What stage is your school? How inclusive is your classroom? Are you integrating or including? Maybe, you’re segregating. Consider these four different stages of inclusion. Read each one and reflect on which best describes your teaching, your classroom or your school.
Stage One: Exclusion
No effort is being made. Children cannot access the curriculum or interact with their peers. They are refused entry to the school or classroom. They are told implicitly or explicitly that they do not belong and must go elsewhere.
Stage Two: Segregation
The children are allowed into a class but are kept separate from the mainstream. They may be in a special classroom where their needs are being met by a teacher. They may attend a specialised school for their specific need. They do not interact with mainstream pupils.
Stage Three: Integration
The children are in a mainstream setting occasionally or permanently. The language used is distinctive from inclusive language. Adaptions are made and support put in place to “fit” the children into the existing classroom. An activity is planned and teachers wonder if or how the child might be able to do it. The children are seen as having to adjust to the activity, classroom and teacher as opposed to the other way around.
Stage Four: Inclusion
There is a child-centred approach. Everyone’s needs are being addressed. Everyone is engaged meaningfully. Everyone is physically involved and actively participating. The classroom and curriculum are designed to fit the children. The teacher selects activities and methodologies to suit the children. The focus is on what each child can do. Everyone is viewed as having the right to participate.
Which stage do you recognise in your school? Could you make it to the next stage? What steps would you have to take? Reflecting on these stages, you may come to realise you’re integrating when you thought you were including. Knowing the four stages will help you reflect on your practice and what you could do to get to the next level. Food for thought!
Like what you read?
Every Monday I send a short and free email with one strategy for behaviour, one for inclusion and one small thought, feel free to sign up here.
Behaviour101 