According to official statistics from the Department for Education, since 2016, there has been a 29.5% rise in pupils in England with SEN support and the number of pupils with an EHC (Education, Health and Care) plan has doubled. Alongside this, the gap in achievement for these students compared with their peers is ever increasing. It is therefore no wonder that inclusive teaching is now included as part of the new Ofsted framework and that inclusive teaching is a high priority for many schools and colleges.
To support teachers with this work, the Education Endowment Foundation recently published a Guide to Inclusive Teaching. Read on to discover more about:
Table of Contents
What is inclusive teaching?
Inclusive teaching is about supporting every child to participate and succeed in school, including disadvantaged pupils and those with SEND. Inclusive teaching is not about lowering expectations or reducing the level of challenge for these pupils, but about understanding and removing, where possible, the multiple barriers to learning they face.
A core component of inclusive teaching is ensuring that pupils feel a sense of belonging in their school or college. This includes experiencing a supportive environment and having positive relationships with adults and fellow students. However, this supportive environment does not have to come at the cost of high expectations, indeed a recent study showed that belonging is highest where teachers both support their students and challenge them to think hard and learn more.
The two-part model
The EEF’s Guide to Inclusive Teaching suggests that schools adopt a two-part model to support inclusive teaching.
- Universal approaches that are likely to be especially important for pupils with additional needs.
- Adaptations and additional support that might also be needed by some pupils.
They emphasise that these two parts should be considered together, rather than sequentially and that adaptations and additional support must be carefully designed to ensure that they help rather than hinder learning.
Approached in this way, inclusive teaching is about being inclusive by design, not as an afterthought. It is not about making individual-level adaptations for every learner in the class, but about high-quality teaching for all, supported by appropriate adjustments.
Universal approaches that support all learners
Universal approaches are approaches that benefit all learners but are particularly important for pupils with SEND. Strengthening and sustaining universal approaches is likely to reduce – though not remove – the need for individual adaptations. The five key approaches recommended by the EEF are:
1. Explicit instruction
This includes clear explanations, modelling and frequent checks for understanding, and strongly aligns with Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction.
2. Feedback
Feedback helps pupils understand what they have done well, identify areas for improvement and understand how to improve. Research suggests that effective feedback should answer three questions: where am I going, how am I going and where to next?
3. Scaffolding
Scaffolding is temporary support that enables pupils to complete tasks they could not yet complete independently. A key feature of effective scaffolding is that it is gradually removed; excessive and permanent scaffolding can result in lowering expectations for some students.
4. Positive relationships
This refers to relationships between students and between teachers and students, as well as relationships with parents, guardians and families. Research suggests that trust is more important than likeability when it comes to building positive relationships between teachers and students.
5. Calm classroom environment
Calm and predictable classroom environments help pupils to focus on learning, participate fully and feel safe.
Final Thoughts
Whilst there may be aspects of inclusion that fall to adults with specialist roles, such as SENCOs or pastoral support workers, enabling all learners to do well within an inclusive system is every teacher’s responsibility. Teachers do not need to become experts in every SEND diagnosis. Instead, they should prioritise familiar strategies such as explicit instruction, feedback and scaffolding, to adapt their teaching to the needs of learners. The recent guide from the EEF gives a practical framework for how this can be achieved so that every child can flourish.
If you’d like us to help you put the guidance into practice, get in touch about booking an inclusion-focused workshop for your staff.
