ABSTRACT
Children that can learn in a standardised way have greater value because they are more likely to enhance a school’s academic performance indicators by producing good SATs and GCSE results. It is an ideology that runs counter to the Government’s own commitment to building the capacity of mainstream education to be more inclusive of disabled pupils, as set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Inclusion can and does work. It takes a whole system approach that recognises the human right of every pupil, whatever their learning difference, to be part of, and well supported in, a single education system. The reasonable adjustments duty in the 2010 Equality Act is often quoted as the solution to the failings of the legal principle, but it is not sufficient. Inclusive education is about there being no excuses for not including any child – disabled or non-disabled.
