Last Month, Catherine Hutley presented to governors on the Inclusion Strategy at the virtual ECC Director's Termly conference for Governors, a recording of which is available on YouTube. Catherine is the Assistant Director of Education for the Mid Essex quadrant. Here are 5 things to remember from her presentation:

1. ECC is has recently trialled Inclusion Reviews in secondary schools to embed a culture of inclusion in every setting, focussing on three pillars that link with the strategy: Relationships and Wellbeing, Attending and Participating, Achieving and Moving-on. 

2. Headteachers are feeling the pressure to increase the capacity of SEND, Pastoral Support, Attendance and safeguarding teams. The Inclusion Reviews enable schools to take a fresh approach to capacity issues so that individual children or cohorts displaying challenging behaviour can receive appropriate support in the classroom, not just by specialist staff. 

3. The pre-review self-evaluation provides school leaders with 12 key questions to ask themselves, which can then form a baseline to cross-reference with feedback from staff groups, climate walks, pupils and parents.

4. School leaders have found feedback and recommendations from the Inclusion Reviews productive, positive and useful. 

5. The Deep Dive for governors on Thursday 16th March (Zoom) will go into more detail of inclusion in schools for governors, focusing particularly on supporting inclusive practice through the Ordinarily Available offer; this free virtual session is entitled "Inclusive Practice for all Pupils".