Pathways To Inclusion

In the 1940s, Americans were encouraged to smoke Camels as an aid to digestion. The ‘increased alkalinity’ was particularly good for you, apparently. Smoking wasn’t just regarded as innocuous, it was seen as positively beneficial . Light up on any street today, and you become a social pariah, polluting the air and draining the NHS of resources, selfishly taking doctors away from the sick kid who needs a heart transplant and making them tend to your odious blackened lungs instead. My point is, social attitudes change over time. And what one generation regards as harmless, even a force for good, future generations may come to view as socially undesirable. Last night I attended a debate put on by the Private School Policy Reform (PSPR) group, who are valiantly trying to establish some kind of meaningful direction for future reform of the independent education sector. Six speakers offered their proposals for how they would level the playing field. There was a brief discussion, follo...

There has been a steep rise in the number of assemblies and form time presentations focusing on the issue of climate change. Unless we change course soon, approximately 75% of all assembly time will have been taken away by 2030, caused entirely by man-made climate change school resource packs. It has broken free from Geography and Science lessons, and now all manner of classrooms, from PSHE and RE, to Maths and English, are talking about it. But it feels to me like we haven’t worked out how to tell this particular story. We haven’t figured out the language yet, the tone, the narrative arc. And it’s really important we work this out sooner rather than later. My son, who has just turned four, knows that the Earth is sick. He knows this because he recently got out from the library ‘ Hello, Mr World ’, in which our planet is weirdly personified as a patient being examined by two young children pretending to be doctors. It’s a cute conceit, if you ignore the fact that it leads to a...

"Exclusion and seclusion can echo relational trauma and systemic trauma; physical restraint can echo physical and sexual abuse. Retraumatisation... may drive even more challenging behaviour." (Centre for Mental Health: Briefing 54) Trapped by Ashley Huisman A number of cases recently have seen mothers taking, or threatening to take their child's school to court for the seemingly barbaric systems of internal exclusion that are in use. Mothers of children with ADHD, with ASD, with mental health difficulties, with family trauma. The mother of a son who spent a third of his school year in ‘isolation’. The mother of a daughter who attempted suicide while she was in an isolation booth. I'm glad that it’s been widely reported on the BBC and even made the front page of the Guardian a couple of weeks ago; we downplay cases like this at our peril. There is now an active ‘ ban the booths ’ campaign group, and the first ‘ lose the booths ’ conference took place in L...

"To survive, you must tell stories" (Umberto Eco) 'Writing My Heart Out' by Gladiola Sotomayor A couple of months ago I was approached by an arts organisation who were looking to work with a group of students who had writing difficulties. They would run a series of workshops with them, helping each student develop ideas for their own play, then have a team of playwrites and scribes turn these ideas into a set of playscripts. Finally, these scripts would be given to a team of actors, and students (and their families) would have the chance to see their own plays performed on stage. It was aimed at dyslexic students, but I broadened the definition to ensure we had a cohort who would be able to engage with the project and see it through to the end. So with the dyslexic students I also included some who were autistic, and others who had a range of social communication and mental health problems. The theatre company's line was that it was fo...

"Society needs an educated elite" (Roger Scruton, 2019) Roger Scruton (1944 - 2020) - philosopher, writer, conservative Portrait by Alan J Lawson It is difficult to remain right wing if you are in education. It relies on accepting that there is a ‘natural’ hierarchy in society, with some at the top and others at the bottom. Such a view falls apart when you spend every day with the people at the bottom, routinely exposed to the fact that in no fair and good world do they deserve to be there. The belief that there exists a reasonable and defensible hierarchy of citizens is rarely spoken of these days. Which makes it all the more fascinating when it is. The death last month of Roger Scruton prompted a new wave of reflection on his views on everything from islamophobia to fox-hunting, aesthetics to nationalism. For me he is a particularly useful figure in deconstructing the Conservative view of education. As well as being a nuanced and articulate writer, he is als...

"Given the right circumstances, being different is a superpower." Greta Thunberg. Greta Thunberg holding her first climate strike, August 2018, outside the Swedish parliament When Greta Thunberg compared her Autism to a 'superpower', she thrilled a growing movement of neurodiversity advocates, eager for another prominent spokesperson to proudly show the world that autism is a difference not disability. It is an approach that has informed the direction of travel for a great deal of SEN policy and practice in the 21st Century so far. Dyslexic students are described not as having a learning difficulty but as having a dyslexic-type learning preference . The philosophy of neurodiversity is quite simple: Different people's brains work in different ways. For people on the spectrum of dyslexic type difficulties, this will mean a preference for visual, kinaesthetic learning activities. For many on the autistic spectrum, this will mean a preference for rout...

"Charity is No Substitute for Justice Withheld" (Augustine of Hippo) 'St Christina Giving her Father's Jewels to the Poor' by Evelyn de Morgan Why bother paying for a public good through taxation, when you can just get it from charities instead? John Edward, the director of the Scottish Council of Independent Schools (SCIS), has responded to the 'heightened political interest' in the charitable status of independent schools by listing their myriad charitable achievements . Some private schools allowed less fortunate children to, at certain times, make use of their playing fields. Others raised money for mental health charities, or the Royal National Lifeboat Association. All appear to contribute towards a substantial fund providing free places at their schools to carefully selected students who wouldn't otherwise have been able to afford one. There is therefore no doubt, in his mind, that they should and indeed would pass the 'rigorous scrut...