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Education

Index for inclusion: developing learning and participation in schools

Guiding schools through a process of inclusive school development

Authors: T. Booth; M. Ainscow
Publisher: Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education, Bristol, 2010

Full text of document

The Index for Inclusion is a set of materials to guide schools through a process of inclusive school development. It is about building supportive communities and fostering high achievement for all staff and students. It provides:

  • a set of indicators which describe inclusive education at the school level, in terms of cultures, policies and practices
  • recommendations for an approach to implementing inclusive education at the school level to decide priorities for change and to evaluate their progress
  • an integral part of existing development policies, encouraging a wide and deep scrutiny of everything that makes up a school's activities.
The index can be used to adopt a self-review approach to analyse cultures, policies and practices and to identify the barriers to learning and participation that may occur within each of these areas. It takes the social model of disability as its starting point to build on good practice and work around a cycle of activities which guide schools through the stages of preparation, investigation, development and review. It has a set of materials that support a process of investigation that schools undertake to improve school attainments through inclusive practices. Schools can use it to:
  • adopt a self a assessment approach to analyse cultures, policies and practices and to identify the barriers to learning and participation
  • decide on priorities for change and evaluate their progress
  • to provide a full review of everything that makes up a school’s activities.
The publication gives the steps of how the index materials are used to:
  • get started with school development planning by internalising concepts, materials and methods for gathering knowledge about the school from all the stakeholders
  • find out about the school through a detailed exploration of the school and the identification of priorities for development
  • produce an inclusive school development plan to reflect inclusive aims and the particular priorities identified
  • implement priorities and support
  • review the school’s progress in developing inclusive cultures, policies and practices.
The materials are organised in three dimensions of creating inclusive cultures, producing inclusive policies and evolving inclusive practices. Each section contains up to eleven indicators and the meaning of each indicator is clarified by a series of questions.