Integration, integrity and effectiveness

Abstract

Until the mid‐1990s, debates about integration tended to focus on the rights of disabled children to attend mainstream schools. However, more recent research has raised new concerns about the politics of integration from the ‘standards’ perspective. This Internet‐based research project was designed to follow the 20 secondary schools in England, where more than 10% of the pupils had statements of special educational needs (SEN). Several of these schools are now being threatened with closure. This is either because they are failing to meet the Government's benchmark targets of 5+GCSEs at grades A–C, or because they are failing to attract sufficient numbers of mainstream pupils. However, these schools may well be seen as popular and successful by the parents of pupils with statements of special educational needs. Little appears to be known about how schools juggle these competing priorities successfully, and the author calls on readers of this journal to promote our understanding and their survival through a national conference.