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Dear The meeting of the Yorkshire and the North West region of the Alliance was lively and inspiring. I particularly noticed that parents of older children and young people told stories of difficult struggles for inclusion, struggles that I have not come across with my 9 year old daughter. Even allowing for regional variations this gives a strong indication that what we are doing is working, that we should not underestimate our power. For the first time in my experience, we talked about the impact of class issues on the inclusion movement. The strong belief in paper qualifications as a measure of worth is a real middle class thing. Growing up in a family where both parents left school at 14, Dad to work as a porter at a train station, and Mum 'in service' meant that academically at least, my brother's learning difficulties were not a problem to the family. To my family's puzzlement, I enjoyed school and went on to university, and they were duly proud, but perhaps not as proud as the fact that their son could read the TV Times. Now with two children of my own I am quite clear that their worth is not measured in GCSE's. I have one confident and academically able son who is simply not interested in working for exams, and many puzzled friends and acquaintances who can't understand why I am not worried, disappointed, angry etc. that he is ditching A levels for a plumbing apprenticeship. My daughter is grappling with reading, writing and maths in her own good time. GCSE passes are extremely unlikely, but so what! I don't believe in inclusion so that she can get qualifications and all that brings, but so she can have friends, a community and a sense of belonging. Of course all children should have the opportunity to do as well as they choose at school, and that is clearly the right route for many disabled children. The Yorkshire and North West Alliance
But I wonder, does the inclusion movement's apparent focus on the academic outputs of mainstream schooling exclude many working class families? Do we need to re-brand inclusion to clearly mean inclusion in family, community and school life - as a route to a safer, happier adult life? If we are going to make our movement more inclusive, this uncomfortable debate is one we need to have - please join it. Liz Wilson
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