The Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education is to hold an Inclusion Week from November 11 to 15. Schools, colleges and universities are invited to take part and arrange events to raise awareness of inclusion issues in education.
Disability Now, September 1, 2002.

Most people believe that disabled children should be educated in mainstream schools, a survey showed today. The NOP poll for the Disability Rights Commission came out as new legislation requiring schools to ensure disabled youngsters are not disadvantaged took effect for the new term. However, teachers warned that some schools are not prepared for the extension of the Disability Discrimination Act to cover their activities. Two thirds of British people thought disabled children should be taught in mainstream schools, NOP found. Half said teachers should be trained to understand disability and 70 per cent. thought perceptions can be changed through integration. DRC chairman, Bert Massie, said: ‘It’s heartening that the public believes disabled people should be given the same opportunities as others. Education is the key to changing attitudes and is fundamental to disabled people being included in the workplace and throughout society’. Eamonn O’Kane, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers said putting disabled children in normal classes was the right thing to do. However, schools needed the resources to be able to adapt their buildings and take on specialist staff, he stressed.
Shropshire Star, September 2, 2002.

Education bosses plan to axe all six of Devon’s assessment classes for children with special needs from next April. Devon County Council says there is no further need for the classes as special needs pupils now mix in mainstream lessons. In their place the council is setting up new foundation support classes for three-to-six-year-olds to help spot children’s needs at an early stage.
Express and Echo, Exeter, September 3, 2002.

An 11-year-old dyslexic boy is to mount a ‘test case’ challenge over discrimination against disabled pupils after being refused a place at one of the Government’s city technology colleges. Lawyers for the unnamed boy lodged an application in the High Court yesterday for a judicial review of Bacons City Technology College’s decision. They allege that it breaches both the 2001 Special Educational Needs and Disability Act and the Human Rights Act.
Financial Times, September 7, 2002.

For the first time in 20 years, inclusion looks like coming to a halt, according to an analysis in a leading education publication. Times Educational Supplement writer, Nicholas Pyke, reports that although the 1981 Education Act which started to move disabled children from special schools to mainstream has come of age, there is little to celebrate. He says the pressure to exclude is starting to match the pressure to include with the result that the number of children moving from the special to the mainstream sector is dwindling to almost nothing. Children with moderate learning and modest physical impairments are continuing to move out of special schools, but as they do so, their places are being taken by rising numbers of children with behavior problems, including autistic spectrum and attention deficit disorders. Fears have been expressed that inclusion could ‘go into reverse’.
TES, September 6, 2002.

A new guide for head teachers and special education needs co-coordinators has been published by the Disability Rights Commission. Under new legislation disabled pupils now have wide-ranging rights within mainstream schools. The guide outlines head teachers’ and SENCOs’ responsibilities regarding the rights of disabled pupils under the Disability Discrimination Act which makes it unlawful for disabled pupils to be treated ‘less favorably’ when applying for a place and puts a duty on schools to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to ensure that disabled pupils are not disadvantaged.
Liverpool Echo, September 12, 2002.

The inclusion of special needs children into mainstream schools moves forward next week when new facilities at four schools in the Eden Valley, Cumbria, are opened. John Nellist, Cumbria’s director of education, will open strategic facilities at Appleby Primary, Beaconside CE Infants, North Lakes Junior School and Ullswater Community College in Penrith. This means that pupils with special educational needs can be taught in one of these four units in the Eden Valley instead of traveling to Carlisle or Kendal for their education. The schools are also working in partnership to support the inclusion of those pupils into local mainstream schools.
Cumberland News, September 13, 2002.

Parents of children attending a special needs unit in Tiverton, Devon, are mounting a campaign to save it from closure. They say the first they knew about the threat to the special needs assessment unit at Castle Primary School was when they read the school newsletter. Devon County Council plans to close the unit, along with five others, as part of an inclusion programme. Susan Seatherton, whose son Sam, five, is autistic, said she would not be happy for him to go to a mainstream school. ‘He only started at the unit this term and we had no idea it was going to close. Just to put it in the newsletter without telling us is terrible. Sam needs to be watched almost 24 hours a day. In the unit I know he has close attention, there are locks and I know he is safe. In a mainstream school he would not have that.’
Crediton Gazette, September 17, 2002.

Education chiefs in Staffordshire have been told to make urgent changes to their ‘unsatisfactory’ inclusion policy for students with special educational needs. A report by education watchdogs Ofsted has found that the Staffordshire Local Education Authority has failed to improve their special educational needs policy to meet with new legislation. The LEA has now promised to bring a section of the county’s schools in line with the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act by 2006/7, with a view to increasing accessibility to 100 per cent for disabled students in the future.
Lichfield Mercury, September 19, 2002.

Three schools for youngsters with special needs will stay open. Education chiefs have pledged Kersland and Mary Russell in Paisley and the Clippens School in Linwood will not close. The news was welcomed by worried parents who feared Renfrewshire Council could axe the award winning schools as part of an inclusion plan.
Paisley Daily Express, September 20, 2002.