Integration is good - but it costs I have been reading with interest the various articles on the subject of inclusion in our schools in Scotland and would like to make the following observations.
In Sweden they have had inclusion for a long time. Almost all children, whatever their disability, attend the local school but the standard of support is very high.
The peripatetic services have their own units within the schools and the occupational therapist, speech therapists and physiotherapists all visit.
The children all have a care plan which ensures they join in the class for all the times that are appropriate but do not lose out on those specific and specialist services they require to allow them to develop to the best of their ability.
Here, both parents and teachers along with the support professionals have resisted the closing of special schools because quite rightly they could see that although their children would gain in social acceptability and interpersonal skills they would get neither the level of physical care nor the educational input they have been getting in the last decades.
It is typical that politicians take a good idea and expect it just to happen without considerable cost, planning and input of services.
If inclusion is to happen then the special schools teachers and their many support services have to be integrated into mainstream schools with proper facilities, not some spare back room somewhere.
As for children with behavioural problems, again Sweden could show us the way. There the child is not branded or excluded but the whole family is required to attend a special unit for parenting classes. There is no concept of trying to manage the child separate from the parents or family.
They are helped and held accountable. This is again expensive but it has a record of better outcomes.
It is insane to think a child with severe problems, acted out in violent and disruptive behaviour, can just "fit in" and teachers and other classmates will cope, or that punishing that child will help solve the problems.
In the best local authority nurseries this is now recognised and instead of taking the care of children from parents the nurseries have set up parenting units where the parents are taught the basics of child-care and household management and are encouraged and helped to interact with the children in a meaningful way.
They are also taught the concept of appropriate discipline and loving interactions with their offspring.
We can learn from others in every sense of the word but greater planning and investment is needed, not just the employment of an army of classroom assistants.
Lastly, if this country is determined to pursue and achieve inclusion for all children it could begin with the ending of religiously segregated schools and put the money saved into the care of children and the support of parents.
Louisa Page, Edinburgh
Classroom violence, verbal abuse and significant underachievement.
Does Ewan Aitken believe that these are a price well worth paying for inclusion?
Alastair Brown, Dunblane
How can schools cope when one size doesn't fit all?
My son is nine-years-old and has autism. He has very limited speech and general learning difficulties. As his mum I would love it if he could go to school with his two seven-year-old brothers but I also want the best appropriate education for him. This could not be met in mainstream provision. He has f lourished in autistic-specific education in a large, calm, low-stimulus and quiet room with only six pupils and three or sometimes four members of staff. He needs a secure environment as he has little concept of personal safety and needs one-to-one supervision when not in an enclosed room.
Our children have a right to appropriate education. Inclusion is for the whole of society. It is not putting all children in the same learning environment. It is an accepting society, one that can cope with my son lying screaming on a shop f loor and a shop assistant offering to hold his hand while I struggle to get out my money. It is a society that can accept and feel comfortable with the odd and eccentric behaviour my son displays.
I come at this from the angle of a mum and also as an experienced primary teacher who has taught learning support.
Lesley Kent, Hamilton
Ewan Aitken's article will provoke anger in teachers. Indeed, on reading it for a second time, it may have been designed to do just that, rather than shine any light on the issue. I am very glad to submit a classroom teacher's perspective on the issue. (Incidentally, if, as he says, the debate is over, why did he write the article? ) He says that "applying punitive exclusive approaches" perpetuates destructive behaviour for many children. I presume he is referring here to special schools. Perhaps he would like to come and deliver this insult to teachers in special schools in Renfrewshire who have won awards, at British level, for the education they are providing. This despite the fact that our local education authority is doing its best to close them. Local evidence also shows that parents of children in special schools do not want these establishments to close, despite the pious assumptions
of education officials that "we are sure these parents want their children in mainstream". (I have actually heard that said. ) There is some conf lict between the statement "we are all mainstream together"with his admission that education for some children "will need to happen in a special school".
So even Mr Aitken can see that, for the sake of the child, and for the sake of all the other children, special schools will still be necessary. Once that sensible point is passed we are then not talking about total inclusion but about what level of inclusion is correct for all concerned. On that issue teachers will happily engage with him.
At the moment we feel we are being completely ignored and we are being steamrollered by a politically correct philosophy.
It is interesting the way the views of teachers are brushed aside. Would Mr Aitken question polling methods if a report said 90-per cent of teachers were in favour of inclusion? I teach in a large comprehensive secondary school with almost 100 staff and I have many other friends in teaching, including in special education. I do not know of one who is unreservedly in favour of inclusion.
On a personal level, if Mr Aitken had a physically or mentally disabled child, would he be happy to have them used as shock troops for inclusion, so that they could be bullied and mocked in a mainstream school? In case he doesn't realise it, not all children are nice.
Or, if his child was in a mainstream class of 29, would he be happy about the inclusion of a child with severe behavioural problems from a special school which was being closed?
If Mr Aitken answers these two questions honestly he will understand why neither pupils nor parents nor teachers in mainstream nor teachers in special education are in favour of inclusion.
Ian Close, Paisley
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