The findings in detail

Features of partner schools which appear to have helped promote transition to 

Although partner schools policies make commitments to inclusion, staff were often unclear as to the contents of their own schools policies. This, however, conforms to the national picture on policy awareness by staff (see OFSTED, 1996b Tarr and Thomas, 1997). What is more significant than specific knowledge of the written policy is the understanding by staff of the commitment which is made by the school management to a policy of inclusion and to the implicit understanding that this commitment is embodied in the policy. 

Staff- more often those in secondary schools - gave as their notion of the school s policy a hybrid of their own views and the perceived consensus of the staff A secondary school teacher, for instance, said, T think that is the school s policy... that the children are included if they would have been included if they were able-bodied.  

Official SEN policies, which schools are obliged to write under the 1993 Education Act, are not the only articulation of policy. The school s policy is expressed in a variety of ways and through a range of documents. In one partner school, the inclusive ethos was expressed in the production of a document on the role of the support assistant produced collectively by 

Inclusion Project and mainstreani staff. The notion of collective responsibility for the mechanisms behind inclusion is clearly an important one. 

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FROM SPECIAL SCHOOLS TO INCLUSION SERVICES THE FINDINGS IN DETAIL... 

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