Alliance for Inclusive Education

The Alliance for Inclusive Education (Allfie) is a national campaigning and information sharing network run and controlled by Disabled people. ALLFIE was set up in London in 1990. It promotes the rights of all disabled learners to be included and fully supported in mainstream education at all levels including Early Years, Primary & Secondary School as well as Further and Higher education. ALLFIE’s Director is Tara Flood.

Activities

ALLFIE primarily lobbies for changes in legislation and policy that will increase access to mainstream education for disabled learners of all ages and abilities. ALLFIE produces a termly magazine 'Inclusion Now' which features the views of teachers, students and parents on their experiences of the education system.^[1]

ALLFIE's website hosts a number of resources on inclusive education. There are Guides for Parents, Professionals ^[2] and for young disabled people.^[3] Each focuses on the benefits of Inclusive Education, how to get it and how to campaign for it. The Guide for Parents provided advice on how to get a mainstream education their children.^[4]

ALLFIE’s website also has a Participation Toolkit to encourage service providers to support disabled children and young people participation in decision making. This Toolkit was produced using the learning from ALLFIE’s VIPER project where we support disabled children and young people to conduct research about participation – what works and what doesn’t work.^{[5] [6]}

In 2013 ALLFIE produced an education pack for schools and colleges based on a 2-year oral history project that interviewed more than 50 disabled people about their experiences of school. The How Was School? Project sought to map the timeline of change from disabled learners having no access to education right through to the current where many disabled learners are well supported in mainstream education. ^[7]

Campaigning

ALLFIE campaigning work is the core of their work. Some examples include; the Academies Act 2010 - Allfie campaigned to make sure Academies complied with SEN and Equality legislation. ALLFIE was at the heart of the campaigning for the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – the UNCRPD was ratified by the UK Govt in 2009 so the work now focuses on implementation. ^[8] More recently ALLFIE’s work has focused on the Children and Families Act 2014. ALLFIE sought amendments to strengthen the new law which has been very difficult – whilst ALLFIE is still concerned about the Act it was an important achievement that the “presumption for mainstream” principle remains in the Act .^[9]

ALLFIE’s latest campaigns include the “We Know Inclusion Works” campaign which gathering evidence from young people, their families and education professionals about inclusive education working in practice.^[10] The “Educate Don’t Segregate” campaign was set up to counter the many attacks on inclusive education – the latest of which is the Govt plan to cut Disabled Students Allowance which if implemented will deny many disabled students access to university.^[11] Allfie was particularly worried that it would make it easier for children with special education needs to be placed out of mainstream. ^[12]

Principles

ALLFIE believes that the whole education experience should be inclusive of disabled learners, both inside and outside the classroom. Disabled and non-disabled learners learning together creates opportunities for the building of relationships and the creation of an inclusive society that welcomes everyone.

All learner’s different learning styles and achievements are equally valued, respected and celebrated by society; Allfie believes that an inclusive education is a human rights issue. ALLFIE believes that Inclusive Education benefits disabled and non-disabled students. To assist ALLFIE in its work it developed a set of Principles for an Inclusive Education system:

• All learner’s different learning styles and achievements are equally valued, respected and celebrated by society;

• All learners to be enabled to fulfil their potential by taking into account individual requirements and needs;

• Support to be guaranteed and fully resourced across the whole learning experience;

• All learners need friendship and support from people of their own age.

• All children and young people to be educated together as equals in their local communities

• Inclusive Education is incompatible with segregated provision both within and outside mainstream education ^[13]

Manifesto and Beliefs

In 2010 ALLFIE published a Manifesto for Inclusive Education which sets out 6 areas of change that are required if an inclusive education is to become a reality for ALL learners:

1. All disabled learners have the right legal and human right to attend mainstream courses in mainstream education settings.

2. All disabled learners have the right to individualised support.

3. All education buildings be accessible to disabled learners.

4. All Mainstream curricula be accessible to and inclusive of disabled learners.

5. All education assessments and accreditations are inclusive, i.e., users of communication aids be permitted to use them.

6. Disability equality training be made compulsory for all professionals and staff. ^[14]

See also

• Parents for Inclusion
• Campaign for State Education
• Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education

References

External links

• Official website