The Inclusion Quality Standards is not about the children already successfully included in settings across Preston. Instead, the focus is on increasing opportunities for those children who are still facing disadvantage. Children who may carry labels that lead to negative attitudes, and those treated less fairly – and who consequently participate less fully. More importantly it is about delivering a quality services to all children, one that enables the autonomy that is fundamental to increased life chances.

1. Inclusion Quality Standards
The Inclusion Quality Standards is not about the children already successfully
included in settings across Preston. Instead, the focus is on increasing opportunities
for those children who are still facing disadvantage. Children who may carry labels
that lead to negative attitudes, and those treated less fairly – and who consequently
participate less fully. More importantly it is about delivering a quality services to all
children, one that enables the autonomy that is fundamental to increased life
chances.
Product Brief
To customise an Inclusion Quality Standards tool, to be used within mainstream and
specialist child settings, to help support children with any need. To enable play and
childcare workers to observe and assess children within a setting and reassess
support allocation in line with child’s experience of setting, and if appropriate, reduce
or increase support.

2. Inclusion Quality Standards Aims
Inclusive practice addresses the needs of all children. Within the Inclusion Quality
Standards, community cohesion is implicit and the positive action favouring disabled
young people is explicit. Policies and changes in practice should address both the
disadvantages of the few, whilst enhancing wellbeing for all young people. By
changing practice to ensuring all young people’s needs are met in a flexible way the
Inclusion Quality Standards will help provide a service more grounded in ethical
commitment than compliance.
Background
The Inclusion Quality Standards has been developed to ensure that the principles
underpinning equality are fully extended to all children across all settings in order to
address both gaps in provision and to raise standards. A rights based approach will
underpin practitioner development within the context of daily activity, in order to
secure reflective practice and develop new confidence to support every child’s
development.
Underpinned by robust equality and play theory the Inclusion Quality Standards
helps practitioners who wish to respond to children more effectively and
appropriately given any level of support. While most settings are compliant by
adhering to the law, for many the outcomes that require ethical Commitment to
children’s rights can be difficult to address. When it comes to vulnerable children a
positive and proactive approach becomes particularly important where support can
be threatened by wider financial and organisational pressures. Access to play
opportunities is a fundamental human right, and therefore the strategies that promote

3. more active participation within a child-centred approach are critical to achieving the
ethical practice of a rights approach. Although practitioners cannot legislate for every
aspect of a child's life and potential happiness; if they can do something that will
enhance their happiness then there is a duty to do so. Aiming to articulate more
congruently principles in practice can help children to be happy in the present and
flourish in the future.
According to the Lamb report, despite understanding the theory, many practitioners
still have trouble putting it into practice. Often despite genuine support for inclusive
values, it is the transition from theory to practice where the real challenge lies.
Practitioners struggle with the task of shaping services to children, young people and
their families. Within the Inclusion Quality Standards, ‘predict-and-prevent’ is a key
principle and underpins the policy cycle, because changing guidelines and rules are
part of a flexible service delivery. The Inclusion Quality Standards will help
professionals find a way of working that enables deeper change through reflective
practice and action learning. This cycle of observation, planning and review, has a
positive impact on the wellbeing of all the children in every setting. The Inclusion
Quality Standards is not about passive policy, it is about discovering, understanding,
evolving intelligent solutions to real issues and creating a shared vision that has a
positive impact on the organisations culture.
Inclusion Quality Standards - Objectives
• To highlight the importance of planning activities to include all children.
• Review the principles of inclusive practice
• To observe impact of current practice.

4. • To develop new ideas to create opportunities that promote autonomy for all
children.
• To explore how policy can positively encourage children, play workers, volunteers
and parents and carers to take part in wider play opportunities.
• To recognise that equality issues are an essential part of policy and are
underpinned by legislation.
• To consider the importance of risk to development, creativity and wellbeing, and
develop strategies that develop risk to enhance participation.
Developing Inclusive Practice in Preston
Within the Inclusion Quality Standards the term ‘inclusive practice’ will be used,
rather than ‘inclusion’, in order to reflect the emphasis on continued improvement.
Based on research this demonstrates the evaluation, review and practice change
required for ongoing development. In contrast to the idea that inclusion is target to be
reached and then considered to be finished. Supported by the Inclusion Quality
Standards practitioners will be encouraged to examine their own behaviour in order
to take further steps towards increasingly better practice. Ultimately, to ensure that
all children and families are treated fairly irrespective of their differences. Inclusive
practice is a journey towards the development of an ‘inclusive culture’ where rather
than offering an alternative to what already exists, we build on current good practice,
moving towards a personalized service that respects children’s individuality.
This Play Support Protocol will help develop specific strategies to change a setting’s
culture giving a richer, more enjoyable experience. The extent to which children’s
wellbeing is taken seriously and perceived as an indicator or a measure of success
will determine its priority as an outcome of best practice.

5. Best Value – Estimate Costing
Inclusion Quality Standards – customisation
First meeting – allow ½ day
4-6 days work over 1-2 months to produce full draft document for review - 3 hard
copies.
Allow 2 days for review by practitioners, followed by feedback session (30 people)
Includes 2 days - copywriting, edit and modification on based professionals’ needs.
Final delivery – document for print in pdf / word format + hard copy.
Total maximum estimate: £4 000
The fee can be reduced depending on practitioners involvement.
(Fees based on £500 per day per consultancy, excluding expenses, travel or
additional hours). VAT will be added to each invoice at the current rate.

7. EQuality Training – information
The core business of EQuality Training is to deliver high quality programmes in equality and
inclusion. Our training programmes are grounded in robust equality theory. They provide
the framework and guidance that enables positive change to working practice. All our
experience is therefore specific to delivering equalities training and facilitating learning
around equalities issues.
Understanding Equality
From an equality perspective this positive action based programme identifies the
marginalised groups within the community and seeks to develop specific action to promote
their inclusion. It will support people towards a deeper understanding of the meaning of
equality. This course aims to help participants develop a clearer understanding of fair
practice and feel confident and competent in taking action to eliminate unfair practice. It
will help to embed ways of celebrating difference within policy and practice, and develop
Tools for Change in their own organisation. By the end of the course, participants will have
practical ongoing strategies to develop their own inclusive practise.
Our Approach
EQuality Training delivers bespoke programmes that match the needs of each client group.
We take care and time to explore the requirements in detail and create the right blend of
programme elements to deliver the aims identified by the client. With our fundamental
belief in sustainable shared leadership we offer stakeholders the control to shape their own
learning through active participation and dialogue. An EQuality Training programme is not
about passively receiving information. It’s about discovering, understanding, evolving
intelligent solutions to real issues and creating a shared vision that enables change.
For 10 years Equality and Diversity has been the core business of EQuality training. Our
ongoing professional development has included published research, programme
development and peer mentoring with other professionals. We are leaders in this field
because we make sure we keep abreast of new developments and evolving ideas through a

8. wide network of other organisations.
At EQuality Training we are deeply committed to the value of equality, and our mission is to
improve the life chances of whole communities through the development of inclusive
practice. We wish to furnish all with the understanding and confidence to challenge
discrimination and remove the barriers in society that so many people face. We are
advocates for social justice. We have achieved this by making sure Equality and Diversity
theory is evident throughout our policies, working documents, codes of practice and
training materials.
Learning is everything
We identify the starting point for each learner by asking each group to identify their learning
outcomes – we do not impose ours. We appreciate each learner will have different needs,
therefore it is up to us to deliver to these needs. We do not impose a rigid teaching style, we
offer different ways for participants to engage. Each learner is given an opportunity to
experience their preferred learning style in any session, and we check in at the end of each
learning activity in order to personalize the teaching increasingly as we go through the
programme.
Our teaching is underpinned by our definition of Inclusive Practice:
To reach equity, equal outcomes for each learner, respecting learner equality requires
deliberate action, it is this strategy we call inclusive practice. This way of working enables all
participants to be accommodated and for diversity and difference to be respected. It is
through deliberate intervention that we help secure equity for every learner irrespective of
ability or circumstance.
Inclusive practice is an organic process: rather than offering an alternative views or right
answers, it builds new perspectives by developing a shared dialogue. It is vital that inclusive
practice is not understood as a tool to ‘mainstream’ the difficult or the needy. Crucially,
teaching practice needs to change and become a personalized service, within a nurturing
culture that respects learner individuality and diversity.
Inclusion: personalisation applies equally to the gifted and talented and those with special needs. In

9. many ways it offers a powerful strategy to ensure optimum provision for all young people that is
geared to their particular needs and talents. (www.ncsl.org.uk/personalisinglearning p 8)
Inclusive practice is rooted in person-centred-planning. As Bunch describes how Canada has
shifted from a teaching service to learner-centred organisations with an approach rooted in
rights and values:
Where inclusive education in Canada is successful, all learners are viewed as true learners, true
learners at their own levels of ability. Learning more powerfully than most, as with students labelled
gifted or talented is still learning. Learning more modestly than most, also, is still learning. (Bunch,
2005, p 6)
Ultimately, inclusive practice will vary for every group, department, organisation and
delivery should always be unique to every individual student.
Our courses are practical and action based. We identify and share good practice, using this
as a starting point for development. All participants are given a vision of joint responsibility
where equality is the responsibility of all, and are encouraged to find solutions to barriers in
their own practice. Practitioners focus on the diversity of their customer base and gather
ideas about how to support each other and develop their knowledge base with regard to
meeting customer need. Skills that participants wish to develop are addressed and an
overview of action planning is given. This provides a framework in which actual next steps
become a reality within a planned timeframe.
Recent and Ongoing Work
Inclusive play - Aiming High for Disabled Children in the Wirral: A series of
training days for a mixed audience of childcare providers, social workers, play
leaders and children’s services, with aims to signpost disabled children into
mainstream provision and to improve wellbeing of all children within play setting,
afternoon clubs and seasonal schemes.
Everyone Can Play – Bradford Play Service: over a number of years, these
sessions were deliver to increased playworkers knowledge of Disability Equality

10. more specifically with playwork, by removing barriers and increasing participant
knowledge of children’s rights.
Disability Equality Training – NSPCC. The aim is for a more personalised and
flexible service for all children. This session gives a step-by-step tour of these
important and compulsory legislations and leads to a secure understanding of the
roots of all equality policies and procedures.
Culture change and inclusive practice at Bradford University: Workshops that
address understanding of the length and possibility of change needed to achieve
inclusive practice. One in which the importance of directly involving marginalised
groups in policy and service provision is critical. The intentional concept shift away
from assimilation accepts inclusive practice as improving community life and guided
by a desire to create a healthier organisation.
Equality & Diversity workshop: Delivery of an ongoing series of Equality and
Diversity training days to practitioners from the Pre-school Learning Alliance in
Rotherham. Themes included equality, personalizing participation, community
involvement to audiences of childminders, early years workers and play workers.
East Riding Disabled Children’s Services, Inclusion Training and ECM: For a
wide audience including participants from Extended Schools, Early Years, Youth
Centres, SENCOs, Childminding Provision, local Police Service and Health Service
Managers. This ongoing series of training days gives a personal understanding of
legislation that participants can use to improve their working practice.
Equality (single-strand) day workshop: Delivery of Disability Equality Training to
Bradford Department of Services to Children and Young People across all five
regions. The session gave an understanding of the current legislation with reference
to local strategy, and began to map out a vision of an inclusive service.
Terminology
Every person is different, and every person has different needs, by meeting
everyone’s needs inclusive practice insures rights come as a human entitlement

11. ‘Disabled Children’ is a term deliberately written with capital letters, to emphasise the
point that ‘Disabled’ is both an appropriate and political term for people who face
oppression and segregation on a day to day basis.
The material does not deal with specific conditions related to different impairments,
the focus is on social barriers not medical problems. (based on the Social Model and
Medical Model of Disability).