Currently inclusion is one of the top government priorities within education.
To the children with special education needs are in mainstream school, the way that mainstream education carry out, implement their inclusion policy to meet the needs of children with SEN is more important than just an Act. How to define inclusion? The term inclusion has been used to mean either move disabled children into the mainstream settings or reduce the exclusion of other children from school. Back to 80’s, education institutions allowed disabled children to be in the mainstream setting as long as they were able to fit into the systems but without providing the support they required. Two decades past, we acknowledge inclusion for SEN children involves much more than policy changing; it is about the practices, attitudes and equal opportunities within education. According to Department for Education and Skills, it “aim to increase the level and quality of inclusion within mainstream schools, while protecting and enhancing specialist provision for those need it. We will redefine the role of special schools to bring out their contribution in working with mainstream schools to support greater inclusion.” The principles of inclusion are:
- Welcome more children with SEN included within mainstream primary and secondary school. Enrol all children in regular school unless compelling reasons for doing otherwise. Extend the capacity of mainstream schools with wide range of needs
- If mainstream school can not meet the needs of individual child, specialist provision should always be available and whenever the resources are available, children will be able to return to the mainstream schools.
- Make sure children with SEN receive their education in a mainstream school and take part in fully with their peers in the curriculum and school life.
- Recognise and understand parents’ concern. Use practical approach to take account of all their circumstances to assess individual children.
- Bring different parts of country to the same level, close the gap in different LEA.
- Consider different types of special education needs and provide suitable support and access, such as lift for disable users, new technology for communication needs so on.
- Promote greater inclusion in mainstream schools for children with SEN.
- To develop an ethos of positive approaches to children with provision towards support for inclusion. Promote inclusion more widely and fund research in mainstream and special schools.
- Admission arrangement need to reform. All admission authorities and the adjudicator have to follow a new statutory Code of Practice.
- For children with SEN but without statement, must be treated no less favourable than other applicants.
- Recognise success in raising the levels of achievement of children with SEN in the performance tables, encourage schools to admit children with SEN.
- Provide specialist teaching, support and facilities to the mainstream sector from special school, share experience and resources.
- Special school can collaborate with mainstream school; use their expertise to help mainstream schools to meet complex needs.
- Work closely with LEA, broad the contributions made by special schools and their experts
- Building on existing good practice. LEA should include Education Development Plans within the framework of generally inclusive provision.
- Great opportunity for special schools. They will be a source of training and advice for mainstream colleagues and help to implement inclusion policy in mainstream schools.
- Accumulate experience, start with pilot scheme.
The key of success is based on cooperative work between special and mainstream school. Increasing inclusion is an unstoppable trend. However we have not reached inclusive for all yet, so how far are we? First of all, let us have a look what problems are we facing at the moment. Start from teachers, many teachers in mainstream school only receive short training for special needs, some may only have one day session, while almost all the teachers in special school have additional training and are more or less experts on particular disability. It is definitely not enough for mainstream teachers to improve their skills to handle students with SEN and could lead to losing confidence. More training needed to build up their knowledge and confidence. Teaching children with special education needs is not only teacher from special school’s job; it is mainstream teachers’ duty too. Some teachers would not like to teach children with disabilities in their class as they feel lack of support, excessive paperwork and limited time may pull their legs. In fact it is a stressful and challenging job for teachers if there is a disruptive child in class and you don’t know how his/her disability may affect that child’s learning ability. Having a teaching assistant is effective solution. The teaching assistant can help teacher to plan, reflect and discuss therefore preventing problems from occurring. More staffs mean more cost. The government and local authority needs to allocate more funds to enable children with SEN to attend mainstream school. Without adequate funding, there will be staff shortage. Relevant training will be shorted or cut off completely. Lack of equipment or new technology makes mainstream schools struggle to meet the requirement of SENDA. It is not possible for all mainstream schools to have the same accessibility as special school yet. Mainstream schools in the UK are often not newly built, however we can see there are disabled toilets, lifts, parking bay etc in mainstream school for children with physical disabilities, but it is not designed with disabled children in mind when they build. In special school there are aids and gadgets and care staff to help children with personal tasks, such as using toilet, but there are not or enough help for disabled children in mainstream school. Some children even require special class in the timetable, such as physiotherapy, which you don’t normally see in mainstream school. We also need to look at the difficulties of working with children with special education needs. Not only teachers and staffs need to understand SEN children’s thoughts and behaviour. How they express, organising themselves. Educating their able-bodied school mates is also essential. To prevent bullying in school, we have to teach all children to respect each other, not to discriminate any one because of their disability. Children with SEN often feel isolated, frustrated and devalued; they distance themselves from communities and ended up excluding themselves from the others. It is important to have friends of the same age or who share similar experiences. Mainstream school often focus on the legislation itself and overlooked the importance of peer-ship.
Finally, it’s about social inclusion. Malik (2001) states: “Social model recognises disabled people as equals who are battling against unequal odds. The emphasis is on society’s responsibilities and changing attitudes rather than the disabled person.” School is part of educational institutions; education is part of social life. Only when social inclusion complete, education inclusion will follow up.
Inclusion has been seen as a process that is relevant to all children in a school, particularly for children with SEN. It is not possible to have completely inclusion for children with SEN in mainstream school yet. It involves constant scrutiny and auditing of policies. National and local programmes will both support increased inclusion. Mainstream school and special school will work together and enable inclusion for children with SEN. The most important of all, society needs to change its attitudes. Inclusion for all SEN children will not be possible if we live in an unfair society and prejudice exists.
Bibliography
Richards, C and Taylor, P (1998) How Shall We School Our Children? London, Falmer Press
Stephen J (2008) The Education Debate. Bristol, The Policy Press
Malik, H (2001) A Practical Guild to Equal Opportunities, Cheltenham, Nelson Thrones Ltd
Department of Education and Skills (2001) Increasing Inclusion, [online] London, Department of Education and Skills, Available from
[Accessed: 1st May 2008]
Department for children, school and families (2005) Leading on Inclusion, [online] London. Department for children, school and families, Available from
[Accessed: 3rd May 2008]
The differences between China’s Political and Western Political System in both national and local level
Ever since China opened its market in 1978, the economical boom seems unstoppable. The role which state plays is vital to its economical growth. I have lived in China for 18 years and later moved to the UK with my family. In this essay I am going to demonstrate how I understood the differences between China and the UK when state functions in both national and local level.
There is single ruling party in China unlike the UK which has Labour and Conservative two main political parties. People often see the disadvantages of single party policy. When single power is controlling an enormous country, it is easy to cause problems such as dictatorship, corruption. Those issues could occur within the central administrative leadership system or local administrative system. For instance, North Korea, the first leader of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Mr. Kim II Sung passed on the leadership to his son Mr. Kim Jong il after his death. From recent news report, the North Korea Prime minister Mr. Kim Jong il is choosing his successor among his sons. I felt fortunate that China’s first Chairman, Mao Zeng Dong’s only son died during the Korean War. The whole nation knows Mao’s intension, by sending his son to war; he can build up more political trust for his child and let him to be his successor. People were brainwashed during the Culture Revolution. Orders given by the central administrative leader were carried out without questioning. If you have doubts about the leadership, you will be prosecuted as political enemy and send to prison. No body dare to challenge the central government, local administrative system functioned as messenger; pass on information direct from central to people. Daily life was all about politic. School closed, factory stopped and the whole economy was almost stopped under Mao’s ruling. Things did not get better until 1978; China’s new Leader Deng XiaoPing came to power. He believed that strong economy is the only way can lead people to a better life standard. China needs to open its door to the world. Local government has also got the permission to function based on its own needs. For example, to attract foreign investment, local government can set up their own tax rate in special district. Since the economical boom, people’s life changed dramatically. There is more freedom and human rights. However, unlike the UK, the national auditing system in China is not independent and largely effect by politics.
It is unjustified to present the only disadvantages of China’s politic system. Everything has both sides. Single party can show its unity. When China successfully bid 2008 Olympic Game, it received support from the central to local government, every part acted as whole. People were very proud when they successfully hold the game. London is going to hold the 2012 Olympic Game; it is a difficult time through credit crunch period. Both Labour and Conservative should work together to solve the problem, not blaming who faults was towards credit crunch.
Compare China to the UK, Britain’s state welfare system is far better than Chinese. People here are very fortunate to have social security, better education, and better quality of life. I really hope that I can make some contribution to the society after I get my degree.
