This article introduces the school, trust and local authority leaders who generously shared what they have learned about developing inclusive mainstream education.
This article is part of our inclusion base insights series, which shares practical learning from schools, trusts and local authorities developing inclusion bases.
Learning from experience
More mainstream schools are developing inclusion bases for pupils with additional needs, but there is no single blueprint for getting them right. While government guidance and early research provide an important foundation, many of the decisions involved in developing an inclusion base rely on professional judgement and learning from practice.
That's why we brought together a community of experienced leaders to shape this series. Rather than asking what an inclusion base should look like, we wanted to understand the questions leaders had found most important as they designed, developed and refined support for children and young people with complex needs.
Meet the community of practice
The insights in this series have been shaped by the generosity, expertise and openness of colleagues from schools, trusts and local authorities who shared both their successes and the challenges they have faced.
> Alison Farrar: Deputy Head for Inclusion at Redriff Primary School City of London Academy, which has a well-established autism resource base for up to 22 pupils from Reception to Year 6.
> Amanda Frankish: Senior School Improvement Officer for Inclusion at Education North Tyneside, supporting 11 schools with alternative resource provisions or SEN units.
> Claire Ferens: Regional Director, Executive Principal and Education Partner at United Learning Trust.
> George Ellis: Executive Director for SEND at Unity Schools Partnership, leading across specialist SEND units, special schools and mainstream provision.
> Katherine Walsh: Director for Inclusion at River Learning Trust, with experience leading SEND provision in primary and secondary schools in both England and America.
> Rachael Law: Director of Specialist Education at The GORSE Academies Trust, overseeing three specialist resource provisions – two for primary pupils and one for secondary – supporting children with complex communication needs and/or autism.
> Rachael Stevenson: Head of SEND at REAch2 Academy Trust, overseeing provision across 62 primary schools.
> Rachel Wilkes: Chief Executive Officer at Humber Education Trust, overseeing 13 primary schools and four special schools, including several local authority-commissioned resource bases and informal SEND hubs.
> Tracey Oosthuizen: SEND Sufficiency and Development Manager at Gloucestershire County Council, overseeing provision for over 800 pupils with SEND across the county.
The community was brought together and facilitated by our colleagues:
- Elen Jones, Director
- Katy Patten, Director
- Megan Phillips, Associate Director
We are grateful to every contributor for giving their time, opening their schools to us and sharing their experience so openly.
Six questions that kept emerging
Although the schools represented different contexts and had developed different models of inclusion bases, several themes emerged consistently. Contributors emphasised that inclusion bases should be part of a wider commitment to inclusive mainstream education, underpinned by high quality teaching, strong leadership and sustained investment in staff expertise. They also stressed that an inclusion base is one possible approach, rather than the right answer for every school or every pupil.
Those themes shaped the questions that became the framework for this series:
- Which pupils is the inclusion base designed to support?
- What is the inclusion base trying to achieve, and how will success be measured?
- How should the physical environment support pupils' needs?
- What does an ambitious curriculum look like for pupils accessing an inclusion base?
- What teaching approaches best support pupils to learn and thrive?
- How can schools build and sustain the expertise needed to make inclusion bases successful?
These questions are not intended as a checklist or a blueprint. Instead, they provide a framework for reflection and discussion, recognising that the right approach will depend on the needs of pupils and the context of each school.
In this series, our contributors share practical examples of how they approached each of these questions in their own settings. We hope their experiences help you reflect on your own context and consider what might work best for the children and young people in your school.
