Life begins at 40, CSIE has just been given a new lease of life and, on its 40th birthday, we could not be more excited!  Ongoing work is progressing well and we are about to recruit more staff and trustees.

 

Over the past four decades, CSIE has been at the forefront of developments in inclusive education. Founded in 1982 as the Centre for Studies on Integration in Education, CSIE took on its current name in the 1990s and its remit gradually expanded as the meaning of ‘inclusion’ in education expanded to embrace all aspects of equality.  From autumn 2021 we introduced a focus on three geographical areas, to enable the various strands of our work to build on one another and have a stronger and longer-lasting impact.

 

Here are just some of CSIE’s remarkable achievements over the past 40 years:

 

  • Regular reports, since the 1980s, on school placement trends of all local authorities in England. For many years these CSIE reports were the only place where such detailed information, at local authority level, was available. The most recent report (2019) is available online(with link to http://www.csie.org.uk/trends/report2019.pdf) and findings can be explored on an interactive map(with link to https://sen-england.shinyapps.io/csie-trends/).

 

  • Publication of the Index for Inclusion,(with link to http://www.csie.org.uk/resources/current.shtml#schoolsindex2011) a set of materials to support inclusive school development through a self-review of the school’s cultures, policies and practices. In the late 1990s CSIE brought together the team of people who created the Index, and continued to publish the Index until ten years ago.  The 2nd edition has been translated into 40 languages and is still used throughout the world.

 

  • Extensive international work, including playing a key part in negotiations of the Ad Hoc Committee which drafted Article 24 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2004-2006).

 

  • International Award (Innovative Practice Award 2016 from the Zero Project) for our practical and user-friendly toolkit “Equality: Making it Happen – A guide to help schools ensure everyone is safe, included and learning”.

 

  • Delivery of equality workshops for staff and governors, and disability awareness workshops for pupils, consistently attracting overwhelmingly positive feedback.

 

  • Invitation to Windsor Castle in April 2019, having been selected as one of 200 charities (out of 14,000 members) to attend a reception marking 100 years of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO)

 

  • Glowing report(with link to NPC report news item please) following independent evaluation of CSIE earlier this year.

 

We remain committed to the vision that all children are safe, included and learning in their local school, and will continue to work hard to get closer to this vision in the days, months and years to come. We wish to thank all our supporters, especially those who stayed close and helped sustain us when the going got tough (you know who you are!) and all those who continue to request our resources and our services and constantly remind us how much our work is valued – we would not be here without you!

 

Happy Birthday CSIE, we all wish that you keep going from strength to strength and continue to be valued for achievements at the cutting edge of educational change!