Inclusion in education works. We must respect it

It was my great privilege to lead an inclusive secondary modern school in the selective nightmare that is Lincolnshire (Forcing schools to abandon inclusion leaves us all poorer, 16 April). We actively welcomed those with complex social and emotional needs, and our school community benefited enormously. Clive (not his real name) had Asperger’s. Everyone got to know him. Everyone recognised his difference.

By educating all about Asperger’s, it was possible for Clive to be himself and be accepted. We learned more from him about the autistic spectrum than any course any of us attended. He blazed a trail so that staff and students could welcome those with the other alphabet soup of conditions that demand inclusion but are so often met with intolerance and exclusion.

Through careful support and reasonable adjustments, and alongside our sensory impaired students, we were able to ensure that opportunity was given to all to fulfil themselves and become the best that they could be.

My successor has, due to curriculum changes and budget restrictions, cut back on the availability of courses appropriate to need and removed the support network integral to the success of inclusion. The school is no longer an inclusive one and a light has dimmed in that particular part of the county. I know that this is happening across many schools in England.

Inclusion works. It enables understanding, empathy and tolerance. Our education system is moving further away from these qualities that are fundamental to the development of a cohesive society. What trouble are we storing up for ourselves consigning so many to such an experience? What hope do we give them for the future?
Martyn Taylor
Newark, Nottinghamshire

• Fully inclusive schools are vital not only for children with attributes that fall outside the ever-narrowing, exam-grades-driven “norm”, and for their peers, but also for society as a whole. Without the real understanding of human difference with which proudly diverse schools endow their pupils, how are the adults whom these children become going to make a good society?

Employers and recruiters need to understand what people can do and make adjustments for anything they can’t do in the usual way; employees need to work well in diverse and inclusive teams; and customers need to make their train journeys, do their shopping and enjoy their coffee among a diversity of fellow customers who reflect the population – with no one excluded.
Dr Jane Frances
Cambridge

• John Harris is right to say that central government policies are abandoning inclusion as an educational principle. As he says, this is not entirely a product of education policies but also due to the starvation of funds for local government. However, the problems for education that most directly affect children with additional (special) educational needs is more deeply rooted in the poverty of purposes and ideals for education. Education has become a commercial and technical enterprise and lost touch with humanity. Unless that can be restored we are all the poorer.
Dr Simon Gibbs
Newcastle on Tyne

• Forcing schools to abandon inclusion indeed leaves us all poorer. In 1978 the Warnock report was published and the “integration” movement received a boost. The 1981 Education Act made provision for pupils to be educated in mainstream schools. Further progress was made as the statutory assessment process took off and an increasing number of children received statements outlining their special educational needs (SEN).

There were always tensions between the identified needs of a child and the budget available to meet those needs, but a high proportion of children with SEN were educated relatively successfully in mainstream schools. The rot began to set in with the reporting of test results, compounded by Ofsted assessments that moved more and more to analysis of schools’ performance. Children with SEN were the losers as the drive for higher test results led schools to adopt the kind of unethical practices outlined by John Harris.

The squeeze on schools’ funding, together with a change in legislation that has had the impact of making it harder to identify and meet children’s needs, has resulted in the deterioration in the quality of educational provision offered to those with the greatest needs.
Linda Rhead
London

• Your piece on families crowdfunding to take legal action against special needs cuts (Report, 14 April) is both sad and immensely worrying. There is an elephant in the room, which I describe as the values inherent in leadership decisions. The leadership roles are in central government, in local authorities and in schools.

There are academy executive heads commanding salaries of three to four times the general pay and conditions salaries for a headteacher. Schools are “choosing” to reduce the support for struggling pupils and seeking to shed the blame, while the proliferation of school leadership roles for people who do not teach continues. In local authorities, there is a vacuum where there were once assistant directors and advisers with leadership roles that had SEN and schools’ overall quality as their focus. Chief officers are making cuts to local services while earning more than the prime minister does. At the level of central government, there is a lack of moral principle in both education and in health.
Dr Mic Carolan
Wigan

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