All posts tagged: inclusive

Pembrokeshire school proposal to create more inclusive education for local families – Humanists UK

Pembrokeshire school proposal to create more inclusive education for local families – Humanists UK

Published by Sam Flores

Pembrokeshire County Council has voted to change a Church in Wales into a community school without a religious character, a change that would better reflect the beliefs of local families and make sure education is equally inclusive for everyone, regardless of religion or belief. Wales Humanists welcomes this move, which would remove church status from Cilgerran Voluntary Controlled Primary School. The proposal has prompted legal action from the Church in Wales and a threat to ‘not make the school site available for a successor community school’. Faith schools are often located on church land, but buildings are developed and maintained by local councils using taxpayer funds. The council has said it hopes to resolve the land ownership and occupation rights before any change is implemented. The school is currently 25% under capacity and the long-term viability needs to be the priority. Wales Humanists has written to Pembrokeshire County Council expressing its support for the proposal on behalf of the area’s substantial non-religious community. According to the 2021 Census, almost half of people in Pembrokeshire identified …

Ofsted: Grammar schools are inclusive

Ofsted: Grammar schools are inclusive

Published by skeptic

Ofsted has branded every grammar school inspected so far under its new framework as inclusive, prompting a backlash from social mobility campaigners. Schools with very small numbers of pupils with SEND and with free school meals rates at a fraction of the national average are among those judged as ‘expected standard’ or even ‘strong standard’ for inclusion. Inspectors began rating schools on inclusion when the new framework launched last year.  Source link

Pupil ‘clustering’ threatens inclusive mainstream aim

Pupil ‘clustering’ threatens inclusive mainstream aim

Published by skeptic

Ministers’ ambition to meet the needs of more pupils in their local mainstream school won’t be met while pupils with SEND continue to be clustered “in a subset of settings”, a report has warned. The National Foundation for Educational Research said the government must monitor the distribution of pupils with SEND across the school system and “prioritise a more even spread across schools” to support the ambition for “local” suitable places. Bridget Phillipson and her team have put making mainstream schools more inclusive at the heart of their SEND reforms. But today’s report casts doubt on that aim, warning pupils with SEND are “unevenly distributed across mainstream schools and that unevenness is growing”. “The white paper’s focus on access to a suitable place in a local school will not be met while pupils with SEND continue to cluster in a subset of settings,” the report said. They said academy trusts and councils “should therefore routinely monitor the distribution of pupils with EHCPs and SEN support across schools within local areas (including in-year movement) and use …

Some schools will get under £6k inclusive mainstream cash

Some schools will get under £6k inclusive mainstream cash

Published by skeptic

Almost one in 10 primary schools are set to receive less than £6,000 in annual funding to support pupils with SEND, with heads warning it’ll do little more than balance the books. During the next three years, schools will receive their share of a £1.6 billion “inclusive mainstream fund” (IMF) that is aimed at making mainstream schools more inclusive for pupils with additional needs. The Department for Education has not published a full breakdown of school-level allocations, but has issued a spreadsheet calculator allowing leaders to see their setting’s 2026-27 provisional allocation. Source link

Ofsted ‘more likely to downgrade inclusive schools’ – NAHT

Ofsted ‘more likely to downgrade inclusive schools’ – NAHT

Published by skeptic

Ofsted is more likely to downgrade schools with poorer intakes or more pupils with SEND for their achievement, attendance and behaviour, new union analysis suggests. The use of national averages to grade achievement and attendance in the new Ofsted framework has caused criticism from leaders since it launched in December. They argue it is unfair on more inclusive schools and could penalise those serving disadvantaged communities. New analysis of 650 Ofsted inspections by school leaders’ union NAHT has renewed these concerns. To achieve the middle ‘expected standard’ grade for attendance and behaviour, overall attendance must be “broadly in line with national averages or shows an improving trend over time”, according to Ofsted’s inspection toolkit. Meanwhile the ‘expected standard’ for achievement requires pupils’ attainment and progress in national tests and exams “are broadly in line with national averages”. Schools with higher disadvantage graded down NAHT’s analysis shows one-third of schools with above-average pupil eligibility for free school meals – a proxy measure of deprivation – received a ‘needs attention’ judgment for achievement. Meanwhile, less than one-fifth (18 …

ASEAN countries won’t take sides in US-China rivalry, want region kept open and inclusive: PM Wong

ASEAN countries won’t take sides in US-China rivalry, want region kept open and inclusive: PM Wong

Published by Sam Flores

FRIENDS WITH ALL Touching on Japan-China ties and the back-to-back timing of his visits to Tokyo last week and Hainan and Hong Kong this week, Mr Wong acknowledged that the two countries “are going through a difficult phase in their relations”. “But from Singapore’s point of view, we are friends with both China and Japan. For that matter, with America and other major partners,” he said. While major powers may have difficulties in their relations with one another, Singapore’s goal is to remain friends with all of them – and Mr Wong said he believes that this is possible. “That is our approach, has always been our approach consistently, and we will continue to find ways to engage all these major powers, deepen our cooperation further and look for win-win outcomes,” he said. On the timing of his China visit, Mr Wong said it was not pre-planned. His Japan trip had originally been set for last year but was delayed due to scheduling difficulties. Once dates were eventually agreed upon – after Japan’s elections earlier …

Efforts to make AI inclusive accidentally create bizarre new gender biases, new research suggests

Efforts to make AI inclusive accidentally create bizarre new gender biases, new research suggests

Published by José Betancourt

New research published in Computers in Human Behavior Reports suggests that efforts to make artificial intelligence more inclusive can sometimes create unexpected new biases. The scientists found that popular artificial intelligence models tend to overattribute stereotypically masculine behaviors to female characters and judge violence against women as significantly more objectionable than violence against men. These findings provide evidence that programming models to be sensitive to gender equity might accidentally introduce extreme ethical inconsistencies. Scientists initiated this research to better understand how artificial intelligence systems handle gender and morality after their initial training. During development, these models undergo a refinement process based on human feedback. This process involves human reviewers grading the system’s answers to teach it preferred behaviors, like avoiding offensive language or promoting inclusivity. The scientists suspected that this human feedback phase might teach the models to be highly sensitive to specific cultural priorities. Specifically, they thought the models might focus heavily on including women in traditionally male spaces and protecting women from harm. “There has been a growing public debate about whether AI …

Medieval chess was more inclusive than the world around it

Medieval chess was more inclusive than the world around it

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Chess is widely seen as a great equalizer. Players from every social, racial, and economic class have squared off across the board for nearly 1,500 years, with victories determined solely by skill and strategy. Unfortunately, the egalitarian foundations of chess are rarely reflected beyond the game itself. During the Middle Ages, for example, many contemporary accounts from both Christian and Muslim societies depicted their opposing side as barbaric, blasphemous, and inferior. However, recent reexaminations of medieval artwork are complicating these assumptions. After reviewing a range of artwork from Europe and the Middle East, Cambridge University historian Krisztina Ilko believes that chess players on either side of the board were well aware of the game’s capacity to humanize and humble. As she explained in a study recently awarded the Medieval Academy of America’s Article Prize in Critical Race Studies, chess has bridged cultural divides and subverted stereotypes at least as far back as the 13th century. Abu’l Qasim Firdausi, ‘Buzurgmihr …

Gay Muslim influencer hosts inclusive Ramadan meal and calls for acceptance across faiths

Gay Muslim influencer hosts inclusive Ramadan meal and calls for acceptance across faiths

Published by Sam Flores

BERLIN (AP) — Ali Darwich, a gay Muslim influencer in Berlin, picks up a date from his plate, takes a sip of water, and addresses the 15 friends sitting around the table and breaking the Ramadan fast with him. The 33-year-old German with Palestinian and Lebanese roots — who goes by @alifragt or “Ali asks” on Instagram — has a quickly growing following on Instagram, where he draws attention to the difficulties of living as a young, queer Muslim and calls for more tolerance and inclusiveness. “Tonight we want to send a message that no matter where a person comes from, no matter who that person loves, no matter how queer that person is, they cannot be too queer … because they are exactly as they should be,” Darwich says, smiling at the diverse group of Muslims and Christians, Germans and immigrants, gay and straight people sharing this meal with him as the sun sets over Berlin. “I am a believer, I believe in God, and I find Islam beautiful, just like Christianity or Judaism and many …

Give heads what they need to make inclusive mainstream work

Give heads what they need to make inclusive mainstream work

Published by skeptic

SEND reforms must allow heads to address the needs of children they know best, without having to wait for someone who doesn’t know them to tell them what to do, writes Cathie Paine. For years, parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities have been frustrated and anxious. At the same time, staff in schools have been going above and beyond to cope with the growing challenges. Rising need, increasing complexity, stretched specialist resources, and an unsustainable system that’s struggling to keep pace with what’s best for children. So it’s absolutely right that the government wrestles with all of this and that everyone involved in education gets to reimagine what truly inclusive practice looks like. We don’t know all the detail yet but based on what we do know from the media briefings so far, it looks really encouraging. The outcomes aren’t good When a child is struggling, we currently have to wait to prove that child has failed before we can access funding for them. Even when the system does support the children …