Vision

CSIE’s vision is that all children are safe, included and learning in their local school(1). This vision applies to all children, irrespective of their background and personal characteristics, especially ability or perceived ability. We refer to this as good quality inclusive education(2). It gives children: optimum opportunities for learning from their peers and from educators (this applies to the curriculum as well as personal & social development); and a sense of belonging in their local community. It can also offer powerful experiences for educating people away from prejudice and, therefore, can be an important step towards an inclusive society, where minority groups are no longer harassed, marginalised or excluded, and instead are valued and celebrated for what they bring to society as a whole.

This vision is consistent with national law (the SEND Code of Practice confirms the presumption of inclusion in the Children and Families Act)(3) and the international call for all children to be included in their local school, e.g. in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, CSIE supports the call to decolonise the curriculum and suggests that institutional change needs to go deeper. People’s identities
are multi-faceted, as people from all ethnic backgrounds may also be, for example, gay, lesbian, trans or disabled. CSIE addresses equality holistically and remains alert to the possibility that different aspects of a person’s identity can have a cumulative effect on the risk of discrimination.

Most aspects of equality are reasonably well addressed in education, but disability equality is consistently overlooked and there is evidence of institutional prejudice against disabled people, which remains largely unacknowledged. Many disabled children are not welcome in their local school and their segregation is widely considered acceptable(4), as education practice remains out of sync with the national and international legal call to develop more inclusive education.

A recent Ofsted report(5) confirms that, despite legal changes to improve education for disabled children, long-standing issues remain and were highlighted and intensified by the Covid-19 pandemic. Such a vicious circle, where many disabled children are segregated from their peers allowing for prejudice and discrimination to persist, leads to wider social inequalities: in 2023-24 there were 11,719 disability hate crimes recorded by police in England and Wales, which represents a 18% decrease from the previous year (from 14,285)(6).

For these reasons, CSIE addresses equality through the lens of disability. Disabled children have a legal right to a good education within their local community. Equal opportunities in education can lead to improved educational outcomes and, therefore, better life chances. Research(7) confirms that the benefit of including disabled children in ordinary schools is twofold: a) it leads to improved educational outcomes not only for disabled children but for non-disabled children as well; and b) it better supports the social and emotional development of all children, disabled and non-disabled.

Who has the power to make this happen?

Central Government and national institutions (Government, Education Committee, Department for Education, Ofsted):

laws and national policy, including statutory guidance; funding for education; responsible for monitoring and evaluating the quality of education, adherence to laws and statutory guidance, and implementation of policy.

Local Government:

legal duty to make suitable arrangements for every child’s education; local policy; and, for local authority schools: decisions on allocation of funding; vision, strategy, training and support for schools.

Multi Academy Trusts:

for Trust schools: decisions on allocation of funding; vision, strategy, training and support for schools.

Individual schools:

Senior Leadership Teams

have the power to transform schools by establishing inclusive values, ensuring staff receive relevant training and support, and keeping the door open for disabled children from the local community, working in collaboration with parents as partners to ensure best outcomes for their children.

Governing Bodies

hold schools to account and, therefore, can be instrumental in ensuring inclusive values and policies are agreed and implemented.

Teachers and Learning Support Assistants

have the power to create more inclusive schools, if there is a critical mass that shares this vision and is supported to change practice. (This is in line with the “Longitude” story, where one man single-handedly solved the problem of establishing longitude at sea: even though he met with considerable resistance from the establishment and the scientific community of his time, his idea and his invention caught on because enough individual captains valued his timepiece and bought one for themselves(8). Similarly, in education, if enough educators understand disability equality as a human rights issue and make changes to their own practice, the whole landscape will eventually change.)

Parents:

The system affords parents an opportunity to hold schools to account for disability discrimination. In practice the power of parents is limited because the process is complex and parents rarely choose, or feel able, to follow this route.

Core Principles

Equality and respect

We believe that everyone is of equal value, by virtue of being human. Age, (dis)ability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion or belief, or socioeconomic background have no part in determining personal worth. We believe that diversity should be celebrated and utilised as a rich learning resource, always mindful of the impact of other people’s attention on an individual.

One school for all

We recognise the uncompromised right of every child to a good education in their local community, as enshrined in national and international legislation(9). We believe that the best location for this is an ordinary school with an inclusive culture, where trained teachers facilitate children’s learning and participation.

We are aware that schools’ admission processes are not always explicit; anecdotal evidence suggests that sometimes families of disabled children are made to feel unwelcome or are told that the school cannot meet their needs.(10)

We believe that schools’ selection procedures, for example on grounds of faith, perceived ability or socioeconomic status, may operate against the principle of equal opportunity. We also believe that the existence of separate special schools is a remnant from a previous era, when disabled people were thought to have no place in mainstream society, and may possibly still retain some of that function in some people’s minds.

Beneficiary agency:

“Nothing about us without us”

We are committed to working in close collaboration with our beneficiaries and others who have first-hand experience of the issues we are seeking to address. We are particularly committed to engaging with the voice of disabled people, disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) and parents who want an inclusive education for their disabled children, so that our work is consistent with the “nothing about us without us” imperative.

Beneficiaries

Ultimate beneficiaries:

disabled and non-disabled children, all of whom will benefit from inclusive education. Society as a whole will also benefit, as inclusive education can pave the way for greater social justice.

Direct beneficiaries:

disabled children, who often face discrimination, including institutional discrimination, in education.

Indirect beneficiaries:

non-disabled children, whose educational experience will be enhanced by inclusive education; parents who want an inclusive education for their disabled children, who will no longer have to fight for this.

Additional stakeholders

School leaders, teachers and teaching assistants, who will be better equipped to work in inclusive schools.

What levers for change can we pull, to influence the behaviour of those who have power to make inclusion happen?

The biggest barrier in advancing disability equality in education is that most schools do not see inclusion as a human rights issue and do not see any need to change their cultures, policies or practices. The way teaching & learning are organised in schools and other educational settings continues to be shaped by long-established and little-reviewed practices (such as conventional patterns of 1:1 support from teaching assistants) and outdated perceptions of disability; this gives rise to institutional prejudice and the widespread belief that some disabled children cannot be included in ordinary schools. Other barriers are connected to national policies: for example the narrative of “parental choice” of school, whereby some options are not available in some areas, leaving some parents no option but to agree to a school placement which does not reflect their choice; or the standards agenda and league tables which create competition between schools, effectively providing a disincentive for schools to include disabled children. Finally, another barrier is the process through which school places are allocated; the Children’s Commissioner report referenced above suggests that some schools deny admission to disabled children in unofficial, and potentially unlawful, ways.

Our experience tells us that, following a successful awareness-raising event, people become more willing to change their practice because they understand the significance of inclusion in principle and the benefits of effective inclusion in practice for disabled and non-disabled children, and for society as a whole. CSIE’s work, therefore, focuses on raising awareness about disabled children’s right to a good inclusive education in the community in which they live, and on supporting local authorities, schools and other educational settings to develop more inclusive cultures, policies and practices.

In light of all the above, our activities focus on:

a) raising awareness about disability equality in education and campaigning for the development of more inclusive education; we do this through talks, training, resources, responses to consultations, networking and a strong online presence;

b) supporting schools and other educational settings to build capacity to include disabled children; we do this through direct engagement with schools and other educational settings, as well as through research, talks, training, resources, networking and information exchange;

c) offering consultancy nationally and internationally; we do this through offering advice for national agencies, working with local authorities to support inclusive school development, assisting schools and other educational settings to review and develop their inclusive practice, and contributing to international projects.

CSIE seeks to focus its work in particular areas for 2-3 years at a time, to enable the various strands of our work to complement each another and lead to stronger and longer-lasting impact; for example, supporting schools and other educational settings to build capacity to include disabled children is expected to have greater impact in areas where we have also worked with local authority officers or multi-academy trust (MAT) senior leaders.

Footnotes

  1. Throughout this document ‘school’ is taken to mean any provider of Early Years, Primary, Secondary, Further or Higher Education and ‘child’ refers to any child or young person up to the age of 18.
  2. We acknowledge that attending one’s local school is not in itself a marker of inclusion
  3. We acknowledge that a documented legal call may not be reflected in current national policy or priorities.
  4. See, for example, https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/blog/experiences-of-children-with-send/ and  https://www.ipsea.org.uk/blog/when-a-school-doesnt-want-your-child.
  5. Ofsted (2021) SEND: Old issues, new issues, next steps.  Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-old-issues-new-issues-next-steps
  6. Home Office official statistics on Hate Crime, England and Wales, year ending March 2024.  Available at:      https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crime-england-and-wales-year-ending-march-2024
  7. Alana Institute (2016) A Summary of the Evidence on Inclusive Education. Available at: https://alana.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/A_Summary_of_the_evidence_on_inclusive_education.pdf
  8. Sobel, D. (1998). Longitude : the true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time. London: Fourth Estate.
  9. Equality Act 2010, Children and Families Act 2014, UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
  10. Office of the Children’s Commissioner (2014). It might be better if you looked elsewhere; an investigation into the schools admission process (available at https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/report/it-might-be-best-if-you-looked-elsewhere)