Derrington 2012 thesis.pdf - Anglia Ruskin Research Online

3.2.1 Inclusion
The Government Green Paper ‘Every Child Matters’ (DfES, 2003), focused on five
main areas: staying healthy, keeping safe, enjoying and achieving, contributing to
community and achieving social and economic well-being. In response to this, the
Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills 16 (Ofsted)
developed an integrated inspection framework for education, health and social care
services around the needs of children. The Children Act 2004 which followed set out
to ensure the well-being of children from birth to 19. This Green Paper aimed to
address the problem of children falling through the gaps between different services
and was designed to change the social and educational provision for children by
creating a framework of services to support children, with particular attention to those
in care, from impoverished backgrounds or suffering abuse.
Inclusion, as defined by The Department for Education and Skills, ‘is a process by
which schools, local education authorities and others develop their cultures, policies
and practices to include pupils’ (DfES, 2001b, p.2). The idea that parents could
choose where to send their children with special needs was part of the UK
government’s policy on inclusive education which was established in the 1990s.
Since the document ‘Inclusive Schooling: children with special educational needs’
(DfES, 2001b) was introduced by the government, it has meant that over the years
increasing numbers of children with special needs have been attending mainstream
schools. Children with special needs are children with ‘learning difficulties or
disabilities that make it harder for them to learn than most children of the same age…
[and who] may need extra or different help from that given to other children of the
same age’ (DCSF, 2007a, p.6).
Every school’s provision for special needs is an essential part of any inspection but it
is not just about inclusion for special needs: ‘It is much more to do with creating and
sustaining systems and structures which develop and support flexible and adaptable
approaches to learning’ (Corbett, 2001, p.2). Minimising barriers to learning is a new
term to help define inclusive education (DfES, 2001b). Inclusion is ‘a process by
which schools… and others develop their cultures, policies and practices to include
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"' !A government department set up in 1992 to be responsible for regulating childcare
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