ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an autoethnographic account of a school. The account is told from the perspective of a school leader and the author. The account details a catastrophic school inspection but also outlines the backstory to explain why this happened. Over several years, the school had demonstrated an unwavering commitment to including pupils with social, emotional, and mental health needs and other special educational needs, including autism. The chapter illustrates the uneasy relationship between the standards agenda and the inclusion agenda. It ultimately demonstrates how the school paid a price for its commitment to including learners that other schools had rejected. It illustrates the tensions between teachers’ personal values and the socially assigned identities that that they are required to adopt within the current discourse of performativity. Current notions of what constitutes effective schools and teachers are underpinned by the assumption that the only thing that matters is raising students’ academic profiles. This article speaks to this policy discourse and ultimately challenges it.
