Government, the Kenyan Government and the International Disability Alliance (IDA). IDA had been preparing this summit for two years to develop a higher profile for disabled people’s rights post the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (2015). This was the first global disability summit to be held and certainly did raise the profile, pushing many organisations to make tangible commitments. The event attracted more than 1,000 delegates from governments, businesses and non governmental organisations. Of these, 65-70 DDPOs (Deaf and Disabled people’s organisations) were selected to attend.

The first day kicked off with the Civil Society Forum (23rd July) providing a platform for disabled people prior to the actual summit. This part of the event was headed up by IDA as the representative of disabled people internationally. On this day ALLFIE’s Campaigns and Policy Co-ordinator, Simone Aspis attracted huge attention from the audience and social media for calling out the government for their “hypocrisy” and failings towards disabled people in the UK.

Lots of conference participants seated, listening to a speaker

The summit itself, on the 24th July (www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/global-disability-summit-2018), was about bringing together delegates from governments, donors and other influential parties. Penny Mordaunt MP, Secretary of State at DfID (International Development) committed “to the launch of the Inclusive Education Initiative – a new UK-led multi-donor partnership to support developing countries to realise the promise of truly inclusive schools, teaching and learning. It will support countries to collect data, integrate disability into education plans, and build capacity to roll out reforms and train teachers.” Many other important commitments were made but there was frustration and disappointment that the recent UN scrutiny of the UK government and its findings of ‘grave and systematic violations’ were glossed over. At the summit, World of Inclusion distributed a leaflet to all participants on how to take inclusive education forward around the world.

The lead up to the event was not without controversy. Many DDPOs were unhappy about exclusion of DDPOs in the UK. In addition it was believed that the event was a PR exercise to mask the UK’s failings towards disabled people. The Charter for Change was another source of discontent as it annoyed many DDPOs, highlighting double standards about our own apparent domestic ‘progress’.

As a rival event, DPAC (Disabled People Against the Cuts) hosted the International Deaf and Disabled People’s Solidarity Summit a day before the summit itself. This was about our solidarity and shared experiences as disabled people globally. Speakers from Canada, Columbia, Malaysia and Uganda made participants powerfully aware of the international dimension of our struggle for rights. Particularly compelling was the speech and film by two Columbian activists who shared their experiences of a crucial and pivotal journey of protest and occupation in which seven disabled people died in the fight for a ‘disability pension’ (‘The Fight’). The conference also heard from 17 speakers from DPOs in the UK. ALLFIE’s acting Director, Michelle Daley, spoke about global collective solidarity to achieve inclusive education for all disabled learners. John McDonnell MP, Shadow Chancellor, as a disabled person, made a commitment that a future Labour government would introduce full disability rights and benefits, with full financial backing. It is a great pity many of these contributions were not heard at the summit.

ALLFIE trustee Anthony Ford-Shubrook also made a speech at the summit.

There is a long way to go before we can say inclusive education has been achieved for all disabled learners. This conference missed an important opportunity for people to share experiences, help influence and provide learning opportunities as a way to address discriminatory practices within education. It is not clear what delegates took away with them from the summit that would have helped to improve situations in their home countries.Young disabled people at the conference

Some of the methods adopted by the organisers seemed designed to prevent disabled people’s participation. As Private Eye (10th August) reported the summit did not live up to its promise, quoting difficulty with accessible parking bays, shuttle transfers, access to extra toilets, having a finger buffet with no plates, no roving microphone and having to submit questions online in the open sessions, which excluded many of the attendees. A notable exception was a session on Inclusion and Infrastructure, chaired by Richard Rieser, where he insisted participants could use a microphone to ask questions directly.

Richard Rieser took the opportunity to organise a well attended meeting to discuss restarting the Commonwealth Disabled People’s Forum that stopped being active in 2012. There was unanimous agreement to get this going again to provide an international voice for the 400 million disabled people in the Commonwealth.

The summit, for all the criticism, has taken the understanding of a wider audience forward, eg an interview with Vladimir Cuk, CEO of IDA, in the Daily Telegraph on 24th July said: “The UNCRPD is focussed on moving the view of people with disabilities as ‘objects’ of charity, medical treatment and social protection toward viewing them as ‘subjects’ with rights, who are capable of making decisions, as well as being active members of society. Mr Cuk acknowledges some countries are further than others in implementing the UN Convention but wherever budgets face cuts the axe often falls on services for disabled people first.”

Interestingly, and encouragingly, everyone had a shared view about inclusive education and the importance of making it work.

More information about the summit is at www.internationaldisabilityalliance.org/summit

Michelle Daley and Richard Rieser

Jessie Chiyamwaka – Malawi. Chief Disability Rehabilitation Officer

Jessie Chiyamwaka“[Government] developed an inclusive education strategy. Mainstreaming in every department. We need to do a lot of capacity building with every teacher so that inclusiveness starts at the ground level.”

 

Jorge Enrique Muñoz Morales – Columbia. Latin American Network of NGO DPOs and families

“Jorge Enrique Munoz MoralesIn Columbia our government have been developing some measures to promote inclusive education which is adapted to the convention and to guarantee communication for children with disabilities. For example a deaf child can get a sign language interpreter in classes. Inclusive education just started last year but the main goal is to accomplish what has been set in our law within the next five years.”

Hon Hajjati Safia Nalule Juuko – Uganda. National Member of Parliament, representing persons with disabilities

“Five years ago we started a policy on inclusive education but it is not finalised. We have a Special Needs Education Department with the Ministry of Education but it is highly under funded. Inclusive education can be achieved if there is financial commitment but it requires money. We have laws and institutional mechanisms but we need enough teachers, resources, technology for this to be achieved.”

Alexia Ncube – Namibia. Deputy Minister responsible for Disability Affairs

“A policy was adopted in 2013 that has a lot of progressive things within it, that talks about including children within mainstream schools. Some milestones have been achieved for example five schools enrolling deaf children and blind children. There are challenges – due to lack of resources we have not implemented the policy in its entirety. Some children with intellectual disabilities do not attend mainstream classes because there are no resources to support them within the classroom. They have moved from special to resourced schools.”

Ryan Gersava – Philippines. International Young Persons with Disabilities Programme

“The Philippines are training more teachers for special education so children with disabilities can go to mainstream school without fear of discrimination. The infrastructure is not yet ready because inclusive education is not a priority.”

Alexandra Kutas – Ukraine. International Young Persons with Disabilities Programme

“The First Lady of my country, wife of the president, is doing some good stuff to promote the importance of inclusive education but we need a systematic approach and real changes for inclusive education to really work.”

 

Jaden Lake – Canada. International Young Persons with Disability Programme

Father Mike Lake (Canadian Member of Parliament): “When Jaden attended a regular classroom we didn’t realise the amazing positive impact it had on the other kids. Every one of them would say that their lives are better off for having Jaden in them. When you include people like Jaden in schools everybody’s definition changes to include [others].”

Dr. Dennis Sinyolo – Global. Education International Senior Coordinator

“Inclusive education is very important and all governments should legislate for it. It’s not just about policy, it’s about implementation. Teachers tells us they want to include disabled children but they don’t have skills and resources. Inclusive education should be provided through in-service training and continuous professional development. School infrastructure needs to be accessible and friendly for all learners. Bottom line: government to commit to make it happen.”

Hon Sen (Dr) Isaac Maigua Mwaura, CBS – Kenya. MP

“90 special schools in Kenya, 3,000 special units in mainstream schools but those units have a problem because they lump all disabled children in these units without proper provision. So the units become a dumping ground for disabled children. Budget remains consistent with no increase, making inclusive education difficult to achieve.”

Sarah Kamau – Kenya. Association of Professional Women with Disabilities

“What is not working is many children with disabilities are not getting early childhood assessments so that they can get the right kind of support. This is really lacking. There has been sign language introduced. There has been introduction of access and Braille in some schools but it needs to go wider, even into university. We need to do more and need more resources.”

Thomas Ongola – African Union. Disability Expert, Social Affairs Department

“For inclusive education to work better we need rapid short training for teachers on technical aspects and to have a sandwich programme. It will have a ripple effect. It would have less wastage and improve inclusive education teachers.”

Rose Achayo – Uganda. Chair, National Union of Women with Disabilities

Rose Achayo“Northern Uganda talks about inclusive education but not in the context of the disability movement. So it is special needs education that is what Uganda defines as inclusive education. We have a lot of units for example for people with visual impairments, schools for blind children, schools for the deaf, schools for handicapped and schools for deaf & blind. The mainstream education that Uganda is talking about is where a disabled learner can access it without any adjustments made. The disabled student has to access the school based on what they can manage. If they cannot manage they are not welcomed. This is not inclusive education.”

Laura Kanushu – Uganda. Executive Director of legal action for persons with disabilities

“In Western Uganda I don’t even think inclusive education exists. In Uganda the ministry needs to learn more about what inclusive education means because it is still not a common thing on the norm. We need to sensitise the government to convince them it’s a human rights issue. Also the government needs to learn from other countries.”

Simone Aspis – UK. Policy and Campaigns Coordinator for the Alliance for Inclusive Education

Simone Aspis seated at the Civil Society Forum“We are also calling for the removal of the reservation on Article 24 and full implementation of Disabled people’s human right to inclusive education.”

Beyond Intelligence Testing

Following an earlier piece (see Inclusion Now 46) on the failings of intelligence testing, educational psychologist Colin Newton looks at alternative means of assessment.

See the earlier article here.

So does intelligence really exist? Probably not as any kind of single entity or potential. What else can we conclude about ‘intelligence’?

  1. Intelligence can not safely be reduced to a single measure
  2. Language and culture impact upon an individual’s performance on any kind of psychometric test
  3. Movement differences and difficulties including issues with spoken language make such testing invalid and unreliable
  4. Intelligence measures are only dealing with experiences the tested person has had, they do not truly access underlying processes
  5. Intelligence assessment is based on highly questionable assumptions about thought and language.

Intelligence would appear to be a fluid, context dependent variable that is not quantifiable but is a social construction. Multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1983) are perhaps one more useful way to consider thinking and problem solving processes.

Perhaps we should simply refer to specific thinking, linguistic, memory and problem solving processes without ever trying to bundle them up as one entity. We certainly should be wary of giving more value and credence to certain skills over others such as verbal over non verbal for instance.

Such a stance will call for more tentative, sophisticated ways of sketching out how someone operates in the world. Such sketching will need to be done in collaboration with those who know and love the person themselves and with their full participation. The tools used for such sketching may need to be more humble than the oppressive pseudo scientific assessment tools of the past, but in turn are likely to be more useful and respectful.

Let us live with uncertainty and accept respectfully the messiness of the unknown whilst always assuming that more is present and possible.

What should would be assessors do instead?

– Ask those who love a person or who spend most time with them to describe their strengths, gifts and needs.This is where true wisdom about a person exists. Structured questions may help and shared reflection and theory building after collecting stories may enrich a picture and better inform decisions and strategies.

– Beware of dangerous assumptions when assessing. Always assume competence when in doubt or when movements are difficult for a person.

– Paint or sketch portraits in words and images of the whole person and their context. Instead of trying to be the pseudo scientific objective tester we should adopt tools more familiar to the artist creating a portrait (O’Brien 2002).

The latter investigation demands different and more nuanced tools – those that enable the search for what is healthy. Listening to children or co-constructing a narrative with them? This means reshaping the relationship between the psychologist and the learner to arrive at an end product which influences future dialogues between the young person and those closest to him or her. To deepen the conversations we might have about that young person and their inclusion/place in the world. Details are given of the particular – the complexity and detail of another’s experiences are documented in the hope that readers will see themselves in it even if it is exotic.

We only truly understand if we feel some sense of connection or identification with the person in the picture or story– stand in the shoes of the child with autism – nobody sees themselves in the generalisations of the ‘Triad’. Context is a source of understanding – not a source of data distortion. Behaviour may give us a clue – but it is the meanings people attach to the behaviours that ought really to concern us.

The standard is authenticity rather than ‘truth’ so there is never a single story – many could be told. The narrowest stories about individuals are drawn from the psychometric encounter – “Kevin has a mental age of 2 years”.  “Listening for a story vs. listening to a story” (Wilson, D. 2009).

– Make use of criterion referenced or curriculum based assessment to inform planning. How is a child progressing in relation to what they are being taught as opposed to presumed underlying intellectual processes. One of the aims of criterion referencing is to focus on individual, differentiated assessment. By moving away from norm-referencing, to a system which describes what students know, understand and can do, assessments can be used to provide feedback and to inform future teaching and learning needs.

– Use authentic assessment processes that respect context and learning. This is a form of assessment in which students are asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills.

“…Engaging and worthy problems or questions of importance, in which students must use knowledge to fashion performances effectively and creatively. The tasks are either replicas of or analogous to the kinds of problems faced by adult citizens and consumers or professionals in the field.” (Wiggins, 2006)

– Use the wider frame suggested by the work being done on ‘Multiple Intelligences’, and always notice and respect if not starting by noting diverse Learning Styles.

The theory of multiple intelligences was developed in 1983 by Dr. Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard University. It suggests that the traditional notion of intelligence, based on I.Q. testing, is far too limited. Instead, Dr. Gardner proposes eight different intelligences to account for a broader range of human potential in children and adults. These intelligences are:

– Engage in participant observation which has a long and respected history in the world of anthropology. Participant observation is the involvement of the anthropologist in the activities of the people in that society, so that instead of just observing the people, the anthropologist is able to get a more hands on experience of how these people live their lives. The main advantages of participant observation are that it allows the anthropologists to obtain a deeper and more experienced insight on the activities that the individuals of a society perform and the ways in which they think and that it also allows the anthropologists to gain a good overview of how and why a society functions.

Who are the participants who will have best knowledge about a child or young person? How long will we need to be part of a young persons life to get a real handle on who they are what they bring?

– Always respect the social model of disability! The social model of disability proposes that barriers and prejudice and exclusion by society (purposely or inadvertently) are the ultimate factors defining who is disabled and who is not in a particular society.

References

Donnellan, A. M. & Leary, M. R. (1995). Movement differences and diversity in autism/mental retardation: Appreciating and accommodating people with communication challenges. Madison, Wisconsin: DRI Press.

Gallannaugh, Frances and Dyson, Alan The Journal of Special Education, Vol. 42, No. 1, 36-46 (2008) DOI: 10.1177/0022466907313607 Disproportionality in Special Needs Education in England: University of Manchester

Gardner, Howard. Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York: Basic,1983Intelligence Quotient: Prof. Dr. Hans-Hilger Ropers/ Prof. Dr. Randolf Menzel (2007)

J Leadbetter. 2005. Activity theory as a Conceptual Framework and Analytical Tool within the Practice of Educational Psychology, Educational and Child Psychology, 22, 1, 18‐28. ISSN: 0267‐1611.PLASC and School Level Annual School Census 2002

Leyden, G. (1978) Reconstructing Educational Psychology by W E C Gillham: Croom Helm

Lokke, C., Gersch, I. M’gadzah, H. and Frederickson, N. (1997) The resurrection of psychometrics: fact or fiction? Educational Psychology in Practice, 12, 4, 222-233.IQ Test: Where Does It Come From and What Does It Measure? JAN STRYDOM, M.A., H.E.D., D.Ed. & DU PLESSIS, B.D., B.A. Hons (2000)

O’Brien, John (2002) Inclusion News. Article: ‘Great Questions and The Art of Portraiture’. This essay was part-inspired by the work of Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot, a sociologist at the Harvard School of Education.

Rossetti, Z. & Tashie, C., (2006) The Least Dangerous Assumption, University of New Hampshire, Institute on Disability http://www.iod.unh.edu

Shapiro, ES Angello, LM, Eckert TL, School Psychology Review, 2004 – questia.com

Has Curriculum-Based Assessment Become a Staple of School Psychology Practice? an Update and Extension of Knowledge, Use and Attitudes from 1990 to 2000

Siegel, L. S., & Metsala, E., “An alternative to the food processor approach to subtypes of learning disabilities,” in N. N. Singh & I. L. Beale (eds.), Learning Disabilities: Nature, Theory, and Treatment (New York: Springler-Verlag, 1992), 45

Smith, C. R., Learning Disabilities: The Interaction of Learner, Task, and Setting (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1991), 63

Gary Thomas and Andrew Loxley Special Education and Constructing Inclusion (2007) by Open University

Venables, K. and Farrell P. in A Psychology for inclusive education : new directions in theory and practice / edited by Peter Hick, Ruth Kershner and Peter Farrell (2009)

Alex, Wien, Austria (2009) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4183166.stm

Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (2006). Examining the teaching life. Educational Leadership, 63, 26-29.

Wilson, D. 2009: FOR A STORY vs. LISTENING TO A TORY’ (Unpublished Paper)

Zena MartinIn 2014, The Children and Families Act brought in legislation and principles that underpin the current SEND Code of Practice. Yet reports from Local Area SEND inspections and third sector organisations suggest that these principles are not implemented consistently nationally. Let us remind ourselves of the nature of these principles (see table).

Making it Practical!

The principles of the Children and Families Act need to have practical meaning in schools. The principles are not just for local authorities to deliver on at the EHCP stage either. Thousands of children and young people on SEN Support in schools are also entitled to support that meets with these principles at school level too. Yet these principles can be easily lost among the service-centred approaches and the need to ensure the paperwork is complete and the records up-to-date.

It takes time to find out the views and wishes of different stakeholders, particularly children. Yet some of the most valuable information can come if we have staff who are confident in exploring their views and genuinely listening and responding to their wishes. The answers to children’s difficulties and concerns are often there within them and around them in the people who love them. We just need to give them a platform and the tools to be able to identify and communicate this.

One of the best reviews I attended embraced all these principles in one short hour. It was highly person-centred. The Year 6 pupil was involved in planning his Year 6/7 transition review. He updated his Support Plan to give to the high school SENCO. Having made some good progress in the previous six months, he was keen to showcase his work to the high school SENCO, which he did by bringing all his exercise books to the meeting to share.

He talked about how much he was looking forward to high school and the new subjects he would encounter. This was unexpected to some in the room as they had assumed he would be nervous or apprehensive – not so! He had only one concern – would he be able to join the lunchtime clubs he had picked out as he was worried about being bullied in the playground when teaching assistants might not be present?

Together, we celebrated his progress and wider outcomes through Year 6. We then agreed a plan of the lunchtime clubs he had chosen. However, this child had recognised his own vulnerability, having had previous experience of being bullied. With his approval, a plan was drawn up to provide a network of peer support for him, involving people he already knew and older pupils who would act as mentors. All agreed that whilst it was good to have a plan of lunchtime clubs in place, we didn’t want him to attend them just because he felt excluded from the playground.

Had this child not brought his own concerns to the table, I’m not sure our discussion would have been so focused on one specific issue. Yet he directed our thoughts to what was most important to him. By autumn half term, his mother was reporting that he had made a great transition to high school, was thoroughly enjoying Technology Club, Chess Club and Computer Club, made great friends and was getting on well with the peer support network. This is the principles of the Code of Practice successfully applied in such a simple way!

Zena Martin, Educational Consultant, Inclusive Learning North

https://inclusivelearningnorth.co.uk/

The Children and Families Act (2014) Principles and Implications for Schools (adapted from DfE, 2016).

The principles of the SEND Code of Practice Implications for local authorities and schools Practical application
Local authorities must have regard to the wishes, views and feelings of children, their parents and of young people themselves. Listen to and respond to the concerns of parents, children and young people. Person centred, pupil-friendly meetings, where the pupil is present.

Age-appropriate and creative ways of engaging pupils, parents and carers in these discussions, even for very young children – for example, using pupil voice emoticons to indicate what is important to the pupil.

The views and wishes of parents, children and young people reflected in planned outcomes and provision.
The participation of parents, children and young people in decision-making about SEN. Parents, children and young people involved in decisions from the start, i.e. in the initial decision about whether a child or young person has SEN. A SEND policy stating that pupils and parents/carers participate in this decision-making from the first days of Special Educational Provision.

Provision that can be traced back to decisions made by pupils and parents/carers.

Outcomes, actions and support plans that have been clearly compiled with pupils, parents and carers in partnership.
Providing children, young people and parents with information and advice to support participation. Must publish an SEN information report for school.

Should provide children, young people and parents with information about the local Information, Advice and Support Service.

 An SEN Information Report, written with the involvement of parents and carers, and accessible in its presentation.

SEN Information Report and helpful links to the Local Offer and Information Advice and Support Service, clearly shown on the school website, that is easy to navigate with accessibility tools.

Children, young people and parents have access to services that help them achieve the best possible educational and other outcomes, preparing them effectively for adulthood.
Outcomes and improving progress for children and young people with SEN. A focus on outcomes and impact.

Gather evidence of the impact of the school’s provision on pupil progress.

Publish information about how they evaluate the effectiveness of provision made for pupils with SEN.

 Provision maps and support plans indicate the impact of the provision on progress and outcomes, not just the provision being made.

There is an emphasis on outcomes as well as progress, e.g. ‘by using clear visuals, timetabling, and allowing him to watch first, Charlie is now able to join in with PE without becoming distressed’.

SEN Information Report on the website updated annually, to show transparently how the school has evaluated its provision for pupils with SEND, how effective it is, and what next developments it has identified.

Currents Of Change

We at Inclusion Now stumbled across a recent research article via Twitter that looks at the challenges education professionals at one FE college faced over time in trying to implement inclusive practice. We asked its author, David Meir, to tell us more about himself and about his research.

[You can read the full research here.]

I stumbled into education more by accident than design. My background was in sport, and through not knowing what else to do with my career I landed a part time role as a lecturer in sport in an FE college in the North West of England. It was my role to develop and deliver a Level 1 BTEC Sport programme through the widening participation agenda.

Due to my inexperience I had a limited understanding of inclusion and what it meant in practice. I was however very fortunate to find myself employed at a college who put inclusive practice at the centre of their approach to learning. This was a continuous process that had been implemented since 1991 with the ultimate aim of creating a fully inclusive college. The programme became a reflection of the inclusive ethos of the college and was developed over time to be inclusive in both enrolment and delivery. It provided an opportunity for all students to be educated in a mainstream environment regardless of their disability and / or learning difficulty. Students were always given an opportunity to succeed and were never turned down regardless of their needs or challenges.

Inclusion at the college was simply defined as seeing every person as a student first, providing support to enable them to achieve their goals through a non-segregated curriculum. This approach was driven by the department of Additional Learning Support (ALS), and the ethos of inclusion that was developed made an impact on the lives of numerous learners and created a culture of equity throughout the college. The process of inclusion is now under threat as the college is in a financially and ethically diminished form; it is in a state of crisis through the fiscal policy of austerity. Overall there has been a third cut from the Further Education and Skills budget since 2010 with the drop in the overall budget falling from 3 billion to 2 billion between 2009 and 2015. The greater the cuts to the sector, the greater the threat to developing and sustaining inclusive practices.

I believe the experience of the programme and the college is an important story to tell. The research I undertook over two stages focused on a 13 year period between 2004 and 2017 in order to gain a shared understanding of people’s views and experiences of developing the Level 1 sport programme in an inclusive way. Numerous people who were involved in the development and delivery of the programme shared their experiences including lecturers, curriculum managers, ALS workers and ALS coordinators. For the first stage of the research a narrative was produced by intertwining participants’ responses with my own critical reflections in order to create a collaborative story. Discussion focused on the development of inclusive practice through an understanding of its historical development, the current issues that were being faced and the future concerns of the college as it tried to navigate the complicated social, economic and political landscape. What follows is an extract from the narrative that hopefully conveys both the programme and the college’s actions in their attempts to develop inclusive practice as well as addressing the challenges faced and concerns for the future.

“Through cross-college colleagues offering the time, guidance and support the course started to take on the key elements of an inclusive programme. Certain members of staff enlightened me about the notion of inclusion, what it means and what it was for. Had I always been inclusive in my natural actions, maybe, but now I understood it in practice. Watching students with additional support needs grow in confidence, become more independent and gain the respect of their peers enabled all stakeholders to see the value of an inclusive approach. It brought people, students and staff alike, together that would otherwise not have interacted and prompted conversations, reflections and thus learning that would otherwise not have happened for all concerned.

“Yet this was not enough, more must be achieved; sit them in front of a computer, make them type, make them work. In six years we went from five modules to ten, from a certificate to a diploma; more, more, more! There was no time for building those relationships that were so desperately required. During this time we lost sight of our purpose, what we stood for. We were unable to see the damage being done until it was too late; these changes were irreversible. A fundamental question remains unanswered from this time: does inclusion still define the college and the programme or has it moved on, to a new reality with no place for inclusion beyond the rhetoric; beyond an ideal whose time has passed with no place in this competitive world? The strength of an idea is the belief that others have in it; we will see.”

This narrative provided evidence as to how the programme was well supported, how collaborative working was hugely beneficial, how staff and students were enabled to increase their awareness of issues around disability and how inclusive practices can be applied within a specific vocational programme. The course had its flaws and due to increased performative pressure progressively focused on outcomes rather than process, which brought clear challenges in the maintenance of an inclusive approach. The course was however committed to the process of inclusion at all times.

Stage two collected qualitative data through individual and focus group interviews with lecturers and ALS staff working on the programme between 2014 and 2017. College managers were also interviewed to develop a broader understanding of the current state of inclusive practice on the programme and at the college as a whole. The aim was to determine the current issues and future challenges for delivering and developing inclusive programmes in these contexts.

The key issues raised included austerity and its impact on resourcing, provision of support, the ambiguity of how inclusion is understood and the capacity for sharing knowledge and collaborative working within the college. Findings indicated that the college is in a very complex situation with regard to the deliberate and destructive policy of austerity. The lack of resources puts the process of full inclusion under threat; inclusion has been marginalised in both policy and practice. Due to this the college can no longer be considered as a site of resistance; pockets of resistance exist but at an operational level it is a place of compliance. The justification of this position is that for the college ‘compliance is the reality of survival’ yet this paradigm shift away from inclusion requires collective resistance to reinforce a belief in a democratic, emancipatory and subversive world. Inclusion and inclusive practices and the fight for social justice is understood through the understanding that FE is never neutral; it does not exist apart from the social, economic and political worlds that surround it. Ensuring the continued development of inclusion at the college requires an understanding of, and reconnection with the past, a desire to resolve the present and to develop the future, working towards a more socially just and inclusive college through challenging perceptions and practices that work against the development of full inclusion.

David Meir

Supported by

ALLFIE’s campaign for Inclusive Education as a human right is backed by funders and donors who reject the systemic segregation of Disabled people from society.