Research School Network: Not just another fad: considering your inclusion strategy Schools are expected to write and publish their inclusion strategy by the end of this calendar year.

Education loves its buzzwords.

By analysing Google search trends, we can see the rise and fall of these buzzwords over time. In recent years, searches have spiked for ​‘metacognition’, ​‘adaptive teaching’, ​‘retrieval practice’, and ​‘oracy’. Of course, none of these are fads. They are evidence-informed strategies which, when implemented well, can have a positive impact on pupil outcomes.

The latest word to spike is ​‘inclusion’, as illustrated in the graph below. So how can we avoid allowing inclusion to be seen as just the latest in a long list of buzzwords which will fade over time?

A number of years ago, I heard Gary Aubin, then content specialist for SEND at the EEF, talk about inclusive teaching through an analogy to sliding doors.

In the picture above, the sliding doors are useful for the lady carrying her shopping bags and the man who doesn’t want to take his hands out of his pockets. But sliding doors are essential for a father pushing a pram or a lady in a wheelchair.

There are universal approaches that we use in the classroom, providing strategies that are useful for all, harmful to none, but essential to some.

EEF’s guide to inclusive teaching outlines these universal approaches as part of a two-part model, which also includes adaptations and additional support. Strengthening and sustaining universal practices that are especially important for pupils with additional needs is likely to benefit all pupils and reduce – though not remove – the need for adaptations or additional targeted support. This is particularly useful in five key areas:

• Explicit instruction
• Feedback
• Scaffolding
• Positive relationships
• Calm classroom environments

You can read more about each of those approaches here.

But we have known for some time that great teaching is the most important lever schools have to improve pupil attainment, and nothing contained within the EEF’s Inclusive Teaching report is likely to come as a surprise, which might lead us to nod along when reading and think of it as a collection of things that we already do.

But perhaps it’s time to change that thought from ​“We already do this” to ​“How well is this working for our pupils?”

Our school is a large secondary school in Blackpool, serving a community which contains seven of the ten most deprived neighbourhoods in England. Blackpool also has the lowest life expectancy of any town in the United Kingdom. Our pupils are brilliant, confident, and capable, but we recognise they might need some additional support to maximise their potential.

We have identified two main sliding doors that form a core part of our everyday provision for all pupils:

Firstly, access to high-quality teaching. We have focused on two key areas:

• modelling, often using a visualiser, which focuses on the ​‘why’ and not just the ​‘what’. We’ve used a ​‘Think Aloud’ approach to support us here and have taken frequent opportunities to model, rehearse, and monitor these strategies with our teachers.
• checking for understanding, and adapting teaching as a result. While we have focused on some specific checking for understanding techniques, such as the use of mini whiteboards, we’ve recognised that different strategies work better in different subjects. The focus is not the technique; it’s the adaptations that come as a result of the checks that make the biggest difference.

Secondly, we have been very explicit about teaching our pupils the behaviours needed to thrive, both in the classroom and also around our school at social times. We have codified these expected behaviours into a programme which we have called Ready to Learn. You can learn more about our implementation of this programme here. In a nutshell, we are very clear about our expectations – how we start a lesson, how we enter assembly, how we line up for lunch, and how we conduct ourselves at social times.

We teach these behaviours explicitly, all staff model them on a daily basis, and we rehearse them with pupils at the start of the year, and we enforce them throughout.

These are our school’s sliding doors, developed in order to address the identified needs of our specific context. Yours will be different, But it should always be remembered that identification of these sliding doors is not one person’s responsibility. For this reason, the writing of your inclusion strategy should include multiple people: leaders, the SENCo, teaching and learning leads, literacy leads, behaviour and attendance leads…

Where are you now?

Your school will be doing lots of things really well. It’s important to recognise these while considering what barriers still exist to pupils’ learning or participation. By being open and honest about what these barriers are, we can make sure our inclusion strategy genuinely meets the needs of our pupils, rather than just becoming a list of things that you already do.

Consider:

• What are you already doing well?
• Which pupils continue to experience barriers to learning or participation?
• What concerns do pupils, parents, or staff have?
• What does our data tell us?

What are your priorities?

Once you’ve identified your values, it’s time to narrow these down into a small number of priorities, which are likely to have the biggest impact on the pupils you work with.

Consider:

• Which barriers have the biggest impact on learning and participation?
• What two or three areas could we focus on that would have the greatest impact?
• What improvements are realistic?

What will make a difference?

It’s important that we choose strategies that are evidence-informed to give them the best chance of success, and to consider universal provision alongside any interventions that are needed rather than making interventions our immediate go-to strategy. It’s also important to recognise that many popular strategies might not be evidence-informed: this report from Steplab highlights some of these.

Consider:

• Are you focusing only on interventions rather than universal provision?
• Are we sure that our chosen approaches are evidence-informed?
• Is everyone involved, or are we viewing inclusion as the responsibility of the SENCo alone?

Consider how you will measure success

We want to ensure our strategy can be monitored and evaluated. This means considering what success will look like. We need to be as specific as we can be here. It might be an improvement in outcomes, attendance data, or a reduction in behaviour incidents, but we could also draw upon qualitative data such as staff surveys and pupil and parent voices.

Indicators might include:

• Improved attendance
• Increased engagement in learning
• Improved progress and attainment
• Reduced reliance on adult support
• Improved behaviour outcomes
• Positive feedback from pupils and families
• Increased staff confidence in supporting diverse needs
• Stronger sense of belonging and participation

Ultimately, whoever is involved and whatever our identified barriers, we should remember that the inclusion strategy is not another ​‘job to be done’, and ​‘inclusion’ is certainly not another buzzword or fad.