Inclusion – can we clearly define it?

For years as a Headteacher of a secondary school and then a through-school, I prided myself on my school being ‘inclusive’. I even bragged about it to potential new staff and peers.

At the time my common phrase was ‘the children and young people here are so accepting of those who are different to them’ and, at one point I am now ashamed to say I may have even used the word tolerant.

However, a turning point for me (my view and the subsequent culture of the organisation and others I have worked for and with since) was an inspirational student in Year 8 at a Careers Event.

I had visited the event to ‘welcome’ our guests to our school who were supporting the event I got caught up in something and ended up still being around at lunchtime.

I decided to accompany a couple of our visitors to the canteen and to my horror saw a lovely young man in Year 8 (who were the focus of the event) sitting on his own at a table for four in the dining room. I immediately made a beeline to sit with this young man to ensure he was not on his own., We sat down and began to talk to him about the event – had he enjoyed it, what had he found most interesting, what were his own aspirations etc., etc.  While he responded to all of these well intended questions, there wasn’t exactly a conversation, and I could sense that he was not particularly comfortable.

I knew the young man and his family well and was aware he had dyslexia so, when I had taken our guests to the hospitality room I returned to the canteen and retook my seat. Are you OK I asked, and his response was my ‘inclusion lightbulb moment’ which I want to share it with you. ‘Yes Miss, I’m fine. I have enjoyed the morning, but I wanted to sit on my own to process the information, you see my dyslexia just means I see things in a different way to everyone else’ – wow, what a young man.

So, since then, for me inclusion has been a central theme of educating children and young people but it is about ensuring that all have access to the same high quality provision and the adults in the organisation have the skills to recognise what each child needs to be able to access that, not that we accept or tolerate, but that we have high expectations and aspirations for all our children and young people and we support them to achieve their own goals.

Practically we defined what inclusion meant for our organisation so we could all share a common purpose and understanding about what we were striving for. We placed our provision for young people with additional needs geographically at the heart of the school building, we trained staff in all aspects of the organisation about what inclusion meant to us and how they might contribute from Reception team, Premises team, SLT and Governors.

Most importantly we highlighted to the children and young people the positive culture we were trying to promote so they could all get involved in celebrating and championing each other.  Checking that people were doing what we expected even when no one was looking was key – checking the weather as I call it. Speaking to children and young people in unstructured time, listening to the language that was being used in classrooms, the corridors and on the gate and celebrating great practice.

Did it work? Mostly. We still had greater representation of key groups who had lower attendance and more negative behaviour incidents for example, but it did raise awareness and it promoted creativity – what leader doesn’t welcome that.

Here is the challenge – can you define inclusion in your organisation and promote it with practical actions? This is also true for organisations that also work with adults as we live in a diverse society where everyone should be challenged and supported to achieve and engage with their peers, and we are all the richer for it.

Sarah Young, Young +