Today CSIE celebrates 41 years of remarkable achievements! Founded on 28 June 1982 as the Centre for Studies on Integration in Education, CSIE took on its current name in the 1990s. The Centre has continued to evolve and has expanded its remit to cover all aspects of equality in education, while retaining its passion for disability equality. Within the past year, CSIE has:

• Recruited two full-time Equality Officers, thanks to the generous support of our funders, expanding the team to achieve an even stronger impact.
• Accepted invitations to speak at national and international events, including an international conference in Indonesia.  CSIE was also represented at the Zero Project Conference 2023 in Vienna, accepting a special invitation.
• Submitted its response to the Green Paper on the SEND Review.
• Continued to deliver Disability Awareness Workshops for pupils, which as ever received excellent feedback.  These workshops are designed to tackle prejudice and stereotypes, and are one of CSIE’s key tools to promote inclusion of disabled people in schools and society.  
• Continued its collaboration with the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull to design an Inclusion Audit Tool which has been successfully rolled out across the Local Authority. Solihull schools continue to access further CSIE support for their inclusion journey through our workshops and consultation.  As part of our work in Solihull, we attended their Head Teacher’s Conference where Professor Mel Ainscow, a good friend and supporter of CSIE, made a powerful contribution on Inclusion and implications for Leaders.
• Delivered our workshop, ‘Equality: Making it Happen’ to all Bristol Designated Safeguarding Leads. 
• Continued to be represented on the steering group of the Special Education Consortium, a national forum lobbying for the right to high-quality education. This gave our director an opportunity to present to the DfE CSIE’s concerns about the SEND and AP Improvement Plan.(please link to http://www.csie.org.uk/news/index.shtml)

With so much achieved this year, we look forward to our continued collaborations with local authorities across the UK.  These collaborations ensure inclusion continues to be a priority for those in Education, and through these CSIE will work with individual settings within the LAs. The coming months will see us continue to develop and deliver our workshops and resources, all designed to promote and encourage equality and inclusive practice at all age levels, building a more inclusive education system with practical ideas for educators to use in their classrooms and around school.