Abstract
The City of Liverpool is a large urban authority, which has a history of special education, which relies heavily on special schools. In June 1997 the City Council determined that Inclusive Education would be the policy imperative for the following decade and that the development of mainstream schools additionally resourced for children with additional/special educational needs should form the core of the move away from segregated provision.
During 1999 the Authority conducted a thematic inspection of all primary resourced schools in order to determine the effectiveness of developments to date and consider the future school development needs of the designated schools. This inspection also included a questionnaire to parents, which sought their views on the impact of the developments on their children's education.
This workshop will be led by the senior officer responsible for the delivery of this policy at the time, headteachers of a number of resourced schools and at least one special school headteacher. They will share their experiences with the workshop participants through an interactive format, which will provide the opportunity for group discussion and encourage the workshop participants to reflect on the lessons learnt and relate these experiences to their own context.
Introduction
The City of Liverpool is a large urban education authority which has a history of special education which relied heavily on segregated provision. Recent research indicated that the Authority currently had one of the highest percentages of children educated in special schools within the UK.
In June 1997 the City Council adopted Inclusive Education as a policy imperative for the next decade. This decision, which was rooted in human rights, proved to be highly challenging to both schools and support agencies alike and therefore required a support and trsaining programme.
This paper describes the process leading to this decision, outlines the consultancy and support programme put in place to support the changes and describes developments across the Authority aimed at changing the perception of exceptionality and individual educational needs.
The City of Liverpool has a long tradition of special educational needs provision and remains one of the highest spending local authorities on this area of provision within the United Kingdom. (MARSH.1997). Special schools have, for many years, played a major role in meeting the needs of children with special educational schools it is hardly surprising that a recent survey conducted by the Centre for Studies in Integrated Education included Liverpool in a core group of 11 LEAs with the highest number of pupils with statements in special schools and the lowest number in mainstream schools. The report concluded that "...many of the LEAs with low percentages of statements in ordinary schools do have greater than average percentages of their pupils in special schools. For instance...of the eight LEAs in 1994 with less than 30% of pupils with statements in ordinary schools, six had above average percentages of pupils in special schools, with three - Coventry, Manchester and Liverpool - in the top 20 segregating LEAs." (NORWICH1997).
This conclusion mirrored the concerns of the newly appointed Head of Educational Services (Pupil and Student) who had taken up his post within the City in September 1995 and was becoming increasingly concerned at the high level of statutory assessment within the Authority. Within two months of his appointment a significant overspend was identified which prompted elected Members of the City Council to request an audit of all authority provision for pupils with special educational needs. The purpose of the audit was to establish the reasons for the overcommitment of allocated budgets and to identify possible solutions. The need to explain and rectify unsustainable levels of budget overspends thus prompted both the audit and the subsequent two year review of provision within the Authority. It was clear that the review would undoubtedly lead to policy changes, which, in turn, would determine the direction of service development for the next decade. For this reason it was anticipated that the review would require consultation with a wide variety of agencies both within and surrounding the City.
Such a degree of consultation could not be undertaken without a formal basis for discussion however and with this in mind Committee approved "Education For All: Towards a model for inclusion" as the basis for the review and consultation. This document set out clear terms of reference for the consultation, a values statement and the objectives, structure and scope of the review. The document defined inclusive education as barrier free in terms of educational philosophy, curriculum entitlement and physical access and outlined a possible model for the development of a continuum of provision based upon resourced mainstream schools. It set out a practical vision for the development of resourced schools which built upon a number of mainstream schools which had already been additionally resourced by the Authority to meet specific additional needs of pupils either through delegated or centrally held funding.
The development of resourced mainstream schools has emerged as a central feature of the proposed model for the City. During the months following the inclusion conference three development days were organised for the Headteachers of the 52 mainstream schools throughout the LEA who had expressed an interest in becoming resourced schools. Members of the Additional Needs Working Party including the Chair participated in these development days during which the following definition of a resourced school (derived from SEBBA & AINSCOW. 1996.) has emerged: "A resourced mainstream school is a school designated and additionally funded by the Authority in order to develop inclusive educational arrangements for pupils with additional educational needs. It is a school, which is attempting to respond to all pupils as individuals by reconsidering and restructuring its curricular organisation and provision and allocating resources to enhance equality of opportunity. Through this process the school aims to develop its capacity to accept all pupils from the community who wish to attend and, in doing so, reduce the need to exclude pupils. It is a school where individual differences are celebrated and the educational challenges presented by pupils with complex needs are seen as an integral part of school development." (Liverpool City Council. 1997).
The results of the second phase of consultation and the revised proposals for future provision were presented in a report to the Education Committee on December 23 1997. At this meeting 21 recommendations were approved of which a number have been influenced directly by the two years of consultation within the Authority and the Green Paper "Excellence for all Children" which was published by the Government in November 1997.
These recommendations provided a comprehensive strategic plan for the future development of additional educational provision within the City over the next decade. They outlined a future role for special schools as community specialist schools for children with additional needs in partnership with local mainstream schools.
Moving towards resourced mainstream provision - developing support
Following the designation of 17 primary schools as resourced base provision, the LEA carried out a thematic inspection of these schools in 1999. The conclusions of this inspection, in summary, were: that there was a wide variety of provision, in some schools pupils spending the majority of their time in totally segregated provision, in others the majority in mainstream, in some there was no discrete provision at all. It was also found that the provision ranged from fully included but not supported to not fully included but fully supported.
Children appeared to progress well in those schools where planning was detailed, collaboration in place and pre-tutoring had been organised. Progress was also good where specialist support was well used, and where there had been good professional support and development
The variation in the quality of support and levels of inclusion overall was a concern, as was the implementation of effective IEP's. It was concluded that a forum should be established to enable staff from resourced schools to meet regularly to discuss common issues and concerns. This might also provide an appropriate forum for staff development
Following these recommendations, key principles for inclusion were agreed in consultation with the headteachers, resource based staff, the LEA support team and key members of the School Effectiveness service. They reflected the basic standards that should be met in each school in terms of designated leadership of the provision, assessment, IEP's, curriculum, planning, development planning, and professional development of staff:
A team of trainers and consultants based at the University of Liverpool Department of Education constructed a structured and regularly evaluated training and development programme based on a model of consultancy after EGAN`s (1993) Skilled Helper Model, designed to support the resourced schools in achieving the above standards. A key aspect in the training and consultancy process were the regular review points built in to evaluate progress (feedback and feedforward) (C. MCLAUGHLIN 1999). The first training development day with the resourced schools aimed at reaching a common understanding of the key principles of inclusion with all of the 17 primary schools with resource base provision, and resulted in a lively debate, largely around issues of full inclusion in to mainstream provision. Following this session, the support and consultancy team visited all 17 schools with the aim of completing a current audit against the key principles, identifying areas for further development and then setting priority action plans for completion by the Autumn term 2000. As part of this process schools were further encouraged to examine the issues that had arisen from the thematic inspection.
During these visits the team, on the one hand observed the actual state of inclusion each school as of February 2000, and on the other hand talked to the headteachers accompanied by the SENCO and/or resource base teacher in order to find out what kind of support the schools actually needed and to define at what stage of inclusion they were aiming to be at in September 2000.
Following this part of the process it was possible to identify further themes for training and development for the whole of the resource based staff (primarily issues relating to assessment and the implementation of IEP's and support planning) as well as individual training and development programmes for each school. As a result of this review, every school drew up specific issues to be addressed, however key issues emerged which were generic to every school (e.g. M. AINSCOW 1996;M. HEWITT 1999) :
1 The Senior Management Team
One important issue highlighted during every visit was the degree to which the senior management team was committed to inclusion or had even started to consider the wider implications of becoming an inclusive school (J.GRIFFITH 1999). A further issue was that of whether the school SEN policy highlighted a positive identification with inclusion (P. GAMEROS 1995). Senior management teams tended to divide in to three groupings;
The commitment of the senior management team to full inclusion of the children with additional educational needs very often affected the ideology of other staff. It was found that the commitment of the senior management team had a direct impact on the staff in terms of developing their awareness of the issues in inclusion and the need for regular special education training and INSET. One of the aims of the training and support programme was to involve senior management teams fully in the process, and through moving on their own engagement with the issues of inclusion, develop those of the school as a whole (D. MAYROWETZ / C.S. WEINSTEIN 1999).
In those schools where the commitment of the senior management team was low and the resourced base was either seen as a "money provider" or a special separated unit, this attitude affected the other staff as well. At these schools the head sometimes didn`t really know where the money for the provision went or what the allocation should be. A senior management team which fosters co-operative teamwork seems to have a multiplicatory function and is one of the important motors for successful inclusion (G. SOUTHWORTH 1993).
2 Staff
The above mentioned can also be applied to the whole staff of a school. Here the important issue was the continuity between mainstream and resourced base staff. Joint communication and planning along with regular evaluation of the chosen procedures of working together were key. A regular exchange around particular pupils and their needs, the joint writing of individual education plans and clearly established communication and co-operation channels were important. To develop these capabilities was one aim of the resourced base training programme.
One prerequisite for co-operation is a transparent and clear structure concerning the roles and responsibilities of the different members of staff (M.F. FRITZ / M. MILLER 1995). This was especially pertinent to the roles of the SENCO (Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator) and, if a school had both, the RBT(resource base teacher) or other special education staff (R. VAN DYKE/ M.A. STALLINGS 1995) . Clarification of line management responsibilities assists in the overall development of effective inclusive provision.
To be able to clearly identify with the ideas of inclusion many schools asked for more information and training to facilitate optimal conditions in an inclusive setting (J. LANGONE 1998). Some staff also asked for more pragmatic training, for example, courses on sign language at a school with hearing impaired, more information about the IT applications, speech and language difficulties and other specific difficulties. The training and support programme addressed these needs as they arose.
3 Management of the provision
The current provision at the schools visited differed immensely. In some schools the resourced base children were fully included in their mainstream class, registered with them and identified fully with their peer groups (E.W. MARTIN 1995; O. BRUNEAU-BALDERRAMA 1997). This meant that they are part of their class up to 100% of the day and are only withdrawn for support according to need. In most of these cases the child was supported by a learning support assistant in the classroom and this support was available to all children in the class. The use of learning support assistants is one of the main issues that came up during the school visits (M. BALSHAW/ F. POLAT/ P. FARRELL 1999). Mainstream teachers wanted to know more about how learning support assistants could support the child with additional educational needs in the classroom and what strategies there were to monitor the child's improvements and how to communicate feedback to the teacher later. One method to facilitate learning support assistants' professional reflection is the video workshop method developed by POTTER and RICHARDSON (C.A. POTTTER/ H.L. RICHARDSON 1999, p. 34).
At those schools operating good inclusive practice the mainstream teacher was writing the IEP and support plans for the child with the assistance of the resource base teacher. These IEP`s were often very detailed and good (R. ATTIFIELD 1985). There was a need in all schools to develop clear assessment frameworks in order to generate individual learning plans which were clearly geared towards the progression of children through the literacy and numeracy strategies. There was also a need to develop clearly articulated support plans, which indicated when, where and by whom the support for the implementation of the IEP would be provided. The writing of IEP's was often undertaken in a vacuum and support for implementation not articulated.
4 Other Aspects
Conclusion
The thrust of the developments within the City described in this paper have raised, over the past few years, a number of fundamental questions concerning the overall philosophy of education within the Authority. What started as a simple audit of provision has developed into a discussion about human rights, pedagogy, school culture and achievement of all pupils. Since the publication of the Green Paper "Excellence for All Children" this debate has become a national one and is clearly as much a reflection of the times as that surrounding the Warnock Report in 1978.
During the inclusion conference in July 1997 Professor Mel Ainscow who was the principal speaker described the development of inclusive education within Liverpool as "the Council setting out on a journey without necessarily knowing what the final destination might look like". This view is also supported by Sebba and Sachdev who describe inclusive education as "a process not a state" arguing that "schools never reach an ultimate inclusive state beyond which they can develop no further. Developing inclusive education is an ongoing process with different starting points for different schools." (Sebba and Sachdev, 1997). This concept of inclusion has been accepted by the Authority and is integral to the proposed developments. It forms the basis for the move towards inclusive education within the City and will support a flexible approach to changes in provision, which will enable individual schools to participate in these changes at their own developmental pace.
The debate surrounding the development of inclusive education within the City has gained significant momentum. The importance of the issues raised by this discussion cannot be overstated however since the outcome will undoubtedly inform educational practice into the new millennium. The answers to the questions raised during this discussion are likely to be challenging to all concerned with the present and future development of education within the City. It is to the credit of the schools and headteachers within the City that they have been willing to be part of this debate and in many instances have created the impetus for a number of the proposed changes to provision. The reward for meeting this challenge will be significant and is perhaps best summed up by the views of Professor Gary Thomas who suggests: "An inclusive philosophy is rising again and prospering. It is gaining ground because it chimes with the philosophy of a liberal political system and a pluralistic culture: one that celebrates diversity and promotes fraternity and equality of opportunity. Inclusion must be at the heart of any society, which cherishes these values, and at the heart of a truly comprehensive education system. There can be no doubt that a non-segregated, diverse, school population of children and young people will produce schools, which are more sensitive and more humane. And it will begat a younger generation, which is more tolerant and accepting of difference. In inclusive schools, all will thrive." (Thomas, 1997).
This statement echoes the views of the present authors and provides a vision of educational arrangements, which we wish to secure for all of the children in the City of Liverpool.
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