What is inclusive education?

The term ‘inclusive education, is being heard a lot at the moment, both nationally and locally, but what does it mean?

The question was asked by the Public Accounts Committee in their recent report ‘Public Accounts Committee Support for children and young people with special educational needs First Report of Session 2024–25’ published last week. Local Tiverton MP Rachel Gilmour sits on this committee.  The Report says:

“The Department (for education) has not made clear what it means by inclusive education, a core strand of its approach, or how it will be achieved. A core aim of the Children and Families Act 2014 was supporting children with SEN in more inclusive mainstream schools, but the Department has made little discernible progress. It has not defined or set out what inclusive education should look like, or provided specific funding for inclusivity, despite this being at the heart of its approach. There are few incentives for schools to be inclusive, with performance data focussing only on academic attainment and no separate judgement by Ofsted on SEN. Schools can often feel that others are not accepting their share of children with SEN.”

While the report believes that the ongoing curriculum review and proposed changes to Ofsted inspections provide an opportunity to consider this further, it notes that in June 2023, it was reported that only 56% of teachers felt confident to support children with additional needs.

The report recommends that The Department should, within the next six months, set out the provision which children with SEN support should expect. Alongside this, they should set out what inclusive education means and looks like and the level of resourcing both to ensure the support for children with SEN and the maintenance of educational provision for other children in the same setting.

Devon has just launched its own Ordinarily Available Inclusive Education Framework which sets out expectations of what high quality, inclusive practice should look like for all children and young people in all schools and settings including those with SEND.