The Reader: Mainstream education should be for everyone

Today we are delivering our 100,000-signature “Don’t shut disabled people out of mainstream education” petition to Downing Street.

The latest report by ALLFIE (the Alliance for Inclusive Education) concluded that mainstream schools are failing to develop effective accessibility plans to promote inclusive education.

Schools failing to have effective accessibility plans leads to disabled pupils being excluded, off-rolled or home-educated.

For many young people and their parents there is no option other than to take up a segregated educational placement in a special school, alternative education provision or a pupil referral unit.

The Department for Education has reported that the majority of disabled pupils with education, health and care plans are now being educated in segregated education.

This, we believe, is in breach of the Government’s duties to promote equality and inclusion — under both Parliament’s Equality Act 2010 and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Article 24 provisions.
Simone Aspis​, Campaigns and Policy Co-ordinator, Alliance for Inclusive Education

Editor's reply

Dear Simone

Your petition is perfectly timed after Ofsted launched its annual report this week, blasting a handful of schools for off-rolling pupils. This is when they push for students to be removed from their register in their own interests — but it comes at the expense of the most vulnerable.

Your research shows that disabled children are among those being forced out of mainstream education. Making education accessible can only be a good thing, so I hope the Government takes heed of your petition. As of last January, 15 per cent of school children were recorded as having special educational needs and/or disabilities. That’s 1.3 million. They should all have equal opportunities.
Sophia Sleigh, Political reporter

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