What do inclusive classrooms look like?

Of all the banes of education overcomplication is the worst.

It drives workload and shifts focus away from things that make a difference to children and onto minutia that doesn’t.

Class context sheets. Much data input and analysis. Standardised PowerPoints. Target Grades. Meetings and meetings and meetings – how much do these things and a thousand other things really impact on the children who sit in our classrooms?

The point of a lot of what we do is to create a narrative that’s more pleasing than what’s actually happening so other adults will approve of our work.

Regrettably, a lot of this is unavoidable.

As much as Ofsted would have us believe we don’t need to do anything for them it’s a brave school leader who takes them at their word.

But this overcomplication is serious because time we spend on stuff that doesn’t matter is time we aren’t spending on things that do, and as anyone who has ever worked in a school knows there are never enough hours in a day.

I’m thinking about overcomplication because recently someone asked me what I thought an inclusive classroom looked like.

This is a fair question given how much time I spend thinking, writing and speaking about exactly this.

It’d be easy to go all beard-strokey on this – to say something like “well, it’s actually more of a process than a thing and looks different in every context” and then waffle more until the question goes away but given how seriously lots of good people are about inclusion right now doing that would be ducking a responsibility.

So here goes.

There’s a damaging myth about inclusion which adds overcomplication and makes it appear hard to do – even frightening.

The myth is in inclusive mainstream classrooms lots of children should do lots of different things in lots of different ways.

Some may be working on coloured paper.

Some may be wearing headphones or using computers or tablets. Some may be using fiddle toys while others sit on beanbags on the floor. The teacher may not be instructing the whole class – instead they will be using different methods with different pupils. Occasionally overstimulated children who need a break leave the room quietly to stand outside while the re-regulate before rejoining the class.

All children – of course – will be doing what they are told by their teacher and the room will have a cheerful productive hum about it.

If this vision sounds familiar it’s because it is.

It’s what teacher training twenty or so years ago held up as the ideal.

This vision – extensively adapting for individuals – has never gone away and is in tension with whole class instruction methods.

It’s easy to see why it’s still here.

SEND support is built around conceptions of “additional/different” that imply inclusion means different for different children.

It’s driven by the work of non-teacher professionals who assess and find strategies for individuals and seem to rarely if ever consider how these work in a class of thirty – perhaps because their conception of a classroom is aligned to the same vision I’ve just described as a myth.

And it is myth.

As much as we might want the truth to be different lots of children doing lots of different things is chaos.

Teachers know this.

It means confusion. It means an unreasonable workload. It means accusations of favouritism. It means hidden and open resentments and it means an inability to establish and set up predictable disciplinary systems that allow for lots of people to be in the same room successfully doing things together.

It’s been attempted so many times and it doesn’t work.

And when it fails who suffers most?

It isn’t the children who find learning easiest – those who read the textbook and quickly grasp what is in it.

It isn’t the children who intuitively understand what it means to behave well – who know they shouldn’t swear and that however chaotic the classroom feels they still need to finish the worksheet.

No.

Those who suffer most – in a terrible irony – are those for which the system is apparently designed for.

And too often –when classrooms begin to fray and then come apart at the seams we double down on our initial mistakes.

“We haven’t adapted enough!”, we say.

“We need to focus more on the individual needs of more of our kids!” – as if it were possible to additional/different our way out of the disorderly and perhaps even unsafe culture that’s taken hold of the room.

So, what’s better? If not this then what does an inclusive classroom look like?

There isn’t a jazzy or clever answer because inclusive classrooms tend to look like any genuinely good classroom.

Calm. Quiet. Orderly. Predictable. Clear.

The teacher explains things and then tells children explicitly what to do.

They maintain standards.

They know the children in the room as individuals and target just the right question to just the right pupil.

In the quiet and calm they can go to the child they know doesn’t usually grasp things first time around and explain again. This is such a matter of routine it’s not seen as particularly noteworthy or remarkable, which means the child receiving the extra help they need maintains their dignity.

Of course, a calm, quiet, orderly, predictable and clear classroom is not inevitably inclusive.  

It is possible that the teacher leaves those who find learning harder to flounder and struggle alone in cold silence – but without calm it’s just not possible for the most vulnerable to ever be truly included, and order creates the intellectual and emotional space for schools to best support those who most require targeted expertise.

I know – believe me – how hard it can be to stay level and positive – to even think straight when you’re hot and bothered and trying to put out dozens of fires. And I know how much children who find learning harder can appear challenging – and how much they need us to be level and positive when things overwhem them.

So when I’m asked what an inclusive classroom looks like I want to first ask whether it’s a good classroom? Is the teacher good enough to be inclusive if they want to be? Are they happy? Do they want to be there?  Is the school culture supportive enough for teachers to be good?

Only when we can confidently answer “yes” to these questions are we ready to start thinking about what to do differently for different children – and even then no amount of adaptation can compensate for environments in which teachers are so stressed all they can focus on is the immediate moment and surviving the day.

Inclusive classrooms are first good classrooms.

When we aren’t good, inclusion is impossible.

When we try, we overcomplicate.

And there’s already far too much of that.