What is the Index for Inclusion?

The Index for Inclusion is a set of materials to guide schools through a process of inclusive school development. The Index for Inclusion can be understood as a set of three linked processes, described below:

1. Increasing the participation and reducing the exclusion of all
2. Increasing the capacity of settings and systems to respond to diversity in ways that value everyone equally
3. Putting inclusive values into action

Features of the approach to inclusion in the Index are summarised below:

• Putting inclusive values into action
• Viewing every life and every death as of equal worth
• Supporting everyone to feel that they belong
• Increasing participation for children and adults in learning and teaching activities, relationships and communities of local schools
• Reducing exclusion, discrimination, barriers to learning and participation
• Restructuring cultures, policies and practices to respond to diversity in ways that value everyone equally
• Linking education to local and global realities
• Learning from the reduction of barriers for some children to benefit children more widely
• Viewing differences between children and between adults as resources for learning
• Acknowledging the right of children to an education of high quality in their locality
• Improving schools for staff and parents/carers as well as children
• Emphasising the development of school communities and values, as well as achievements
• Fostering mutually sustaining relationships between schools and surrounding communities
• Recognising that inclusion in education is one aspect of inclusion in society

This approach to inclusion is unending, requiring an ongoing commitment to inclusion by all.