The websites and texts below will be useful for teachers and leaders as they work towards ensuring all students are included in their school curriculum.1
Inclusion Principle from the New Zealand Curriculum
This section of NZC Online draws together research, digital resources, and examples to support schools as they explore the inclusion principle from the New Zealand Curriculum and work towards a curriculum in which their students’ identities, languages, abilities, and talents are recognised and affirmed.
Inclusive Practices
This site provides links to the major Ministry of Education websites supporting inclusive education and houses Inclusive Practice and the School Curriculum, a comprehensive resource for New Zealand school’s teachers and leaders. The resource has three sections: Implementing an inclusive curriculum, for building professional knowledge and creating a shared understanding of inclusive practice within the New Zealand Curriculum; Inclusion in practice, classroom examples illustrating how teachers supported all their students to participate and learn; and Facilitating professional learning, modules for leaders of PLD supporting schools to develop inclusive teaching and learning programmes.
Inclusive Education
This site provides New Zealand educators with practical strategies, suggestions, and resources to support learners with diverse needs. The many guides on the site are intended for educators who have students who may not be receiving specialist assistance and funding through Ministry of Education services, though the content will be useful when thinking about all students. They include evidence-based strategies, video interviews and examples of practice, case studies, and links to helpful resources.
Universal Design for Learning
Universal design for learning (UDL) is a framework to improve and optimise teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. This site unpacks UDL in depth, providing guidelines on the ‘why’ of learning (supporting student engagement), the ‘what’ of learning (supporting appropriate representation of information and content), and the ‘how’ of learning (supporting multiple ways for students to express what they know).
What an Inclusive School Looks Like
This information sheet describes what an inclusive school looks like and feels like in the New Zealand English-medium context. Teachers and leaders can use this information to help them reflect on and review the inclusive values, policies, and practices in their school.
Giangreco, M. F. (2007). Extending Inclusive Opportunities. Educational Leadership, Volume 64 No. 5, pages 34–37
This article is an early exploration of the approaches to differentiation that underpin Inclusive Practice and the School Curriculum. It outlines how teachers can use multilevel curriculum and curriculum overlapping to ensure that students who are working several curriculum levels below their peers can meaningfully participate in the class. It does so using the example of Ms Santos, a fifth grade teacher, who has successfully included students with learning disabilities or physical limitations in her classroom for years.
MacArthur, J. (2009). Learning Better Together: Working towards Inclusive Education in New Zealand Schools. New Zealand: IHC
This book aims to clarify the debate about how inclusive education can work in practice. It looks at the failure of remedial treatment for ‘difference’ and outlines a way of seeing disability that allows for higher expectations and greater achievements. It provides specific guidance to schools on how to achieve better learning for all students in classrooms, and it gives a voice to disabled students who have contributed to research on improving inclusion in schools.
Sapon-Shevin, M. (2008). Learning in an Inclusive Community. Educational Leadership, September, Volume 66 No. 1, pages 49–53.
Download from ‘Essential Reading’ in Module 3 of Facilitating Professional Learning.
This article argues that inclusive classrooms are those that create students who are comfortable with differences, skilled at confronting challenging issues, and aware of their interconnectedness. It explores how to redefine the inclusive classroom and suggests ten strategies for creating a positive, inclusive classroom.
Education Review Office (March 2015). Inclusive Practices for Students with Special Needs in Schools
This report examines how well students with additional learning needs are included in New Zealand schools. The report provides an update on progress towards meeting the Government target that, by the end of 2014, 80 percent of New Zealand schools will be doing a good job, and none should be doing a poor job, of including and supporting students with disabilities.
Inclusive Practices Tools
The Inclusive Practices Tools support primary, intermediate, and secondary schools to engage in a review process with the aim of building inclusive practices for all learners. The tools include surveys of students, staff, and the school community, and they explore different facets of school practice that research indicates are key aspects of inclusive practice. They focus on practices, systems, and structures rather than disabilities, describe inclusive education practices as they apply to all students, and promote the view that student diversity is a resource for learning.
Janney. R. & Snell, M.E, (2013). Modifying Schoolwork. Third Edition. Baltimore: Brookes
This book is a ‘hands-on’ guide designed to help teachers deliver effective universal instruction in core content areas and create customised adaptations and flexible supports for students with diverse needs and abilities. It contains strategies and planning tools tested in the classroom and a number of case studies. This third edition includes more on one of the biggest challenges of inclusion, working with students with significant disabilities and complex learning needs.
Mitchell, D. (2014). What Really Works in Special and Inclusive Education – Using Evidence-based Teaching Strategies. Second Edition. Routledge: London
This book presents teachers with a range of evidence-based strategies they can readily put into practice in their classrooms. Each of the 27 strategies that the book comprises has a substantial research base, a strong theoretical rationale, clear guidelines for its implementation, and cautionary advice where necessary.
Everyone’s In: An Inclusive Planning Tool
Primary and secondary teachers can use this interactive tool to plan a specific lesson, unit, or inquiry, and in so doing reflect on their practice. It supports them to identify strategies for removing barriers to learning for their students and to develop a customised plan for teaching and learning that reflects the principles of Universal Design for Learning and includes appropriate adaptations and differentiations.
IEP Online
IEP Online is for anyone involved in developing or implementing individual education plans (IEPs) to support students with additional learning needs. Central to the website is the Ministry of Education publication Collaboration for Success: Individual Education Plans, which is intended for students, their parents and whānau, school staff, and specialists, and which includes suggestions for collaborating with Māori communities when developing IEPs.
Teachers and Teachers’ Aides Working Together
Teachers and Teachers’ Aides Working Together is a professional development resource for schools. It has eleven modules that teachers and teachers’ aides complete together to strengthen working relationships, improve role clarity, better support student learning, and build knowledge of inclusive practice. Each module is a ‘ready-to-use’ pack, with a presentation, workbook, activities and a guide for putting new learning into practice. There is also a self-review tool for school leaders to use to understand where their school is at and what they should do next in supporting teacher aides to be effective in their roles.
Inclusive Practice in Secondary Schools: Ideas for School Leaders
This resource is designed for secondary principals, deputy principals, deans, heads of faculty and learning support, guidance counsellors, and leaders of support staff. Its purpose is to help leaders discuss inclusive practice in their schools and to reflect on what is working well and what may need to improve.
Educator booklets
These eight Ministry of Education booklets examine how specific disabilities can influence learning and suggest strategies teachers can use in the classroom to support and include all students. The booklet titles are:
The booklets can be ordered separately from Down the Back of the Chair and are available as PDFs online (via the links in this paragraph).
Shaddock, A., Giorcelli, L., and Smith, S. (2007). Students with Disabilities in Mainstream Classrooms. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia
This resource has been written for mainstream teachers who have, or are about to have, a student with a disability in their classroom. It may also be useful for teachers’ aides, parents, and others. It is based on recent research and experience in schools and classrooms across Australia.
[1] The descriptions of websites are adapted from the websites themselves; those for books are adapted from Book Depository entries; those for articles are taken from the introduction to the article. Copyright on each description is as ascribed at its source.
Published on: 15 Jun 2017
