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University of Bolton Department of Education Chadwick Campus Bolton BL2 1JW 14th May 2006. Letters to the Editor The Observer 3-7 Herbal Hill, London EC1R 5EJ Dear Editor, The Observer Comment, Sunday 14.05.06 is perpetuating a growing myth, that: The Warnock Committee Report, chaired by Dame Mary Warnock, on the provision for children with special education needs in the late 1970’s advocated inclusion. The concept of inclusive education was never explored by the committee, to state that Mary Warnock was the “architect of inclusion” but has now “recanted from her position” is a travesty of the truth and provides an unhelpful and seriously misleading context to this important debate. The Warnock Report advocated different types of integration for some learners with special educational needs; Locational Integration, where some learners could be placed on the same site as the ordinary school, Social Integration, where some learners could have an opportunity to socialise with learners from the ordinary school and Functional Integration where some learners could be in the ordinary schools and function as other learners. There was no serious expectation that schools should change to accommodate the different ways of learning or the different support requirement of new learners. The Warnock Report stated that there would always be some learners who would always need segregated special schooling. Inclusive education is a much more profound and deeper challenge to our schooling system. The starting principle is that each and every learner, irrespective of the nature or degree of their impairment should have the right to belong to their local school and their local community, with meaningful and appropriate support, enabling each learner to participate and contribute to such a learning community. This is increasingly happening, with many excellent examples, where schooling systems have shifted and adapted to accommodate such diversity to the benefit of all learners. There is “nothing wrong” with learners who require different supports; there is something wrong with a schooling system that is structurally designed to reject learners who are defined by their difference. Rather than “A shabby attempt to undermine human rights laws” (Observer Comment 14.05.06) the Government should be actively asserting the protections such Rights are supposed to give all learners and not segregate people away in special schools because of their differences. Since the publication of the Warnock Report, the debate has shifted away from justifying why a learner should be included into their local school and community to seriously challenging the practice of segregation. The impulse to segregate learners in early life leads us to further segregate in most other aspects of a persons’ later life. Our schooling systems, like our societies, have to be much more creative at learning from our differences if we are to create safe places for people to live. With good wishes Joe Whittaker Department of Education _________________________________________________________________ Be the first to hear what's new at MSN - sign up to our free newsletters! http://www.msn.co.uk/newsletters ________________End of message______________________ This Disability-Research Discussion list is managed by the Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Leeds (www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies). Enquiries about the list administratione should be sent to [log in to unmask] Archives and tools are located at: www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html You can JOIN or LEAVE the list from this web page.