The new Inclusion Strategy has recently been re-published for 2022 – 2025. Part of our previous action for Inclusion Strategy has been to produce a toolkit that provides advice and guidance to schools and colleges to improve their inclusive practices and reduce exclusions. This has been created by One Education and shared with settings in the last academic school year.

Our next plan is to produce a parent/carer information guide about the Inclusion Toolkit. This is to help parents and carers to know what the Inclusion Toolkit is, what it includes, and how we can use it to work with schools to support the inclusion of our children and young people with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities (SEND).

We are pleased to invite you to a session to discuss the parent/carer information guide on Thursday, 23rd of March 2023, between 10 and 11:30am. This will be held at St. Thomas Centre in Ardwick. Food and refreshments will be provided so please let us know of any dietary requirements when booking.

At this session we are hoping to:

• Share a draft parent/carer information guide with you;
• Gather your ideas and views of how to ensure this guide makes sense and supports parents/carers with the Inclusion Toolkit;
• Explore how to share the guide and provide access to the resources in the toolkit that will best suit parents/carers across all of Manchester.

We will share the draft information guide with parents and carers who book places prior to the session.

If you would also like to see the full version of the Inclusion Toolkit, this is available to download from the One Education website. You will need to provide your name and email address but we have received assurances from One Education that your information is not shared with any other provider. Please note that the document is over 300 pages and we do not expect you to read them all, so this is not a requirement for the session.

We will bring printed versions of the toolkit and provide time to discuss and explore the toolkit during the session.

About the Inclusion Toolkit

Written by the One Education Educational Psychology team, the toolkit aims to highlight the key qualities of good inclusive educational practice. It provides readers with “quick links” to useful information, resources, and support, ensuring all practitioners are prepared to effectively meet the needs of the children and young people they work with. The toolkit also sets out guiding principles to inform practices and policies across Manchester, laying the foundations for a city-wide approach to inclusion.

The toolkit also aims to establish a common language between schools and other services, promoting a shared understanding of what makes good inclusive practice and inspiring collaboration to create positive outcomes for all children.

About the Facilitator

Dr. Amy Burns is a Senior Practitioner Educational Psychologist at One Education.

She was involved in producing the Manchester Inclusion Strategy Toolkit and is keen on co-producing the parent/carer information guide with us.