ideas for events in inclusionweek

• In a primary or secondary school, pupils could run a project to design 'My ideal inclusive school', representing the voices of the full range of children and young people. This could include writing, drawing or three dimensional models and a presentation to the rest of the school.
• An LEA could re-consider its education policy with a view to setting more challenging targets for reducing segregation and increasing support in the mainstream. Debates and consultations could be arranged for elected members, officers and the wider community.
• Teacher training departments in universities could examine the syllabus used to train new teachers and introduce greater emphasis on inclusive policy and practice.
• A mainstream school which has not yet used the Index for Inclusion could establish a core group and hold its first meeting to start the Index process, during the Week.
• Looking at processes of exclusion at all levels - and trying to reduce them - would be a constructive activity.
• Voluntary organisations involved in supporting families and schools could demonstrate their commitment to inclusion with local meetings and specially commissioned reports on their work.
• Employers committed to inclusive practices could investigate the connections between inclusion in education (school and college levels) and the working environment.
• Head teachers, teaching staff and school governors could carry out an audit on how welcoming and accessible their school is, both in physical terms (lifts, ramps etc.) and in the curriculum and social activities. This can be linked to the Index process.
• In the earlier Index trials some schools discovered elements of racial prejudice and homophobia to which they responded positively. Investigations into ways of reducing this kind of exclusion are also appropriate for IW.
• Organisations of disabled adults as well as individual disabled people have many rich stories to tell which illustrate the social, emotional and human rights arguments supporting inclusion as well as the injustice of segregation and discrimination. Presentations and story telling as well as new publications could be powerful contributions to the Week.
• The arts offer an enormous range of opportunities for creativity, performance and publicity to demonstrate human emotions, hopes and fears surrounding inclusion and exclusion.
• The importance of inclusion at early years is well documented. Best practices can be promoted through new reports, open days and meetings.
• With the Special Educational Needs Disability Act 2001 in mind, schools could decide to improve access to their physical environment and the curriculum and publicise this effort. This could also include adapting information leaflets (e.g. large print) and signs around the building - things that will happen under Section 14 from September 2002 and are well worth promoting.
• Inclusion Week is an ideal opportunity to contact your press, radio and television to offer stories that you feel prove the rightness of inclusion. Preparing background briefing papers as well as securing live interviews is also important.
• In your area, part of the development of inclusive schools may have focussed on work with traveller children or refugees and an event in IW could highlight effective outcomes in this field.
• Students at college or university are in a unique position to investigate through debate and writing, their transitional years from schooling to adult life and their experiences of the impact of inclusion or exclusion.
• Or design your own event with colleagues!

Inclusion is not optional. It's an essential part of a better and more just society.