This article illustrates, through the story of one mainstream primary school, the tensions between the inclusion agenda and the standards agenda. The school is situated in an area of social deprivation and nearly half of the school population have been identified as having special educational needs. The story presented in this article illustrates…

In July 2006, the House of Commons Education and Skills Committee reported on Special Educational Needs. The report expressed concern over the Government's policy on SEN, especially as it relates to inclusion and to the confusion this has created for special schools. In this article I shall attempt to tease out what I believe to be the…

Dave Hewett PhD. is well known within the education and care fields for his invaluable work on communication with both children and adults who have severe and profound learning difficulties (with or without autism). However, because his work until recent times has tended to occur within more segregated services, he is only now becoming known to…

This article addresses the issue of supporting lifelong learning for individuals with profound and multiple learning difficulties. Lifelong learning is usually a more mainstream concept and is rarely applied to this marginalized group for whom learning "per se" is such a challenge. The paper debates whether the concept is a useful one, and what…

We present a case study of working with a group of students as researchers and policy makers in their school. We argue that there is much to learn about the location of gender and class within processes of inclusion and exclusion, specifically how student voice can reveal their experiences in ways that adults may not be able to or wish to. We…

The last twenty years have seen the proliferation of policies calling for the development of home-school relations and home-school partnerships, for it is argued that it is important for the educational success of all children that parents and professionals share aims, values and responsibilities. The dominant discourse around home-school…

In this article the author discusses concepts of exclusion and inclusion and how important it is to understand exclusionary practices in the context and culture specificity of each region to attempt to remove barriers to inclusive education. She specifically discusses the low status given to girls and women in the Indian culture and how this…

Extended schools have an important role to play in a society that is undergoing significant change. This article moves beyond the normal "extended schools are a good thing" rhetoric. It points out the risks of "bolt on" policy initiatives, especially with regard to "pupils at risk" and argues against the superficial adoption of such policy. In a…

This article argues that meditation and therapeutic listening have a place in school. The article starts by summarising the findings of PhD research into exclusion which gave rise to this argument and then goes on to explain exactly what is meant by the words: "meditation" and "therapeutic listening". In defining the words, details of how the…

"Better inter-agency working" has been the oft-quoted remedy to many reviews of services to support vulnerable children and young people, and yet outside the realms of tightly focused specialist teams it seems to be very difficult to achieve. Georgina Glenny here reviews three case studies of interdisciplinary and inter-agency working to examine…

In this article Claire Hardman reflects on her work on behaviour management in two Romanian orphanages. Quite apart from the intrinsic interest of the topic, the article serves as a reminder of the number of professionals in this country who regularly take time out to work abroad in unfamiliar and often challenging circumstances and who come back…

John Hull lost his sight more than 20 years ago. He has written extensively about the nature of blindness. In the course of this, he has developed a philosophy of disability or impairment which emphasises the many different worlds of human experience. This leads him to the thought that the teacher of special children, many of whom will be living…

In this article, Julia Ipgrave takes the idea of inclusion beyond the field of special educational needs to incorporate the needs of children with different faith backgrounds in the religious education (RE) class. She recommends that teachers respect the integrity of their pupils' faith backgrounds by making room for the children's own experiences…

As part of a review of services in one local authority, young people aged 13-19 with experience of local authority care were asked to provide their views of what makes a difference to them. As Jackie Dearden makes clear in this article, young people consistently reported on themes collated from previous research into resilience and identified…

The article looks at the various types of "support" provided students with learning difficulties in the United Kingdom including direct pupil support, teacher/pupil support, and support in curriculum delivery. Individual schools need to determine the role of support teachers and specifics of their support policy. (DB)