What are the fundamentals for building an inclusive school? José Miguel Freitas from Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal speaks about the essential conditions for ensuring access to all students.

1. School Leadership and Inclusion
Team ESE/IPS
Speaker: José Miguel Freitas

2. Summary
• Key concepts
• Inclusion
• School organiza?on
• School Leadership
• Emerging ac1on dimensions of the leadership prac1ces
• SeBng direc?on
• Professional development
• Redesigning the organiza?on
• Monitoring the teaching and learning programs
• Final Remarks

3. Popula?on between 18-24 that have not finished high school level and is
not registered in educa?on and training programs in EU-28, in 2015 (%)
Introduc?on

4. Inclusion and drop out
• Speaking of early school leavers implies talking about
inclusion;
• Speaking of inclusion implies discuss the diverse types of
rela?onships between what is “different” and what is
“normal”;
• In educa?onal seBngs there is a tendency to consider as
"normal" students that learn and progress through the
academic curriculum and behave in a expected way to
achieve this goals
• All students who escape this standard are likely to be
considered and "labeled" as different
• Many of these students are in risk of drop out

5. Inclusion and normality
In recent years it was reinforced:
• The right of all students to be included in “regular” classes;
• The duty of a school to ensure the greatest number of
students condi?ons to stay there and realize their learning
by comple?ng their schooling (Ainscow, 2000; Be]encourt &
Pinto, 2009).
It integrates the dimension of equity in educa?on:
• Ensuring that personal and social circumstances are not
obstacle to poten?al school learning;
• Ensuring the minimum standards of educa?on for all (Field,
Kuczera, Pont, 2007)

6. The rela?onship between the different and
normal related to the school
EXCLUSION SEGREGATION
INTEGRATION INCLUSION

7. Inclusion as a school mission
• The idea of inclusion of children and adolescents in
regular classes is being much more accepted in theory than
in prac?ce (Bunch, Lupart & Brown, 1997)
• Working in the implementation of inclusion requires a
stable framework (policies and educa?onal project) under
discomfort and
(Macmillan & Mayer,
pain of teachers living a great
discouragement in professional terms
2006)
• The idea of inclusion has lel many schools and even its
all the educa?onal systems struggling to understand
implica?ons that result in the daily life of schools
Have they succeeded?

8. Schools: A micro social system – levels of ac?on
Organiza?onal Dimension
Central and
Local
Administra?on
Community:
rela?onships and
service networks
Ins?tu?on
Vision for inclusion
SeBng Direc?ons
Deal with administra?ve
measures, support teachers (…)
Pedagogical Dimension
Teams of teachers
Assessment criteria
Social interac?ons
Learning supports (…)
Classroom Dimension
Teaching and learning
Pedagogical differen?a?on
Assessment prac?ces
Interac?ons (…)
There are
not only
walls but
people in
interactions

9. School Leadership
Kind of power and forms of exercise and behavior
of individuals occupying the leading posi?on
(Santos, 2000)
What we know about leadership?
What does it mean?
TOO MUCH
Approach based in
leaderships frameworks
and individual leaders
skills
TOO LITTLE
Approach based on the
prac?ces of leaders
commi]ed to student
learning and inclusion

10. Leadership
Context
Agency
Vision
Interconnec?on of the following dimensions
Shared leadership opportuni?es
Put and keep
teaching and
student learning
at the center of
concerns
Understand and
accommodate
schools of context
variables (macro
and micro) in work
processes

11. Leadership – vision
• How to deal with the differences
in expecta?ons ?
Ensure access to
all students
• What role for students?
What rules, which rights , du?es,
and responsibili?es?
Ensure effec?ve
par?cipa?on
• What role of teaching teams?
• What supports for learning
difficul?es?
Ensure learning
condi?ons
The school can make a difference in the lives of young people,
facing the social and / or psychological fatalism
To construct this difference is necessary to commit all
members of the community in a work project

12. Leadership: understand and accommodate the
context
At the macro level
• Having a broad view of the context in which the school is part -
schools suffering external pressures - challenge: reconciling the
teachers with the local community (Dempster, 2009);
• Dealing with legisla?ve ini?a?ves - consequences in their school
communi?es - challenge: to balance the interests of students and
families with the needs resul?ng from requirements of
administra?ve structures (Leithwood, 2005)

13. Leadership: understand and accommodate the context
At the micro level
• Deep understanding of the school context - nature of the student
body and their impact on learning (Muldford and Sillins, 2003) -
challenge - the socio cultural contexts can not be seen as an excuse
• Accommoda?ng school organiza?on and prac?ces is essen?al to act
in order to be able to make a difference in the lives and learning of
these students - challenge: how to maintain the balance between the
needs of young people and the impact of some intrusive measures in
the educa?onal reali?es

14. Leadership - the agency
Place the "change of life" in the center of the ac?on
requires a shared vision, set priori?es and work direc?ons
with others, including parents and community
.
• Undertake the challenges that is only possible with an
organized collec?ve ac?on
•This can only exist with a par?cipa?ve leadership
framework
•The influence of the leader in student learning is only
possible indirectly;
• The influence of the leader is strong in working
condi?ons; moderate in students mo?va?on and
commitment; the low in students capacity of learning

15. Leadership -a sharing structure
When the leadership is distributed by
staff, parents and students their
capacity increases to three ?mes when
compared with individual leadership
situa?ons (NCSL, 2006).

16. Distributed leadership in school
• Difficul1es in implemen1ng the shared leadership
– Commitment of teachers
– central placement of teachers who can not mean the
iden?fica?on with the school project .
– The boundaries between individual freedom of the
teacher and authority and power of the director
• What solu1on to the problem?
– The director has the task of conquering and involve
teachers in the educa?onal project that has to school

17. The role of leaders in promo?ng inclusion
Building a leadership framework
The development of a project in order to build a school for all
requires new skills, resources and support to this process.
The leadership structure is essen?al to give this support
The studies of the prac?ce of leaders who work in inclusive
projects highlight the need for work in the following aspects:
- seBng the direc?on;
- professional development ;
- redesigning the organiza?on;
- monitoring prac?ces of teaching and learning

18. SeBng Direc?on
• Approaching inclusion as objec?ve in a comprehensive way
(not only to a specific group but for all)
• Develop a consensus on broad idea what this means and the
implica?ons it will have in organiza?on of school and prac?ce of
teachers
•-
Iden?fy possible ways to achieve them
• Iden?fy goals that are defined for this path
• Have high expecta?ons about the results of ac?ons to be
undertaken
• Build a produc?ve rela?onship with families and community
Building a clear educa?onal project shared by all
teachers and community around the inclusion

19. Professional development for change
accountability
collec?ve of
student learning
Collabora?on
around teaching
and learning
Proficiency
level of
students
Empowerment
A shared lidership
Agency
Nego?ated
accountability
Collabora?ve
work
Assessment of learning
Adapt. de Gather Thurller, M. (2001)
Assumed target
Consistency and
authority of
pedagogical
structure
Monitoring of
pedagogical work of
teachers

20. Professional development for change
The prac?ces at school
• Nego1ated accountability, by assigning coordina?ng
educa?on posi?ons to teachers with be]er training and skills.
• Collabora1ve work, which is realized in the prepara?on of the
annual plan of ac?vi?es and planning ac?vi?es (eg . class X).
• Assessment of learning, We tend to find criteria and forms /
products to be assessed Homogeneous.
• Monitoring of pedagogical work of teachers, through
pedagogical supervision processes among peers in the classroom
and performance evalua?on (more formal and external).

21. Redesigning organiza?on
Using the fundamentals of inclusion to support the
necessary changes
•Different pedagogical responses to different students
•Alterna?ve organiza?onal models
-Encourage the development of a collabora?ve culture
-Strengthen the work of planning and coordina?on among
teachers
-Strengthen the role of teaching teams
•Keep the focus on the quality of learning and training
for ci?zenship
Tensions
SeBngs Organized and safe
Fragmented

22. Professional development for change:
prac?ces in the school for inclusion
• Class Direc?on, more direct monitoring of a teacher to the
class.
• Tutoring, individualized follow-up students.
• Alterna?ve Curricular Paths (PCA).
• Educa?on and Training Course [CEF].

23. Monitoring of teaching / learning processes
High
Expecta?on
Assessment for
learning
Systems to
support learning
difficul?es
Systems of rules
based in values
Posi?ve social
interac?ons
S?mula?ng and
safe
environment to
learn
Take into
account and
support the
difficul?es of
teachers
Have data to make
decisions

24. Final Remarks
• The directors are key elements in the process of making
schools places where you do not give up
• Olen they have to make difficult decisions at various levels
(with management, with families, with teachers and
students)
• There is no magic formula or a unique way to pursue the
objec?ve of inclusion
• But the leaders do not even have to be the ones to work in
this perspec?ve. This should be a collec?ve work
(Hargeaves & Fink, 2006)

25. School Leadership and Inclusion
Acknowledgments
Jorge Pinto
Cris1na Gomes da Silva
Ana Costa