Inclusion In Scottish Education

Inclusion is a key priority within Scottish education. What do you understand the concept of ‘an inclusive school’ to involve, and what are its implications for you as an individual teacher?

This essay examines the concept of inclusion and its current meaning for Scottish education. Initially, I will look at how the concept of inclusion is defined and the rationale for inclusive education. I will then focus on the history of inclusion, whilst examining the differences between integration and inclusion. Subsequently, the essay will analyse the influence of local, national and international policy, before looking at the concept of ‘the inclusive school’. Lastly, I will reflect on the implications inclusion has for local authorities, schools
This was further complicated by wide range of abilities within the p7 group, for example some pupils were working on first level Mathematics with the majority on second level. In all the classes that I spent time in during my placement children were arranged in ability groups for curriculum areas like Mathematics and Literacy, with differentiation encouraged in planning to account for this. Differentiation can be carried out in variety of ways for example, by task, output, level of support or by classroom management and consideration of learning environment (STEC, n.d). By using a variety of these approaches to accommodate differences amongst all learners, children with additional support needs should not feel excluded (Florian & Black-Hawkins, 2011). Flavey et al. (as cited by STEC, n.d) also recommend that such differentiated approaches should be kept simple and used sparingly to avoid limiting a pupil’s possibilities. On placement, children with additional needs were also withdrawn at times for one to one or small group support. This approach has been criticised as a form of exclusion were pupils often miss out on other parts of the curriculum (Muijs & Reynolds, 2001). This was often the case on placement and meant the teacher or I had to find time to revise lesson with these
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