Getting inclusion right

Inclusion is recognised as one of the strengths of the school that I am a governor of but it is not something that we take for granted and we are looking to further improve our Inclusion Policy.

All schools practice inclusion to some extent as, at its simplest, inclusion means taking account of children's individual needs in lessons. For example, teachers are used to dealing with children who have Special Educational Needs, speak English as an Additional Language, are Gifted and Talented or have a disability.

But there is much more to inclusion that that. Full inclusion is making sure that nobody within the school community (pupils, staff, parents, visitors, etc.) are excluded from any school activities (teaching and learning, arts, sports, trips, meetings, etc.).

Full inclusion is probably not achievable, e.g. there could be parents with physical disabilities that the school is just not equipped to deal with, but it is a worth aim and in aiming for it we hope to identify and correct some practices where we are currently unintentionally excluding some people.

For example, do we have a mix of books in our library to attract children with different cultures and lifestyles? When I was at school all the books that I read seemed to be about children at private boarding schools (Billy Bunter, Jennings, Malory Towers, etc.) which was hardy something that I could relate to!

Some of the other areas that we need to check for their inclusiveness are curriculum, uniform, menus, learning resources, performing arts, play equipment, etc. And some of the possible reasons for exclusion that we need to consider in each case are culture, language, life-style (travellers, children living with grandparents, etc.) and religion.

A small example shows the sort of thing that is required. In 2002 many schools opened early on days that England was playing in the World Cup so that pupils (and staff) could watch the games. We did that but we also did the same from the other nations represented in our school, particularly South Korea.

Why I am remaining a School Governor

There are quite a few changes going on at the school where I have been a governor for the last fourteen years, and I am really worried that Kingston Council is forcing us down the wrong path, so I thought that this was a good time to sit back from the current crisis, re-examine why I am a governor and then nail my colours on what should be done firmly to the mast.

Let’s start with the good news.

The school that I am involved with is a wonderful, warm, welcoming and achieving place. But do not take my word for it, here are a couple of stories told by Ofsted in an inspection report.

“Older pupils look out for and help the younger ones as ‘buddies’ in the playground, as prefects and as playground patrollers, looking out for pupils who are lonely or having problems and sometimes resolving conflicts. These very good relationships were often reflected during the inspection in the way pupils helped each other in lessons. For example, a Korean pupil who had been in the school for only a short time was helped to join in a scientific investigation by her partner, who successfully encouraged her to become part of her group.”

“There were many instances observed where pupils of different capabilities and backgrounds worked with each other and gave each other support or help. Autistic pupils, in particular, were welcomed into classrooms. One Year 4 autistic pupil was helped to enjoy a games lesson on the school field by one pupil in particular who helped him to join her group and encouraged him to take part in the activities.”

We have worked hard with the children, their parents, school staff, volunteers (particularly Age Concern), other childcare workers and the wider community to build a school that is truly inclusive, respectful and motivated.

The school has been prominent, if not dominant, locally in all sorts of activities, including the written and performing arts, bridge and chess. One of our pupils even won a national competition for a story.

We offer our children a whole range of experiences that many of them would not normally get at home and they excel at them. They enjoy them too.

I am proud of the (very) small part that I have played over the last fourteen years in the development and success of the school.

But now comes the bad news.

The school serves a relatively disadvantaged area, and gets fewer resources than similar schools to help address, this which results in relatively low results in the Standard Attainment Tests (SATS) taken by pupils in the final year at primary school. Kingston Council is upset by this.

At our last governors’ meeting, a representative of Kingston Council twice said very clearly that the purpose of our school is to give our children a foundation in English and Mathematics to enable them to learn at secondary school. No mention of other subjects, no mention of arts and sports, no mention of social skills; just English and Mathematics. I could not disagree more.

The Council’s relentless drive for English and Mathematics has absolutely nothing with helping children to make the most of their lives, it is all about hitting targets set by the Government in these subjects and Kingston Council does nor care what it does to try and make these targets.

Schools are strongly encouraged (forced even) to hold extra classes outside of normal school hours for children deemed to be underperforming, to find excuses to exclude these children from the tests and to make the children take many practice tests.

The end result can improve standards in these two subjects but at the huge cost to the children and staff who both find that the school becomes an unhappy place. The children are forced to practice and take individual tests; the joy and companionship are taken out of learning. And the staff are scared that they will be blamed for any perceived failure by their children. The number of senior secondary leaders sacked each year has increased five-fold, with at least 150 dismissed in England last year, research suggests.

This relentless pursuit of exam results is putting children off school and despite a lot of effort, and money, being put in to trying to keep children in school they are staying away in increasing numbers. The only surprise is that anybody is surprised.

Outside of Kingston the tide has firmly turned away from a strict focus on just two subjects and this trend was given a major boost by a recent authoritative report from Cambridge University which concludes that children in England are getting a primary education that is too narrow and warns that too much emphasis on testing the basics could "impoverish" learning in areas such as the arts.

What next?

I am more convinced than ever that the approach our school is taking is the right one for our children and for our community and it would be wrong to let Kingston Council destroy that. Therefore I will remain a governor to try and stop this.

But the main reason I am going to stay a school governor is the reason that I became one in the first place – my skills and experiences can help the children of the school and that is help that I am more than willing to give. It’s all about the children.

School meetings

As the school year draws to a close it is time to tidy up a few loose ends, which means a few more meetings than usual.

The main event was an internal workshop that we held on the effectiveness of the governing body. This was done using a self assessment framework developed by Kingston Council.

It was not always obvious that what the Council thinks makes an effective governing body is what we think it is but it was a useful, and positive, meeting that identified a few actions that we can take to improve the way that we work.

As usual, the constraint is people's time as all governors are busy so we will have to limit what we want to do so that it matches what we have the capacity to do.

And also as usual, I took a few actions myself having gone to the meeting with the intention not to.

The other meetings were less interesting but necessary. They covered topics like reviewing the school's budget, which is always difficult given the poor way that the Council's finance systems report information.

The school meetings are now over until September but there are lots of actions to complete before then.

Another reason not to like Ofsted

Many people, myself included, have concerns that the inspection regime that pervades Local Government in the UK is doing nothing to improve services to people. I believe the opposite to be true, i.e. we are spending lots of government money on an inspection process that is actually making things worse. A recent example helps to explain part of the problem.

The school that I am a governor of has just had one of the new "quickie" Ofsted inspection and the report was published last week. In most of the categories we scored a "2" for good or a "3" for satisfactory but we got one "4", poor, for standards. However, what Ofsted have not told us is why are our standards are poor when everything we do is good or satisfactory.

The report just tells us what we already know, offers no insights or advice, and so has no value.

The Mount Governing Body

The third education meeting in three nights, this time it was the Governing Body of The Mount Primary School in New Malden. We had a wide ranging discussion over two and a half hours, which included:

• Delivering services through school clusters, the new Children's Centre and Extended School
• Revising the school prospectus
• Our budget for this year
• Process for reviewing and approving policies
• Assessing whether we should look at moving to Foundation/Trust status
• Building Schools for the Future capital programme
• Equalities and diversity
• etc. etc.

Unusually we seem to have won two of our minor battles against the Local Authority. The proposal to move us from the New Malden Cluster to the North Kingston Cluster appears to have been reversed (we are still waiting for written confirmation of this) and our new School Improvement Partner (whose role is to help us to raise standards) will not be the same person as our Link Inspector (whose role is to push the Local Authority agenda). These are minor victories but victories none the less and that's good news for our children and parents.