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# 3.1 Reflecting upon all this

Of course, school leaders are facing a great many other challenges. Since reflection has been a key part of the theory and models discussed, it seems appropriate to give you some time to reflect upon your own views on the underlying challenges in developing and delivering inclusive leadership.

## Activity 5 Reflecting upon all this

30 minutes

Think back to your own experiences of school leadership; this might be as a practitioner, child, parent or as an external professional or in a leadership role. As you think back make notes about the challenges which school leaders face in leading students, staff, parents and the wider community.

Here are some quotes about school leaders and leadership to help you with your reflection. These come from three papers exploring experiences in Ghana and Spain and of Irish teachers working in England.

- Where I am now, the headmaster is very passionate about the policy, but there is nothing he can do to support us. Schools don’t have money or the means to generate finances. It’s a public school, which is free, so they don’t charge any fees, and the government has not been giving them money to run the schools. The headmaster here at times uses his own money to buy books for the children. (Opoku, 2022, p14)
- Different attitudes were observed among the teachers. The maths teacher was receptive and showed his willingness and considerable involvement with the project. In contrast, resistance was perceived from some of the language teachers. (Traver-Marti et al, 2023, p568)
- All the schools care about here is how good they look on paper to the outside world, and pretty much it is just run like a business. In my opinion, they are more concerned about getting as much money in to that school as they can, and showing grades in the best possible way than it is about actual students in school. (Skerritt, 2019, p584)
- Personally, I have not had any training in inclusive education since I started teaching. I went to training college, so I was taught special education, where I was taught how to embrace diversity and support such students. At the departmental level, it has not come up in our discussions. (Opoku, 2022, p16)
- Participation was understood as family involvement and collaboration. Students’ participation has not been considered. It is assumed that the students are already in school and they don’t need to be involved further. This idea of participating as being present, accessing and being taken into account in certain specific activities prevails over the idea of taking decisions. (Traver-Marti et al, 2023, p566)
- You have to put some values on the backburner to appease what the school wants you to do. It’s as simple as that. (Skerritt, 2019, p585)
- Another mother said she thought decisions about homework should be left to the teachers, that families don’t have sufficient knowledge or criteria to form an opinion. (Traver-Marti et al, 2023, p567)
- Look at this classroom, for instance (points to a building). They couldn’t climb to the third or second floor and had to rely on the mercy of other students to carry them or help them reach the classrooms. Sometimes, if they feel like urinating or going to the toilet, it is a problem since in our schools, toilets are separate from the main buildings. Sometimes, too, when they are doing group work, where to sit and actively participate becomes a problem. (Opoku, 2022, p10-11)
- You feel like you’re more of a manager. You’re managing these little people to get through and get the results rather than being a teacher. It’s more admin than anything else. Most of my job is just admin. (Skerritt, 2019, p584)
- Just like he does every Monday, A [the head teacher] slipped into [the meeting]. This time it was something to do with a bottle of cologne. Maybe A systematically drops in on the committee on purpose . . . It’s become a feature of every Monday meeting. He makes no noise, but he makes his presence felt and it’s a reminder that we are in ‘his’ school. (Traver-Marti et al, 2023, p567-8)

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### Discussion

The quotes above make clear reference to issues such as the nature of the building, the attitudes of people in the setting, external pressures on the school, clashes of personality, expectations and resistance. In the study of primary school leaders mentioned above (DeMatthews et al, 2021), even though the head teachers shared a deep belief in being inclusive and responsive to all, they faced many similar challenges and struggles. These included uncertain regional policies and the amount of paperwork, and also issues such as: the legacies of previous regimes, the historic use of labels, the nature of other programmes in the area and of the support services available to them. They identified difficulties in prioritising scarce resources, building a culture of collaboration, inquiry, and high expectations, as well as the task of staff training. If they wanted to make a difference, therefore, they had to challenge the status quo and many taken-for-granted assumptions.

One of the key assumptions they had to face was a widely held belief in a role for separate provision. As with so many of the issues they identified, they were referring to an issue that is globally relevant. For example, the European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education defines segregation as being in separate special classes or special schools for the largest part (80%) or more of the school day. In 2019, 35% of pupils with identified special educational needs (SEN) in European schools met this definition, spending all or most of their time out of mainstream classrooms (EASIE, 2022). Statistics also highlight the problems of dealing with a whole range of behaviours which are seen as challenging in the mainstream school context. In England, in 2017, for instance, over 7000 pupils were permanently excluded from all types of state schools, with over 400,000 receiving fixed term exclusions (Selfe & Richmond, 2020). These schools also had to respond to an increasingly diverse school population, so In England in 2021 over 20% of pupils were on free school meals, over 30% were from a minority ethnic background and over 19% had a language other than English as their first language (ONS, 2021).

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