[RTL ASSIGNMENT 2 – ADAM THOMPSON - 18146035] 1

Tutorial: Wednesday 3pm – Paul

Group 2 – Promoting inclusive education in a diverse secondary classroom.
Sub-Topic – What factors of educational policies facilitate or hinder inclusive
education in classrooms.

To provide a safe, secure and engaging learning environment that allows students to
develop, learn and enhance their knowledge is essentially the core aim for teachers
and educators. However each individual student is different and the way each student
accesses learning, content and knowledge is different. Many students have additional
needs including but not limited to disabilities and disadvantage such as gender,
poverty, ethnicity and geographic isolation. As a result of these additional needs these
students face barriers in accessing the learning materials and content required to
succeed within their development, therefore it becomes the responsibility of their
educator to ensure sufficient measures are implemented to ensure students are
adequately supported and provided the required tools to overcome these barriers and
create and inclusive classroom that provides to all of its students and their diverse
needs and learning abilities. However in order to complete this at a satisfactory
standard teachers need to have the support of their school and educational department,
this may be in the form of funding, resources and policies to mandate correct
procedures. Conducting a review of the literature surrounding educational policy of
inclusion within Australia, it becomes evident there is a gap. This gap in educational
policies is resulting in a hindrance to how teachers can best support their marginalized
students and provides an inclusive setting.

The literature focusing on educational policies within Australia has an explicit focus
on disability and the inclusion of students with special needs within mainstream
classrooms. However there is a clear outline within the review that these exists to be a
gap within the Australian educational policies surrounding a complete inclusion of all
students, as is the case in Latin American countries in which they have extended the
concept of ‘special education’ beyond traditional disability categories, adopting a
much broader definition of a student with special educational needs as one who in
comparison with his or her peers, has difficulties learning the established curriculum
content and as a result requires additional or alternate resources (Mitchell, 2009).
There remains a general consensus established from the literature surrounding the

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inclusive educational policies within Australia, that there is an ongoing gap with there
being only one explicit inclusive policy in place, this being the Disability Standards
for Education (2005). These standards were formulated under the Disability
Discrimination Act 1992 with the primary purpose of the standards to explicitly
outline the obligations of education and training providers and intended to give
students with disabilities the same rights as other students. The standards focus on
enrolment, participation, curriculum development and accreditation. These standards
came into action as a result of the Salamanca statement and framework for action on
special needs education (UNESCO, 1994). The Salamanca brought together 300
participants representing 92 governments including Australia with the objective of
education for all by considering the fundamental policy shifts required to promote the
approach of inclusive education, enabling all schools to serve all children particularly
those with special educational needs (McMaster, 2013) since the Salamanca Australia
has seen a considerable shift towards inclusive schools and classrooms, however
inclusive education is a complex and problematic concept, this has been made evident
within Australia, mainly as a result of the historical context with Mitchell (2009)
outlining the powerful special schools system in Queensland having a significant and
negative impact on the spread of inclusive education. This has resulted in a tension
between new inclusive education policies and the adherence to old special education
perspectives; this is evident surrounding the large special schools sector in
Queensland (Mitchell, 2009). The educational system in Australia is the responsibility
of individual states and territories (Forlin, 2006). However the Australian federal
government is becoming increasingly influential in school education to the point
where state governments are sidelined in some of the most important aspects of
education (Buckingham, 2013). With the federal government-controlling curriculum
and testing through the implementation of the national curriculum and standardized
testing, current research suggests this approach is opposing to any form of inclusive
educational policy.

The current research outlines the strong inclusive educational policies surrounding
disabled students, however there is an overarching recognition of the gap within these
policies surrounding the inclusion of all students and how this is mandated and
regulated within schools. Whilst there have been momentous changes and inclusion
within mainstream classes as a direct result of the Disability Standards inclusive
policy, there remains to be large numbers of disadvantaged and marginalized students
whose needs must also be met. Including the rising issue within Australia for the

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disparate representation of indigenous groups with many young people from both city
schools and remote communities dropping out before the end of compulsory
education ((Forlin, Chambers, Loreman, Deppeler & Sharma, 2018). The literature
surrounding inclusive educational policies outlines that whilst the Disability
Standards facilitates inclusive learning within classrooms, without any specific
policies on inclusion for other disadvantaged or marginalized students educators will
be hindered. This is outlined through the literatures focus on teachers perceptions of
inclusive education (Subhan & Sharma, 2006) as outlining the profound implications
inclusive education has in mainstream settings as they face increased pressure to
perform to a wider set of roles than in previous generations, along with being
expected to rise to the challenge of an increasingly diverse classroom and adjusting
their teaching strategies to accommodate. It would also appear that older, more
experienced teachers demonstrate less positive attitudes than younger teachers
(Subhan & Sharma, 2006). This perhaps comes as a lack of training in an inclusive
field. Whilst Loreman (2009) states “Inclusion is difficult, and demands levels of
support that school staff often find are not there. But this is no reason to not include,
because children with diverse learning needs are entitled to the same education as all
other children regardless of such pressures. While acknowledging that inclusion is not
easy, neither is it impossible, and there are many rewards for those teachers, staff, and
administrators who decide to be positive about the approach”. There are a range of
provisions available to schools within NSW enabling access for a range of students as
a result of the Disability Standards for Education Act (2005) these include access to
special schools, classes within regular schools and funding to support students in
regular classrooms (NSW Government, 2012). A recent report compiled by the NSW
Legislative Council (2010) described supports to students with disability in
mainstream schools as consisting of “…the school learning support team, the
Learning Assistance Program, the Integration Funding Support Program, the School
Learning Support Coordinator, and the proposed School Learning Support Program”.
The role of each of these supports is to assist the classroom teacher to adapt and
modify curriculum and environments to ensure students with disability can access
them appropriately (Forlin, 2013). Along with this schools have access to
supplementary funding for students with disability, this is determined under a needs-
based system. These initiatives provide sufficient levels of support to foster and
generate inclusion within classrooms, allowing teacher’s access to appropriate
resources, funding, services and support to ensure the success of their students with
special needs. However as outlined within the literature and current research it is
recognized that there is a gap in creating a complete inclusive based educational
policy, with the current policy only targeting a specific set of students. Thus as a
result of this many schools are left to create their own policies and strategies to ensure
all of their students are adequately supported and all of their student’s educational and
developmental needs are met.

Based on the literature and current research in place surrounding the educational
policies implemented within Australia to ensure educators and teachers are providing
inclusive classrooms for all their students, there are policies and standards in place
that ensure engagement. These policies have come a long way to provide inclusivity
to disabled and special needs students to ensure these students are treated as equals

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within mainstream schooling. The policies and standards in place ensure teachers and
educators explicitly understand the guidelines and requirements necessary to support
these specific students. These are mandated to ensure obligations and compliance is
met along with being set under the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers,
which requires teachers (including graduate teachers) to identify and use strategies
which differentiate learning for students with disability (Standard 1.5), to understand
the legislation in regards to students with disability (Standard 1.6), and to support the
inclusive participation and engagement of students with disability (Standard 4.1)
(Australian Institute for Teaching and School leadership, 2012). All of these policies
and standards ensure teachers are facilitating an inclusive classroom for their students
with a disability, however the consensus from the current literature on this matter is
that there is not a complete framework of inclusivity. There is no explicit policy from
each state or territory to outline how to provide a complete inclusivity to all students
regardless of their disadvantage or barrier they may face. Ultimately leading to
teachers not having requirements or guidelines to follow when attempting to foster an
inclusive setting. This may lead to many teachers being un-compliant and not meeting
their obligations to these students. If there were to be an educational policy
surrounding a complete inclusion teachers and educators would have an explicit
understanding of the standards expected along with resources, support and tools to be
assist their students.

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Data collection Protocol

Dear Potential Participant:

I am working on a project titled “promoting inclusive education in a diverse classroom” for
the class, ‘Researching Teaching and Learning 2,’ at Western Sydney University. As part of
the project, I am collecting information to help inform the design of a teacher research
proposal.

Our topic aims to understand how educators can best support their students within a
classroom that provides to the needs of all its students. Each student is different and comes
from a diverse background to their peer, in turn with this each student learns differently and
as a result it is up to their classroom teacher to understand how to best assist all their
students through providing different learning methods and strategies. What we are looking
to learn from todays interview is how you as a future classroom teacher or current
classroom teacher cater to the needs of all your students. We are looking to use an interview
style to gather your own personal insights, opinion and strategies on how best support all
learners.

By signing this form I acknowledge that:

 I have read the project information and have been given the opportunity to discuss
the information and my involvement in the project with the researcher/s.
 The procedures required for the project and the time involved has been explained to
me, and any questions I have about the project have been answered to my
satisfaction.
 I consent to answering a series of detailed questions in a semi-structured interview.
 I understand that my involvement is confidential and that the information gained
during this data collection experience will only be reported within the confines of
the ‘Researching Teaching and Learning 2’ unit, and that all personal details will be
de-identified from the data.
 I understand that I can withdraw from the project at any time, without affecting my
relationship with the researcher/s, now or in the future.

By signing below, I acknowledge that I am 18 years of age or older, or I am a full-time

university student who is 17 years old.
Signed: __________________________________
Name: __________________________________
Date: __________________________________

By signing below, I acknowledge that I am the legal guardian of a person who is 16 or 17

years old, and provide my consent for the person’s participation.
Signed: __________________________________
Name: __________________________________
Date: __________________________________

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Explanation
I will be looking to interview three participants, with two of the participants being a
veteran teachers with over 10 years teaching experience, the intention of having
teachers with a large amount of experience is to essentially utilise their experience to
understand their knowledge of the policies and standards in place to ensure all
students are working in an inclusive classroom. The intention of having educators
with large experience will be to gather if they can establish any changes over their
teaching career and develop the amount of correlation between the policy changes and
classroom changes. This experienced educator will become necessary in establishing
their own personal opinions surrounding how supportive the educational policies
become, if the educator believes it places a large amount of extra workload as
established within the literature review or if they feel the policy provides support
through resources and funding. Along with this it will be essential to gather based on
their teaching experience if they believe that a complete inclusive educational policy
should be implemented to ensure all students educational and developmental needs
are met. This question will lead into establishing if they believe at the present moment
what impact not having a complete policy has on their own teaching practice and if it
is a hindrance or facilitator. The third participant will be an educator with less than
three years teaching experience; the intention of this length of time will be to establish
a difference in teaching experiences and also education. This will be done to establish
if there has been a change surrounding policy affecting pre-service through to
proficient educators. There will still continue to be interview questions surrounding
their opinions on policy changes and the affects this has on their own teaching
practice, with regards to its supportiveness or hindrance. For all participants,
questions surrounding training and development activities based on inclusive
classrooms will be asked and through the use of a semi structured style of
questioning, these questions may be altered or probed further to enable deeper
questioning and establish complete insights.
The use of semi-structured interview was chosen to allow a formal interview process
with guided questions, which allow flexibility. This was chosen as the answers that I
am looking for are very personal and opinion based coming from teaching experience,
thus requiring further extension questions where necessary. The interview process
was chosen specifically to align with this reason and gather professional’s personal

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experiences, strategies and insights. They have the ability to outline what specific
impacts inclusive educational policies have on their day-to-day teachings. Other data
collection methods don’t have the ability to gather first hand detailed insights and
personal experiences. Other methods of data collection would have been restrictive in
the amount of detailed evidence and information able to be obtained; this method
enables specific insights and comparisons in experiences and perspectives. Whilst the
interview process only allows a small scale of participants, it does however enable
comparison and a development of trends in answers and perspectives from the small
scale provided along with gathering specific personal experiences and teaching
strategies and impacts.

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References
Buckingham, J. (2013). Education policy trends in Australia. Independence, 38(2).

Disability Standards For Education 2005. (2005). Retrieved from

https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/disability_standards_for_education_2005
_guidance_notes.pdf

Forlin, C. (2006). Inclusive education in Australia ten years after Salamanca. European
Journal Of Psychology Of Education, 21(3), 265-277. doi: 10.1007/bf03173415

Forlin, C. (2013). Issues of Inclusive Education in the 21st Century. Journal Of Learning
Science, 2(11).

Forlin, C., Chambers, D., Loreman, T., Deppeler, J., & Sharma, U. (2018). Inclusive
Education for Students with Disability: A review of the best evidence in relation to theory and
practice. The Australian Government Department Of Education, Employment And Workplace
Relations..

Lorneman, T. (2009). Straight talk about Inclusive Education. CASS Connections.

McMaster, C. (2013). Building inclusion from the ground up: a review of whole school re-
culturing programmes for sustaining inclusive change. International Journal Of Whole
Schooling, 9(2).

Mitchell, D. (2009). Contextualizing inclusive education. Abingdon: Routledge.

Subhan, P., & Sharma, U. (2006). Primary school teachers perception of inclusive education
in Victoria. Australia. International Journal Of Special Education.