The curriculum and assessment review is a unique opportunity to embrace a future where inclusive education is the standard for all learners, not just the exception.
To achieve this, we need to remove the barriers that have traditionally constrained our thinking and to ensure all young people have access to a curriculum that harnesses their potential and builds on their capabilities.
In that, there is much to learn from the great practice in special schools and alternative provision (AP) settings.
Flexibility and connection
Specialist settings have long enjoyed a level of autonomy with regards to curriculum delivery and age-related expectations. With the ongoing rise in SEND, mainstream schools should also have the benefit of this type of flexibility.
By allowing for more cross-curricular links, personalised learning experiences and a focus on individual progress rather than static age-related expectations, we can create a more inclusive education system that values every student’s unique path to success.
In our schools, we often take a holistic approach to curriculum delivery, combining subjects and providing inspiring hooks to create meaningful learning experiences that are relevant to each student’s needs and cognitive development level.
This can be as simple as blending literacy and life skills, offering project-based learning that spans multiple disciplines or creating inter-connected curricular plans. Our sustainability curriculum, for example, encompasses learning from across multiple domains.
This approach allows our students to see the connections between what they are learning and the world around them. It also provides opportunities to address their individual needs by building on their interests and strengths. This means our learners flourish in ways that a traditional, one-size-fits-all curriculum cannot accommodate.
Allowing mainstream schools to adopt a more fluid approach to the curriculum and to adjust learning targets based on a student’s developmental needs rather than their chronological age could be transformative.
Beyond academic outcomes
In special schools, academic outcomes are just one piece of the progress puzzle. We recognise students’ development across a range of areas, including social skills, communication, independence and wellbeing.
Crucially, this attention to a broader range of capabilities means we are focused on celebrating what our learners can do rather than consistently highlighting what they can’t.
It is for this reason that we created our Holistic Tracker, which allows us to better understand how a student is doing across a wide range of areas. Among others, these include preparation for adulthood (including managing transitions and communication effectively with unfamiliar people), attendance, parental engagement, and collaboration with peers.
These are key factors in students going on to achieve the best possible outcomes in later life. They also inform a genuinely inclusive approach to curriculum intent, implementation and impact.
Assessment flexibility
Ultimately, assessment is how young people demonstrate their achievements, and exams are not the only way to do this. We are currently collaborating with other colleagues in the AP and SEND sectors to explore how we can report and celebrate the diverse successes of our pupils.
This includes moving beyond conventional exam-based outcomes and considering richer measures of success, such as improvements in health, wellbeing and engagement. These broader measures of achievement offer a fuller picture of a student’s development and give more meaningful insight into their progress.
Without doubt, an assessment model that accommodates a holistic approach to what progress looks like across the nation for students with similar needs and starting points would drive inclusive practice.
This may mean variations in how accountability is measured and more nuanced national benchmarks, but that’s a small price to pay.
To achieve its aim of high standards for all, the government will need to deliver an assessment system that not only reflects the capabilities of young people with SEND but can hold all schools properly accountable for their progress. The SEND and AP sectors must be active partners in developing such a model.
At its heart, the bold vision we need is one where SEND provision is no longer a bolt-on to or an opt-out from the national curriculum. Instead, the great practice in our settings could and should be the basis on which to build a truly inclusive system, irrespective of setting.
This article is the ninth in a series of sector-led, experience-informed recommendations for the Francis review of curriculum and assessment. Read them all here
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