Introduction

Inclusive schoolcommunities

Taking next steps

Inspiring examples

Reflective tool

Additional Tools

About / contact

This website is for you and for your school if you want to become more inclusive as a community. Here, you will find tools and steps, as well as inspiring examples.

There are different ways to use the website. You can begin at the beginning and follow all the steps, but you could start anywhere you’d like, really. It depends on your starting point and on where you’d like to go.

If you’d like some help in finding where you are, it would be a good idea to start with the Reflective tool. If you don’t know where you’d like to go, it might be a good idea to start with the Inspiring examples. If you’re wondering how to get there, then go to Taking next steps. If you first want to know more about inclusion, then go to Understanding inclusive school communities for more information. Please explore, enjoy and discover!

Webbased toolkit

Developing Inclusive School Communities

Understanding inclusive school communities

Schools are vibrant communities where pupils & students, teachers, school leaders & other staff members, parents & guardians, and other professionals in the wider community of the school come together to support learning and development of all pupils and students. Giving this wide variety of stakeholders a voice and recognizing their contribution and role within that community is an ongoing challenge for schools.

Belonging Recognition Ownership Voice

Definition

Within an inclusive community, there is a feeling of belonging, recognition, ownership and voice of each and every:

Pupil/student

Teacher, schoolleader, other staffmember/professional

Parent/guardian & other relevant local partners in the wider community

embracing diversity in socialeconomic status, cultural backgrounds, cognitive and physical abilities, gender identity, language, and more.

Classroom level

Classroom level refers to the extent in which each pupil and student feels part of an inclusive classroom community. The purpose of analyzing this level is to better see how all children have a voice and are involved in everyday school life and decision making.

School level

School level refers to the extent in which each school staff member (teacher, school leader or other staff member) feels part of an inclusive school community. This level has the purpose to analyze actions, practices and ways in which all staff members are involved in everyday school life and decision making, regardless of their formal status.

Parents and local partners level

Parents and local partners level refers to the extent in which parents or guardians, policy makers and other local or regional stakeholders/NGOs feel part of the wider school community. This level has the purpose to analyze ways in which they are involved not only in disseminating information, but in everyday school life and decision making.

Towards a shared understanding

When you want to strengthen the inclusiness of your school, an important first step is to develop a shared understanding of the different aspects and levels of inclusive communities. This shared understanding can be a starting point for next steps, e.g. for assessing how well the notion of inclusive communities is integrated at different levels in your school (using the reflective tool) or to study inspiring examples from other schools

Bekijken

The concept of inclusiveness is quite complex and covers a broad range of different aspects of diversity. Teachers, principals and parents need a more comprehensive perspective on inclusiveness in order to prevent school communities from stumbling from one incident to another. Inclusive education involves valuing and facilitating the full participation and belonging of everyone in all aspects of the education communities and systems (Cologon, 2019). This conceptual framework focuses on mapping several indicators of inclusiveness.

Read the conceptual framework

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Inclusive child school communities hva amsterdam

Disclaimer - Contact information This website provides support for schools (school leaders and teacher teams) in strengthening the inclusiveness of their community and is developed with support from the ERASMUS+ programme