In 2002 the Centre for Studies in Inclusive Education was 20 years old. So the Centre is celebrated with Inclusion Week

CSIE launched the week with two new publications, the latest statistics on inclusion in England and the 2002 reissue of the Inclusion Charter.

At the launch, Kairen Cullen, chair of the educational and child psychology division of the British Psychological Society, was cheered as she signed the Charter. She said:

I am proud to be representing all my colleague psychologists in the British Psychological Society at this important event, signing up on their behalf to the Inclusion Charter which we regard as a clear statement of intent on our part.

Mark Vaughan, Founder of CSIE, said that thousands of people were taking part in the week, with 250 events listed on this site, 16 of which are happening outside the UK. Among these are children in a Lebanon refugee camp recording a song, and schools and kindergartens in Casablanca piloting the Index for Inclusion. At the end of the week a major new publication, Social and educational justice – the human rights framework for inclusion, was launched.

CSIE also held a day conference, Using the Index for Inclusion to mark the end of the week.

There has been progress in recent years with moves towards greater inclusion in education and society generally. The UK Government has now committed itself to promoting inclusion in education settings as part of a wider range of social policies that recognise and accommodate human diversity.

Thousands of pre-school settings, schools,colleges and universities are developing inclusive policies and practices. In the last decade most local education authorities (LEAs) have reduced segregation. Networks of support in the mainstream have been extended, creating changing patterns in local education.

The central aim of the Week is to highlight the importance of building inclusive schools

The range of exclusionary pressures experienced by many children, young people and adults include attitudes to poverty, cultural backgrounds, disability, learning difficulty, challenging behaviour, social class, race, gender and sexual orientation.

We hope that CSIE’s Inclusion Week will reveal how these processes operate and present ways to reverse them. CSIE is inviting good practice to be promoted by pre-school settings, schools, colleges and universities, LEAs, organisations and other bodies in the UK and from overseas during the week.

The Centre’s work with inclusion was given a boost in 2000 with the publication of CSIE’s Index for inclusion, written by Tony Booth and Mel Ainscow, which the Government has placed in every school and LEA in England.

Maybe your school is one of the many now involved in the Index process and could take this opportunity to present your work. One of CSIE’s events in the Week will be a major conference on the working of the Index in schools.

Inclusion Week will encourage guarantees of support for the mainstream. Developing inclusive school cultures, policies and practices in schools is the concrete task that lies at the heart of the Index.

Another aim of the week is to raise the voices of children and young people, as well as those of heads, teachers, parents and governors who support inclusion.

Reducing segregation in education and elsewhere in our society is a steady goal for all those committed to ending discrimination.

• In a primary or secondary school, pupils could run a project to design ‘My ideal inclusive school’, representing the voices of the full range of children and young people. This could include writing, drawing or three dimensional models and a presentation to the rest of the school.
• An LEA could re-consider its education policy with a view to setting more challenging targets for reducing segregation and increasing support in the mainstream. Debates and consultations could be arranged for elected members, officers and the wider community.
• Teacher training departments in universities could examine the syllabus used to train new teachers and introduce greater emphasis on inclusive policy and practice.
• A mainstream school which has not yet used the Index for Inclusion could establish a core group and hold its first meeting to start the Index process, during the Week.
• Looking at processes of exclusion at all levels – and trying to reduce them – would be a constructive activity.
• Voluntary organisations involved in supporting families and schools could demonstrate their commitment to inclusion with local meetings and specially commissioned reports on their work.
• Employers committed to inclusive practices could investigate the connections between inclusion in education (school and college levels) and the working environment.
• Head teachers, teaching staff and school governors could carry out an audit on how welcoming and accessible their school is, both in physical terms (lifts, ramps etc.) and in the curriculum and social activities. This can be linked to the Index process.
• In the earlier Index trials some schools discovered elements of racial prejudice and homophobia to which they responded positively. Investigations into ways of reducing this kind of exclusion are also appropriate for IW.
• Organisations of disabled adults as well as individual disabled people have many rich stories to tell which illustrate the social, emotional and human rights arguments supporting inclusion as well as the injustice of segregation and discrimination. Presentations and story telling as well as new publications could be powerful contributions to the Week.
• The arts offer an enormous range of opportunities for creativity, performance and publicity to demonstrate human emotions, hopes and fears surrounding inclusion and exclusion.
• The importance of inclusion at early years is well documented. Best practices can be promoted through new reports, open days and meetings.
• With the Special Educational Needs Disability Act 2001 in mind, schools could decide to improve access to their physical environment and the curriculum and publicise this effort. This could also include adapting information leaflets (e.g. large print) and signs around the building – things that will happen under Section 14 from September 2002 and are well worth promoting.
• Inclusion Week is an ideal opportunity to contact your press, radio and television to offer stories that you feel prove the rightness of inclusion. Preparing background briefing papers as well as securing live interviews is also important.
• In your area, part of the development of inclusive schools may have focussed on work with traveller children or refugees and an event in IW could highlight effective outcomes in this field.
• Students at college or university are in a unique position to investigate through debate and writing, their transitional years from schooling to adult life and their experiences of the impact of inclusion or exclusion.
• Or design your own event with colleagues!

Inclusion is not optional. It’s an essential part of a better and more just society.