Teachers’ professional development to support inclusive practices

Abstract

Recent United Kingdom Government documents associated with the ‘special needs’ area of education claim to promote an inclusive approach to children's education. Section 6 of Excellence for All Children (DfEE, 1997a) refers to professional development for teachers and others, but is almost wholly preoccupied with the administration of the Code of Practice, the raising of standards and so on. The Action Programme (DfEE, 1998), echoing this line and referring to ‘. ensuring that all teachers have the training and support they need to do their jobs well’ references the Teacher Training Authority ‘standards’ defining ‘successful’ outcomes of the organisation of special provision in schools (TTA, 1998). There appears to be, however, a singular absence of discussion of the nature of professional development that would embed changes in practice in order to support inclusion. In 1997 a group of teachers was sponsored on a distancelearning professional development course by a local education authority committed to an inclusive approach. This course focuses on developing inclusive practices through reflective practitioner research. An evaluation of their work appears to offer clear evidence that a course of this kind can result in the embedding of change in practice, which will support the development of an inclusive approach in schools: effective development becomes an attitude and a way of working, rather than a series of specially organised events; the school and classroom can be viewed as a workshop for staff development; LEA's have a major role to play in encouraging and monitoring development in schools (Hewton & Jolly, 1991). © 2000 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.