Welcome to Creating an Inclusive School

1.1. Creating an inclusive school

This course focuses on how to progress towards a more inclusive school, building on the Inclusive teaching and learning course. The emphasis is on practical strategies that will help you to build an inclusive ethos and culture, develop as a learning organisation which values professional development and monitors its progress towards the goal of being an inclusive school, and work together as a community.

Inclusive teaching and learning examined the ways in which all teachers can support all learners in their classroom, including those with a recognised disability, an invisible disability, and those affected by other factors such as a difficult home life, societal prejudice, poverty or emotional difficulties. It focused on inclusive education practices, which put the learner at the centre. Both courses are based on the UNICEF ‘Wave model for intervention’ which assumes all teachers, leaders and senior managers are responsible for inclusive education, but by working collectively, more progress can be made.

This course is spread over four weeks of learning and focuses on what teachers can do together to create an inclusive school by working collaboratively with each other, with the local community and with other stakeholders to create an inclusive ethos and culture in which all children will thrive.

• Week 1 re-introduces the wave model of intervention; provides an overview of some of the features of an inclusive school and a brief introduction to each of the subsequent weeks.
• Week 2 considers how to create an inclusive and visible, ethos and culture, through promoting positive attitudes, establishing systematic ways of working, information gathering and sharing, positive behaviour management and individual education plans.
• In Week 3, the focus is on a school as a learning organisation. You will consider models of school-based teacher development and the ways in which a school can monitor itself to ensure the teaching, ways of working and ongoing initiatives are working as intended.
• Week 4 addresses the responsibilities of families, stakeholders and community groups in a school and how they can used, encouraged and supported in contributing to an inclusive ethos.